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Don’t Some Libertarians Favor Immigration Controls?

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I recently received a good question about libertarianism and open borders: Aren’t there some libertarians who favor immigration controls? If so, doesn’t that preclude anyone from saying that libertarians favor open borders? The answer to the first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is no. The fact that some libertarians favor immigration controls is irrelevant in determining whether this particular government program is libertarian in nature. After all, there are also some libertarians who favor standing armies, foreign interventionism, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Social Security reform plans, school vouchers, and trade restrictions. Does that mean that we are precluded from saying that those statist programs are un-libertarian too? The real issue, insofar as libertarians and libertarianism are concerned, is this: Which one — immigration controls or open borders — is consistent with the libertarian non-aggression principle, which is the guiding principle of the libertarian philosophy? Since immigration controls and open borders are obviously opposite ideas, they ...

On the Methodology of Winning Liberty

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  For the last 25 years of The Future of Freedom Foundation’s existence and even before, the libertarian movement has basically been divided into two wings — those who advocate pure libertarian principles — the “purists” — and those who advocate “reformist” or “gradualist” measures. Throughout that time, it has been assumed that these are simply two alternative ways to advance liberty. “Let a thousand flowers bloom,” the attitude has been, and let people choose which route best appeals to them for advancing liberty — the purist route or the reform/gradualist route. I’m challenging that notion. My position is that the reformist route not only does not advance liberty, it does something much worse: It actually interferes with and impedes the achievement of the free society. I begin with what I consider to be a viable strategy for achieving freedom in the near term. This strategy does not turn on convincing the majority of the American people or even the majority of politicians ...

America’s Culture of Immigration Death

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Last week, I delivered a talk entitled “Open Minds on Open Borders” at PorcFest, the annual libertarian festival held in Lancaster, New Hampshire, by the New Hampshire Free State Project.  In my talk, I pointed out that America’s system of immigration controls necessarily comes with an immigration police state. Since I grew up in South Texas and practiced law there for eight years, I lived under that immigration police state for much of my life.  That’s an important point for libertarians to note, especially because there have long been conservative-oriented libertarians who spend a lot of time and effort trying to persuade libertarians to abandon their position in favor of open borders and join the statist position of government-controlled borders. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, an immigration police state is not something that is consistent with libertarian philosophy, which is grounded in liberty and limited government.