Virtually all commentary about the influx of unaccompanied Central American children into the United States, which some say could rise to 90,000 this year, misses the point: no government has the moral authority to capture these kids and send them back to the miserable situations they have escaped.
This claim will strike many people as outrageous. So I ask, Where does government get the moral authority — I’m not talking about legal power — to apprehend and detain human beings of any age who have committed aggression against no one? There is no such authority.
These children are human beings. Whether they are coming here to be with family or to escape danger, they have the same natural rights as Americans have. Our rights can be expressed in many ways, but they boil down to just one: the right to be free of aggression.
We have this right not by virtue of being American, but by virtue of being human. It is a natural, not national, right, so these young Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans have it too. Locking them up and deporting them should offend Americans, who claim to believe in the natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (Did the Fourth of July have any meaning, or was it just a day off from work?)
For some strange reason, immigration makes people forget about freedom — their sense of freedom gets overwhelmed by their deference to the state and national sovereignty. That’s why most people think “securing the borders,” as Barack Obama is doing, is more important than the welfare of poor people born on the other side of those borders (especially the southern border). I say “strange” because volumes of evidence show that the influx of people from other lands and cultures is also good for the people already here. We need not fear newcomers. It takes initiative and courage to pick yourself up, leave the only home and culture you’ve known, and journey to a new land. Those qualities also lead people to become entrepreneurs and engage in innovation. But even immigrants who don’t start successful businesses still render valuable services as they strive to make better lives.
If this is not obvious to most Americans, it may be because the illegal status forces people without government papers to work in the shadows. That status also leaves them vulnerable to horrible exploitation by people who can threaten to call the immigration authorities if their commands are not obeyed. That appalling condition is reason enough to legalize the so-called illegals.
Speaking of exploitation, the perilous conditions that unaccompanied children face at home and on their northward journeys are direct results of evil government policies. If the borders were open — that is, if the natural right to be free of aggression were respected — children would not need to be entrusted to shady men who can extort large sums of money on the promise to transport the children to the United States. Without government agents hunting them, children and parents could move north together in freedom and safety. They would be welcomed by generous humanitarian organizations, as immigrants were in the past.
Also, if the U.S. government did not prosecute a violent war on drug makers and users, and did not push the war on Latin American governments, those children would be safer to start with. Many children leave today because of drug-related violence, or for fear of being impressed into drug gangs.
But, many people ask, how can we handle all these kids? Who will pay? Under the welfare state, unfortunately the taxpayers will pay. This is what leads many people to oppose open borders. No freedom of movement, they say, until the welfare state goes. The problem is that the welfare state will never go if it is saved from all stresses and strains. While immigrants don’t use the welfare system as much as people think, free immigration might help bring the end of government transfers. Private aid would take their place.
Even today, Americans are humanitarian enough to finance care for these children if people did not assume the government would do it. In other words, the welfare state is morally corrupting.
Actually, Barack Obama is more interested in fund-raising in Dallas, 200+ miles north, than securing the border with Mexico. I'm being sarcastic: you're correct, Obama is trying to get an additional $2 billion, no, now it is closer to $4 billion, to take action of some sort regarding the influx of children from Mexico and further south from Latin America.
It is rather cavalier of you to say that the children should be allowed entry, and taxpayers must pay for the costs. Haven't you noticed that there is a major erosion of the tax base, accompanied by the major erosion of the middle-class? Yet you claim that free immigration will end government transfers, and that private aid would take its place.
Private aid is badly needed, right now, for the current population of citizen, legal and illegal resident children in the U.S.! If the donors of private aid won't act now (well, won't give in sufficient amount, to be fair, as there ARE good people who do help), I am unconvinced they will change their behavior when the situation becomes even more dire due to increased numbers, resulting from open borders. Your response would be that government-dispensed aid is "crowding out" private charity, I presume?
My recent post Just a Little Bit More Bitcoin Trouble
@ Richman
"Private aid would take their place."
This reminds me of what Nathan Goodman wrote elsewhere:
"Migrants travel across dangerous deserts, and often die of heat exhaustion and dehydration. Activists with No More Deaths regularly leave water on travel routes to try to save immigrants’ lives. Border Patrol agents have slashed open, kicked over, and dumped out these water bottles, effectively condemning immigrants to suffering and death."
So private aid for immigrants are systematically sabotaged by the welfare state's agents.
Bootlegger:
"That status also leaves them vulnerable to horrible exploitation by people who can threaten to call the immigration authorities if their commands are not obeyed. "
"If the borders were open — that is, if the natural right to be free of aggression were respected — children would not need to be entrusted to shady men who can extort large sums of money on the promise to transport the children to the United States."
Baptist = anti-immigrant Nativists who rant & rave for: "No freedom of movement… until the welfare state goes."
@ Ellie:
Unfortunately, illegal immigrants pay taxes (e.g. property taxes, regressive sale taxes – the lower the income the higher the tax-rate, taxes withheld from their wages by bootlegging employers) and are not eligible to reap the welfare. Moreover, immigrants (legal or no) consistently contribute more to the labor force (12.4%) than US-born (11.5%) AND pay more taxes than using welfare state's services (Urban Institute).
Yes, illegal immigrants pay taxes. They don't necessarily pay through what you call bootlegger employers. Some file returns directly with the IRS. That includes illegal immigrants who pay property taxes. They are not eligible for welfare benefits, correct. Do you think that situation is fair to them? Shouldn't the illegal immigrants who are here, now, get on the path to citizenship first?
"Moreover, immigrants (legal or no) consistently contribute more to the labor force (12.4%) than US-born (11.5%) AND pay more taxes than using welfare state's services (Urban Institute)."
What does that number mean, legal and illegal immigrants contribute 12.4% to the labor force? 12.4% of what? You go on to say that US-born people contribute less, only 11.5% to the labor force. Where is the rest of the labor force?
Illegal + legal immigrants + US born = 12.4 + 11.5 = 23.9%
Who are the remaining 100 – 23.9 = 76.1% of the labor force in the USA?
"Do you think that situation is fair to them?" Definitely unfair to them if they are forced at gunpoint to subsidize native-born US citizens at a higher rate (US citizens are also subject to theft-taxation but the US-born citizens get deductions euphemistically called "benefits.")
"What does that number mean, legal and illegal immigrants contribute 12.4% to the labor force? 12.4% of what? You go on to say that US-born people contribute less, only 11.5% to the labor force. Where is the rest of the labor force?"
"Moreover, immigrants (legal or no) consistently contribute more to the labor force (12.4%) than US-born (11.5%)"
My bad English, I should have written: Immigrants consist only 11.5% of the US population, but among ALL workers in the US workforce 12.4% are immigrants. Population ratio: immigrants 11.5% – USborn 89.5%, but Labor force ratio: immigrants 12.4%-USborn 87.6%. Therefore, on average immigrants work 1.07826 time (12.4% immigrant workers / 11.5% immigrants in total US population) harder than US born citizens (including me and you, Ellie K).
Okay. I'm sorry for picking at your English so irately!
My recent post The EPA is not the Federal Reserve of oil markets