976 words, 4.5 minutes approximate reading time. 

I believe the problems we are experiencing with immigration are assimilation and the inconsistency of government laws and enforcement.

Many people believe that illegal aliens are stealing our jobs, mooching from the taxpayers, and increasing crime.

JOBS

Jobs are essential for human existence. Jobs are the backbone of the division labor. Everybody needs jobs and needs to have jobs done.

We think of jobs as if the job belongs to us: My job. Nevertheless, jobs belong to those who give them, not to those who have them. If a job does not belong to the person who has it, how can it be stolen from the person who has it?

If you are required to take a job, you are a slave. To require the owner of a job to give it against their will or to anyone other than his or her mutual choice is to make the owner of the job a slave.

The United States is one of the largest countries in the world. We, citizens, do not need permission to travel, to buy, to sell, or to seek employment (jobs) anywhere within the United States.

I believe that these freedoms are a major reason we have more peace, prosperity, and progress than has ever been seen in human history.

I suggest that it does not make a difference if you compete for a job with a person from Maine or California, Florida or Washington, Alaska or Mexico, Hawaii or Canada. If your next-door neighbor or someone from Timbuktu gets the job and you do not get the job -- what is the difference?

Competition for jobs is not the problem. The problem is the lack of jobs. The answer is not less people rather more jobs.

Prosperity is a major cause of jobs. Liberty is a major cause of prosperity.

The problem is that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington DC have place obstacles in our path -- that is to say, they have reduced our liberty and in so doing they have reduced our prosperity and the quality and quantity of our ability to give and receive jobs.

The answer to have more jobs is that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington DC be required to follow the Constitution and be required to defend not violate our rights to life, liberty, and property.

MOOCHING

The Federal, State, and Local Governments have welfare and other programs. That is to say, they (politicians and bureaucrats) take money from some people and give the money to other people.

They take money from people they believe need the money less and give the money to people they believe need the money more, and of course, they keep a large percentage of the money they take to administer the programs.

These programs give the politicians and bureaucrats the power to grant privileges to their friends. Their friends return the favor with loyalty (the politicians receive their votes and other help).

New people are not the problem. The problem is the government programs that take from some and give to others. Stop the programs, and you end the problem. 

CRIME

Be it Federal, State, or Local Governments the proper job of the government, to the best of their ability, is to protect our rights to life, liberty, and property.

When governments go beyond their proper role, to the degree they do, they reduce our safety because they limit their ability to act in our interest.

If the government did follow its proper role, it should be able to take on the added task of visitors, and visitors have the responsibility to act so that they do not violate the rights of others.

TOLERANCE

When people from other countries are here and speak in foreign languages when they can speak English, wave non-American flags, parade, and celebrate holidays of other governments it is rude, but it neither “picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” The reason most others come here or want to is because we have prosperity. Prosperity comes from, in part, tolerance. Flip them the bird in your mind if you must, but let us not surrender our liberty because of rude behavior. 

What to Do

I believe the problems we are experiencing with immigration are assimilation and the inconsistency of government law and enforcement.

The United States immigration policy should:

1.     Eliminate quotas.

2.     Where there is danger of disease, require inspections for contagious disease for immigrants and visitors

3.     Require the immigrant or visitor to understand and agree that he or she must obey libertarian United States law, that he or she does not qualify for voting rights, and that they do not qualify to receive United States welfare.

Green card identification cost money to produce: The immigrant should pay a fee that covers the cost (but not more) of their green card that gives them the privilege to live and work within the United States, and he or she should deposit a private bond to cover the cost of their possible deportation.

Failure to comply with libertarian United States law of a major crime should upon conviction and completion of their jail time, results in deportation at the immigrants’ expense. Conviction and deportation should disqualify a person from legal immigration (green card) for a reasonable period of time (which should be defined).

If the immigrant wishes, after a reasonable residency (which should be defined) and good behavior, he or she should be allowed to become a citizen of the United States, if they have the basic ability to speak, read, and write English, have a basic understanding of the operations of the United States Government and the State Government of their residency, and if they renounce their citizenship and alliance or allegiance with any other nation.

If we rationally loosen immigration policy, we would diminish the harm of the current system.

Jim Burns, December 2008