Policy

Ed Krayewski on a Libertarian Solution to Immigration Reform

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america!
State Department

Immigration reform has been the Sisyphean policy goal of the last few years. And the current immigration reform bill—more than 800 pages long and stacked with deal sweeteners like massive new border security spending—isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Perhaps something smaller and more libertarian would have a better chance of passing Congress, Ed Krayewski argues.

It wouldn't have the kind of carve-outs and goodies that attract some lawmakers. But a bill that reflected a respect for civil and economic rights and limited government could garner substantial support. Krayweski imagines what such a bill would include—and what it wouldn't. A libertarian solution to immigration reform would not offer a complete "pathway to citizenship," but rather a path to legalization, he says. It would focus on a specific solution to the specific problem illegal immigrants have: an inability to participate normally in the economy and in society because of a lack of government documents.