"David Boaz on Immigration" - My Contribution to the Liberty Fund Symposium on "The Legacy of David Boaz"

My contribution considers his views on immigration and its role as a vital front in the broader struggle for liberty.

David Boaz. (Cato Institute)

 

My contribution to the Liberty Fund symposium on "The Legacy of David Boaz" is now available on the symposium website. See here. Here is an excerpt:

David Boaz did not write much on immigration. But what he did say on the subject indicates his understanding that breaking down harsh migration restrictions should be a high-priority issue for all who value liberty.

In David's final public speech, "The Rise of Illiberalism in the Shadow of Liberal Triumph," he emphasized the enduring value of "equal rights for people regardless of color, gender, religion, sexuality or language. Equal rights based on our common humanity." He warned that the liberal ideal of "inalienable rights" to a "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all people is "incompatible with political ideas based on 'blood and soil' or treating people differently because of race or religion." In our time, there is no greater example of that incompatibility than immigration restrictions, which severely undermine liberty based simply on the fact that would-be migrants were born in the wrong place, to the wrong parents, or are members of the wrong "race or religion." Severe immigration restrictions, of course, are central to the ideology of "blood and soil" nationalists in the US and Europe, the greatest enemies of liberty in the Western world today.

In a 2006 article, David praised the immigration policy of pre-Chinese Exclusion Act America, in which "there were no restrictions on immigration and thus no "illegal immigrants". There were rules governing naturalisation and citizenship, but anyone who could get here could live and work here." That is an ideal we should aspire to return to.

In David's contribution to National Review's 2016 "Against Trump" symposium, he wrote that "From a libertarian point of view…. Trump's greatest offenses against American tradition and our founding principles are his nativism and his promise of one-man rule." He was right then, and remains right today. Nativism – the main source of support for migration restrictions – is indeed an offense against America's founding principles, and those of liberalism, more generally.

Later in the essay, I describe how immigration restrictions are inimical to the principles of the American Founding and critique libertarian rationales for exempting migration restrictions from our general presumption in favor of liberty and against government intervention.

Comments

[JonFrum]

Reason was set up and funded as an open borders advocacy venue. It has absolutely nothing to do with libertarianism. Libertarianism can only function within a state, and when a state loses its borders, it is no longer a state.

[Malika the Maiz]

“Libertarianism can only function within a state”

Isn’t that like saying celibacy can only function in a free love commune?

[M L]

No, just a more reality-based libertarian view, in my opinion, as opposed to the more anarchist variety. (Then there is also the globalist variety, but that's not much of a real thing IMO, it's more of a fake astroturf thing by those who fund places like Reason and some academics who are probably bought and paid for).

[Sarcastr0]

GLOBALISTS!

[Roger S]

When a nation loses its borders, it can no longer be free either. There should be a name for people like Somin who call themselves Libertarian, but oppose freedom at every opportunity.

[Malika the Maiz]

“When a nation loses its borders, it can no longer be free either.”

How’s that?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

"Nations" aren't free; people are, individuals are.

What is your definition of a "nation" anyway? Something about a government running it, I bet, conflating government and society.

[David Nieporent]

Reason was set up and funded as an open borders advocacy venue.

It was not.

. It has absolutely nothing to do with libertarianism.

If "open borders" is simply a dysphemism for very few restrictions on migration, then it has everything to do with libertarianism.

Libertarianism can only function within a state, and when a state loses its borders, it is no longer a state.

"Open borders" and no borders aren't the same thing. Historially, the point of borders was to delineate the geographic region from which governments could extract resources (primarily via taxes); keeping individuals out wasn't the goal. And indeed the U.S. had essentially no restrictions on migration for more than a century of its existence.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

You're more than a little confused about what libertarianism and individualism are.

[John Rohan]

David praised the immigration policy of pre-Chinese Exclusion Act America, in which "there were no restrictions on immigration and thus no "illegal immigrants". There were rules governing naturalisation and citizenship, but anyone who could get here could live and work here." That is an ideal we should aspire to return to.

Would the Native Americans at that time agree?

[Malika the Maiz]

Is it your contention that all immigration leads to near extinction of either the native or immigrating group? Colonial studies major?

[John Rohan]

My only contention is that unchecked mass immigration is not always a force of good.

[Malika the Maiz]

That limited statement seems right.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

You don't make much distinction about what causes the mass immigration.

Open borders: come if you will, but you will be on your own, and you will be sent to jail or back home if you turn into a criminal.

Open boarders: Here's some welfare if you come, free lodging, food, and cash to spare. We'll ignore both past and future crimes. And you refugees, have we got a deal for you, even if you don't know anything about us or hate us, we'll fly you over for free.

[VinniUSMC]

A lot of things were different before the Chinese Exclusion Act.

[Malika the Maiz]

Yes, Alaska wasn’t a state and Elvis Presley had not been born.

[M L]

I mean, it was a frontier. Kind of like Mars is now. There are no immigration restrictions on Mars, yet.

[Roger S]

So Boaz complained about Trump's one-man rule because Trump wanted to carry out the will of the people and close the border.

[M L]

Boaz wanted to bring in all the Moabite refugees.

[Bob from Ohio]

In 1882, we had not fully settled the "frontier" and eastern industry needed vast number of workers. Transportation was difficult, an immigrant had to make a huge commitment and run some risks.

100 million people would enter if they could.

[Malika the Maiz]

Mexican immigrants back then didn’t, Chinese ones did.

[Bob from Ohio]

Mexican immigrants often had to cross inhospitable terrain too. Most didn't own horses so its walking or a mule maybe.

Most Mexicans in 1882 who lived in the US were people [or descendants] living there when the US annexed the areas.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

No they wouldn't. They didn't when welfare was not available and when prosecutors prosecuted criminals and the bad ones got deported. The flood only started with the woke crowd, Brown Lives Matter, free lodging, food, and cash, and resettling foreigners who knew nothing of the country and hated what they found when they were brought here under false pretenses, as near to kidnapping as makes no difference.

[bye]

I just heard again another argument against Mr Boaz's view of "pursuit of happiness"
Janice Rogers Brown (former circuit judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit) examined the founders’ understanding of the people’s right to pursue happiness. According to Judge Brown, the founders believed the government’s goal is to create virtuous habits in its citizenry, because they saw virtue as the key to individual happiness and self-governance.