The New Border Czar Reminds Us How Immigration Controls Destroy Our Freedom
Reminder: I’ll be speaking at the JFK Lancer conference and also at the CAPA conference. The Lancer conference is being held on November 22-24 in Dallas. The CAPA conference is now being held online. There is also another excellent JFK conference on the same weekend sponsored by the JFK Historical Group. All three of them are fantastic JFK-assassination-related conferences. I highly recommend registering for all three and then picking and choosing which sessions you would like to attend at all three conferences. The registration prices are moderate and it’s a great way to support three great conferences. I will have some of my JFK books at my presentations at the Lancer conference to autograph and sell at a discounted price. I hope to see you all there!
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President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Thomas Homan as his “Border Czar” reminds us how the enforcement of America’s socialist system of immigration controls has been a major factor in the destruction of the liberty of the American people for at least the past 80 years.
For one thing, even the use of the term “czar” conjures up images of pre-communist Russian rulers who wielded omnipotent, dictatorial powers over the lives of the Russian people.
But Homan’s title is more than just symbolic. While it’s tempting to think that his czar-like dictatorial powers are directed only against foreigners, such is simply not the case. As Chandran Kukathas points out in his excellent book Immigration and Freedom, a necessary aspect of the enforcement of America’s socialist system of immigration controls is the destruction of American liberty. Kukathas writes:
To put it simply, immigration controls are controls on people, and it is not possible to control some people without controlling others. More to the point, it is not possible to control outsiders (aliens, foreigners, would-be immigrants) without controlling insiders as well. Immigration controls are not merely border controls but controls on the freedom of the people living within those borders. The purpose of this work is to show why this must be so, and to explain why it is significant. The conclusion it defends is that if we value freedom — as we should — we ought to be wary of immigration control.
This is a point that, not surprisingly, is ignored by libertarian advocates of immigration controls. In expressing their support for this statist program, they simply stop there. They do not go further and address the destruction of liberty that comes with the enforcement of the statist system that they are supporting. The reason is obvious: Acknowledging their s
Article from The Future of Freedom Foundation
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