The Feds Destroyed Laredo’s (and America’s) Heritage of Open Borders
Every day, millions of Americans cross state borders without encountering border-control stations, where they would otherwise have to show some sort of identification and have their vehicles inspected for contraband or dangerous people. There is total, unrestricted, free movements of goods, services, and people across state borders.
Most everyone likes this open-border system. Sure, it means that murderers, rapists, thieves, drug dealers, communists, terrorists, and illegal immigrants are free to cross state borders and enter different states, where they are able to inflict mayhem. Nonetheless, most Americans are willing to take their chances rather than ostensibly be kept “safe” by an extensive state border-control system, state border patrols, border walls, and an ever-growing series of border police-state measures that destroy liberty and privacy.
Notice something important about our domestic system of open borders: There is no border chaos or border crises between the states. There are no deaths and injuries of people trying to illegally cross a state border. There are no tariffs between the states. Why, no one even loses a bit of sleep over the trade deficits that exist between the states.
The problem is that these same advocates of open borders domestically simply cannot envision that the same principles of liberty and harmony that undergird our domestic open-border system apply to international borders as well. They are unable to see that adopting an open-border system on our southern border would produce the same harmony that we see within the United States — people simply crossing back and forth, just as they do with state borders.
A few days ago, the Washington Post published a long article entitled “Glitz and History at the Border: Laredo Throws George Washington a Party.” The article was about my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I was born and raised and where I lived for more than 30 years of my life. The article revolved around
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