Lessons From The Immigration “Invasion”

Immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border is reaching all-time records, with over two million apprehensions so far this year.  The hordes include both families and single adults.  A “growing number” of them (probably the majority) are requesting asylum, claiming they are refugees trying to escape torture, murder, rape, persecution, and other abuse in their home countries.  Republican politicians are calling it an “invasion”, and are relocating them to northern states in a desperate publicity attempt.

Those who do request asylum must submit to a years-long, arduous and stressful process while their case is adjudicated.  Many are eventually denied.  As for those who do not officially request asylum, or are denied, their backstories are sad and hopeless.  Poverty is no fun. 

Wouldn’t You Seek A Better Life?

The common thread among all these immigrants – both legal & illegal, verifiable & unverifiable refugees, families & singles – is that they are seeking a better life (yes, a miniscule portion of them are criminals with the intent to commit more crimes, but their numbers are vastly overwhelmed by the number of American-born natives who commit crimes). 

Bring Me Your Tired, Your Poor

From the immigrants’ point of view, America is a shining beacon of hope and opportunity.  And so they come, bringing only what they can carry, leaving behind their homes and families and other possessions, risking life and limb to make the long, perilous, exhausting, treacherous journey to the border of The United States.

Is that flattery or what?

Clearly, the U.S. is doing something right.  And the countries producing these immigrants (mostly Central and South America and Cuba) are doing something wrong.  Hmm, I wonder what it could be?

Well, I will tell you what it is:  it is that, despite all, America still represents a nation founded on the idea of individual freedom and limited government.  Yes I, along with my colleague Peter Venetoklis and countless libertarians everywhere, have dedicated our lives to promoting this concept.  Yes, despite the ever-growing size and power of the U.S. government, and despite the clout and influence of the government-is-never-big-enough crowd, we are still one of the freest nations on the planet.  And the hordes of immigrants, who sacrifice so much to get here, know it. 

What more proof do you need that freedom works and big government doesn’t?

When they finally make it to the border, they get harassed, prosecuted, dehumanized, crammed into internment camps, have their children taken away, and vilified as “invaders”.  But, the immigrants are not the enemy.  The realenemy is the corrupt, oversized, worthless, socialist, fascist, communist, murderous governments that rule the nations they are fleeing.  These tyrants are so consumed with amassing power and lining their pockets that they cannot even provide a bare minimum of safety and security for their citizens. 

The immigrants are the symptom; the disease is decrepit governments in their home countries.

If our elected politicians were smart (a long shot, but still ...), they’d exploit this seemingly obvious fact.  They’d make it a teachable moment, take it to the podium, and state what I just said above.  Get the whole world to point the finger of shame toward those evil governments that are driving their own people away in massive numbers.  If real, positive change could be fostered there, it would soothe the urge to emigrate, and ease the stress on the U.S. 

Bigger Government Is Not The Solution

It’s a long shot because your typical politician views the world thru a tunnel-vision myopia whereby every conceivable problem, both real and imagined, can only be solved via bigger government.  According to conventional wisdom, the immigration mess must be solved with more laws, more officials, more administrators, more and bigger walls, more arrests, more relocations, more harassment of employers, more more more of everything – all paid for by taxpayers, of course. 

The alternative solution described above costs nothing.