Still More on Immigration

To be fair to them, their concern does not quite stop at the border. There is such a thing as foreign aid.

"But George Bush and Paul Krugman are not Nazis..."

Error! Error!
Does not compute! Does not compute! :-)

If immigration restrictions are wrong, why do all countries in the world have them? And if weak, unenforced US restrictions are bad, why aren't the immigration rules almost everywhere else worse? Why would countries, especially poor countries, harm their economies with strict immigration controls? Yet most do.
And is it entirely irrelevant that the crime rate among illegal immigrants is much higher than that among citizens? Do you favor admitting violent felons?

I'm not sure which definition of little l or big L libertarianism is being invoked, but I thought that even in a Nozickian world, groups would be allowed to agglomerate, self-select, and restrict entry to their group. Why can't we call some of those groups "nations"?

The ideal libertarian world would be governed by a unified rule of law. That rule of law would protect citizens from predators -- including government-sponsored predation (e.g., welfare programs). To the extent that immigrants come to the U.S. because it offers "better" welfare programs, those immigrants are engaging in predation and enabling the election of politicians who would multiply the predation. Your prescription works in the ideal world, but not in the real one that we inhabit.

Robert Speirs,

Have you seen any evidence that the crime rate among illegal immigrants is much higher than among U.S. citizens? I've been searching for that but cannot find it.

I have seen statistics showing that the crime rate for Hispanics is slightly higher than for the overall non-Hispanic white population. The problem with those statistics is that the majority of the Hispanic population are either citizens or legal immigrants. The second problem is that those statistics are not age-adjusted. Most crimes included in such statistics are those committed by teenagers and young adults. The average age of the Hispanic population is lower than the non-Hispanic white population, so naturally the crime rates will be higher.

An additional problem with focusing on crime statistics is that such statistics ignore many other social problems. Abuse of family memebers and abortion are two statistics that would be important in determining the desirablilty of any ethnic group. As Mexican Americans strongly embrace family values and religion, I doubt their family abuse and abortion rates would be near as high as many other ethnic groups.

Please note that I'm referring to Mexican Americans, both legal and illegal, and not to the broader group of Hispanics that includes criminals deported by Castro, Columbian drug dealers, and Puerto Ricans who have grown up in our U.S. culture of entitlement that suppresses individual achievement and accountability.