Border Control - Recipe for Entrapping Us All

As more and more immigrants are detained (google LA times and "detaining immigrants"), I'm reminded of the article from Becky Ackers from the Foundation for Economic Education (google "Becky Ackers immigration"), when she showed that immigration interference was the last thing the Founders wanted. And our continued demogoguing this issue will only steal our freedoms and smother prosperity.

Ms. Akers said it was the post-Civil War Congress, full of hubris after conquering the South, that arbitrarily decided to ban the immigration of convicts and prostitutes. When litigation over these new laws reached the Supreme Court, in the case of Chae Chi Ping v. U.S. (1888), the "Court appealed to national sovereignty, international norms, congressional edicts, democracy - anything but the Constitution."

All that's authorized in the Constitution is "naturalization," a process to help newcomers become citizens. Libertarians and classical liberals should want the free movement of goods, people and ideas. And as the War on Terrorism leads to an ever intolerable Police State, a tight Border will only make it harder for free-thinking entrepreneurs like you and me to ESCAPE!

If you worry that Terrorists will sneak through the border, then stop interfering Overseas, which is what causes terrorism. When you stick a finger in a beehive, you get stung. Both Washington and Jefferson supported commerce, not entangling alliances, when it came to foreign affairs. President John Quincy Adams in his 1821 Address warned specifically about entanglement in foreign conflicts:

"America... well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force... She might become dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." - John Quincy Adams; Address, 4 July 1821

So, friends, let's let the immigrants come in. They add value. For those immigrants who take welfare, end the welfare. We know from DeToqueville's "Democracy in America," that he marveled, in that 1830s period before the takeover of Big Government, that Americans formed mutual aid societies for the poor, and associations to ... found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; ... found hospitals, prisons, and schools." If we let private, charitable associations take care of the poor, including any poor immigrants, then the so-called "immigrant problem" would disappear.

So obey the Founders on international relations, immigration and welfare, and we would instantly build peace and prosperity in America and around the world.

If, on the other hand, we ignore the increasing detention of immigrants, the tightening of the border will prove dangerous if the growing Police State causes us to flee for our lives - because there will be no ESCAPE!

UPDATE: As 2007 ends and Congress goes home, they are passing a bill to protect the Middle Class from the Alternative Minimum Tax. But they're "paying" for this with a tax on expatriates, as they leave the country. So I'm right! Border control has the opposite effect of trapping us inside!