Two Important Points About Immigration

REMINDER: We have a change in schedule for our open-borders conference. I will be presenting this coming Monday, October 7, at 7 p.m.- 8 p.m. Eastern time. I invite everyone to participate. I welcome all questions and challenges regarding the concept of open borders. To receive your Zoom link, register here.

Reminder: I’ll be speaking at the JFK Lancer Conference in Dallas, which is being held on November 22-24 at the Dallas Marriott Downtown. My longtime friend Mike Swanson, whose two books (here and here) I highly recommend, is also speaking there. I hope to see you there!

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This past Monday, we launched our newest online conference/lecture series entitled “The Case for Open Borders.” Richard Ebeling was our first presenter. The video of his presentation has just been posted in the Multimedia section of The Future of Freedom Foundation’s website. If you didn’t participate in the live presentation, I would invite you to watch the recording.

We have had a change in schedule. Originally, I was scheduled to be the last speaker. Instead, I will be presenting this coming Monday. I invite everyone to attend and participate. I welcome every single question and I want everyone to feel free to challenge what I say in defense of open borders. We are even thinking about having a Q&A/panel discussion at the end of the program in November to enable everyone to ask questions and challenge our open-borders position.

Italian immigrants at Ellis
Island.

As the presentations proceed, you will notice that there are variations in the open-borders positions among the speakers. We want everyone to be exposed to these different perspectives. For example, one or more of the speakers will be making the case for what is commonly called an “Ellis Island” type of open-borders system. This is where the government vets all incoming foreigners, with the aim of rejecting some on various grounds. Nonetheless, the government ends up letting in the vast majority of the foreigners. This was, of course, America’s immigration system throughout the 19th century. I don’t know what the exact percentage of foreigners they let in during the 1800s, but I would guess around 98 percent. Thus, while the result of an Ellis Island type of system is almost the same as a completely open-borders system (i.e., no government vetting at all), the process is different. We want you to hear and consider the arguments in favor of both positions.

In my presentation, I will be making two important points. They are points I have made throughout the 34 years of FFF’s existence and, before that, during my two years as program director at The Foundation for Economic Education. I will explain these two points in more detail in my talk this coming Monday but I would like to mention them here.

Point Number One: America’s immigration-control system has never worked, it still doesn’t work, and it will never work.

Everyone agrees with the first two parts of that sentence. Everyone — including the most ardent proponents of immigration controls and including Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz — agrees that America’s immigration-control system has not worked and that it still does not work.

The disagreement is with respect to the third part of my sentence. I contend that the immigration-control system will never work for the same reason it has never worked and still isn’t working. That reason is that it is incapable of working because it is an inherently defective system.

Immigration-control advocates, on the other hand, are convinced that despite the manifest failure of America’s immigration control system in the past and in the present, it is still possible to make this system work in the future — with the right people and the right plan. In my presentation this coming Monday, I will show why they are wrong. America’s immigration-control system will never work because it is incapable of working, no matter who is elected president and no matter what reform plan is adopted.

Why is this point important? Because there is a chance that at least some immigration-control advocates, realizing that their system can never work and will never work, will abandon their position and look for a solution to America’s immigration morass — one that will help put our nation back on the right track — toward liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony. That leads us to Point Number Two.

Point Number Two: There is one — and only one — solution to America’s lifelong, never-ending, ongoing, perpetual immigration morass. That solution is open borders. I’ve also been making this point for the entire 34 years of FFF’s existence as well as at my two years at FEE. Unfortunately, many immigration-control advocates simply have not believed me. They have convinced themselves that I just have to be mistaken — that there just has to be another solution, one that necessarily involves making the immigration-control system work, which returns us to Point One above. Thus, for at least 34 years of FFF’s existence, immigration-control advocates have steadfastly remained committed to a system that they know not only hasn’t worked and doesn’t work but also comes with death, suffering, out-of-control spending and debt, and a massive immigration police state that has contributed to the destruction of the rights and liberties of the American people .

There are other important points about immigration that I will be making during my talk — points relating to freedom, free markets, limited government, and religious principles. I hope you’ll attend and participate. To do so, you have to register to receive your Zoom link.

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REMINDER: We have a change in schedule for our open-borders conference. I will be presenting this coming Monday, October 7, at 7 p.m.- 8 p.m. Eastern time. I invite everyone to participate. I would welcome all questions and challenges regarding the concept of open borders! To receive your Zoom link, register here.

Reminder: I’ll be speaking at the JFK Lancer Conference in Dallas, which is being held on November 22-24 at the Dallas Marriott Downtown. My longtime friend Mike Swanson, whose two books (here and here) I highly recommend, is also speaking there. I hope to see you there!