The REAL Immigration Debate Is Not What You Think

Immigration is a hot topic today, especially now that Donald Trump is President. It has been an issue, but the problem has been getting bigger recently. The number of immigrants coming into the United States has increased in recent years as people attempt to leave their homelands and make it into the 'land of the free." While the Democrats and Republicans are debating we should have open borders or not, I believe we can't have both open borders and a welfare state.

We Can't Have Open Borders AND A Welfare State

The reason why we can't have open borders if we have a welfare state is because immigrants statistically have higher crime rates, receive welfare at a higher rate, and tend to want more government instead of a limited government. Basically, if natives are forced to pay for immigrants via taxes, they're being robbed by immigrants and their own government, who are teaming up against them to deprive them of their property. For this reason, it can be argued that the use of force is being initiated against Americans due to immigration.

I can already here some readers saying "but America was built by immigration." Yes, that's true. But not while we had a welfare state. We need to get rid of taxes, and the welfare state, and eventually get rid of governments that use coercion as a tool to control their population. But the more people that come here with the opposite goal in mind, the further we get from reaching that goal.

Some of the people who want open borders also want higher minimum wage laws and a huge welfare state. They are either delusional or have a very limited understanding of economics. If we keep the bar high for minimum wage, and then let tens of millions of immigrants in with little-to-no skills, the value of their labor will likely be below minimum wage so instead of working they'll just live off of the taxpayer via the welfare state.

Private Property vs Public Property

While the typical immigration debate happening right now is should we let the immigrants in or not, it's really not that simple. In a perfect world, yes, we should let anyone roam wherever they want, as long as it's not on someone else's private property. We have to allow private property rights, otherwise we can't have freedom. For example, without private property rights someone could invite themselvs into your living room and watch TV while they eat your food. But what about public property?

Anarcho-capitalists argue we should privatize everything. I know that may sound absurd to many people, especially if they've never gotten their feet wet with their understand of anarcho-capitalism. But there's actually a strong argument for privitizing everything, including the oceans! If someone ones something, they won't let others trash it. Instead, they take care of it. Private property is protected by private property rights. Whereas public property is protected by government, but government is not a person. No one in government has a financial incentive to take care of public property, because they don't own it. They do, however, have the opportunity to accept bribes by corporations who plan to pollute the property in the process of making money.

The point is that we have to realize there are other options for how to create a peaceful, prosperous society. There's no need to give some group of people the exclusive right to rule over us. There's a lot more to the libertarian/anarchist's view, and to really get to the real immigration debate we have to move past the left-right paradigm.

How To Handle Immigration

We have two main ways we can approach immigration sensibly:

1. Open up the borders and get rid of the welfare state
2. Secure the borders and control migration

We can't have both open borders and a welfare state. Well, we can, but it will probably destroy America. A quick look at Europe's current migrant crisis makes this apparent. They thought it would be fine, but now many Europeans are seeing the consequences. In a minute we'll get into why mass immigration can have such negative consequences, but for now it's important to point out that there's another 2 ways of looking at how we're going to handle this issue, and many others:

1. With limited government
2. Without any government

As far as I'm concerned, these are our only two options. Having a big government and mass migration is a recipe for disaster. Who wins? The government and the migrants. The government has found a new reason to justify its existence, and it uses the group of migrants to grow its power because it needs more money, more laws, and power to enforce the laws. Don't forget, the government has to take from someone to give to someone else. They either have to sell bonds and create debt, or raise taxes. This is a drain on the economy either way because inflation is a stealthy form of theft. Over time it makes the money you've saved worth less.

If the Federal government was extremely small, there wouldn't be a welfare state. We didn't have a welfare state until after the mid 1900s, which is relatively recent. When people came here before then they came for freedom. Now, they come for free stuff. Not everyone is coming for free stuff, but a lot of them are. And you can't blame them. Who doesn't want free stuff?

If millions of people have the option of having a "free lunch" a portion of them are going to take our government up on their offer. That's not necessarily a bad thing. In a sense it's pretty smart of them. But that doesn't make it okay. The government offers our money as bribes to get a new population here so they can take care of them with our money. This may sound great but it would be more efficient for us to just give them our money directly and cut out the middle man costs. Plus it would be moral too, as taxation is theft.

The Problem With Mass Migration

You may be wondering "what's wrong with letting the migrants in?" Or worse, you're thinking it's racist to not allow others to come over the border. I wish it were a free world and everyone was free from government coercion. But since it's not, I have to protect myself and my property against the group of thugs that call themselves "government" and want to use migrants as an excuse to take my money against my will.

If migrants were able to integrate into our society seamlessly it would just be more of the same. While that wouldn't be good, it wouldn't hurt. But if migration can ruin America, like it is destroying parts of Europe at the moment, then it's self-defense for us to try and save the little bit of liberty and culture we have left. Though it may be taboo to examine the differences between different races and cultures around the world, we can't delude ourselves into believing everyone is the same everywhere in the world. Everyone isn't the same in the same country! Here are a few important differences in immigrants to consider. They may:

• Use more welfare
• Want bigger government
• Be more trusting of Federal government
• Have a different crime rate
• Have a different culture
• Speak a different language
• Have a different IQ

All the above characteristics have the ability to change our nation, for better or worse. Of course, the origins of the immigrants makes a difference because, again, we're not all the same. Asian immigrants tend to have higher IQs and use less welfare, whereas Hispanic immigrants often have a lower a lower IQ and use more welfare. It goes without saying that isn't about white supremacy. Not all Americans are white anyway. Plus the fact that Asians tend to rank higher in IQ and make more money shows that income is correlated to IQ, not skin color. Yet many people who are pro-immigration label anyone who is "anti-immigration" as racist, as if there is no other reason to be concerned with mass immigration.

The Real Immigration Debate

I view the immigration debate differently from most people. We can't allow millions of people to come over here and team up with the government to pick our pockets. So what do we do?

The best immigration debate I've heard so far was between Stefan Molyneux and Adam Kokesh. Now that we've layed the foundation for a rational discussion on immigration, I highly recommend listening to these two opposing views. They're both basically anarcho-capitalists, which is interesting because Stefan is advocating for securing the borders, which involves government and the government initiating force on people for crossing an imaginary line. They both strongly believe in the non-aggression principle (NAP), which states that you can't use or threaten to use force on someone else, unless it's in self-defense. Watch this excellent immigration debate below.

In case you don't have almost two hours to listen to the debate, I'll summarize it the best I can. Here are some of the key points from each side:

Adam Kokesh

• Advocates for private property borders only
• Strong adherence to the NAP
• Believes immigration laws violate the NAP because people have freedom to travel
• Believes it's the government violating the NAP, not the immigrants
• Running for 2020 president as "no president" to abolish the Federal government
• Wake people up to the idea of anarcho-capitalism and change the world that way
• Let the economy collapse and use it as an opportunity to create anarchy
• Doesn't pay income taxes or property taxes

Stefan Molyneux

• Prefers only private property borders, but government to secure borders
• Immigration causes a population dispacement
• Believes welfare violates the NAP
• Some groups of immigrants receive welfare at higher rates than natives
• It's self defense to prevent immigrants from having their hands in our pockets
• Believes government and immigrants both violate the NAP together via welfare
• Mass immigration could lead to horrific economic collapse

They both want smaller government, and eventually no government. But their strategies for how to get there differ. Kokesh feels we cannot use government to reduce government, but Molyneux argues that since the vast majority of immigrants coming here want big government and will depend on government to take care of them there's no way we can end up with a smaller government by letting them in. Kokesh is not willing to violate the NAP by telling people they cannot come here, while Molyneux doesn't feel it's violating the NAP because the immigrants "have their hands in his pockets" via the power of the government. Where do you fall in between the two?

I believe Kokesh is right in theory, but Molyneux is right in practice. If we could all at once move to an anarcho-capitalist society, that would a reasonable option. But we can't enact some anarchist views, while keeping the huge government and welfare state we currently have.

Another great immigration debate was held at Anarchapulco in 2018. I had the pleasure of being there in person to see Lauren Southern debate Larken Rose. Watch it below.

Europe's Migration Crisis

Europe is in the middle of a migration crisis, particularly in the areas that have had the most liberal migration policies, such as Germany. The weird thing about it though, is that many people refuse to acknowledge that the migrants are causing the problems. There's somewhat of a debate between people who think there's a migrant crisis and people who do not. Except, I haven't seen such a debate. I just see some people denying the migrant crisis.

Considering European leaders have been forced to reexamine their stances, it's becoming quite clear there's a serious migration problem. Italy has been coming to their senses, and since Europe's migrant crisis is ruining Sweden people are waking up there too. Germany just had to change their migration policy today, after Angela Merkel's policy has turned many people against her to the point of almost losing her job.

Migration Crisis In The United States

One of the reasons why people could be denying a migration crisis in Europe is because they are advocating for similar mass migration in the United States. Another reason why European leaders would deny the problem is because they started it. Is it possible that we'd suffer from negative consequences for indiscriminately letting millions of migrants into the country and live off the taxpayers? To deny that there is at least a concern, is delusional. But everyone I've talked to who is pro-migration and for open borders seem to think that skin color is the only reason why some people are concerned.

Right now the United States is trying to figure how to handle immigration. Trump is enforcing immigration laws instead of using Obama's "catch and release" program. The media is causing people to be outraged to the point of insanity. Nothing Trump does is right in the eyes of the Left. As soon as the mainstream media criticizes Trump over his immigration policy my Facebook newsfeed got full of posts with the same narrative. Coincidence? They act like there was never any family seperation at the border before Trump. The only thing Trump changed was he made it a felony to illegally cross the border on your first attempt. Before, the first offense was a misdemeanor, but the second offense was a felony. That's not that big of a change, and certainly not a big enough change to justify all the hysteria. Clearly the previous policy wasn't harsh enough to prevent people from coming here illegally. Is it so wrong to try to implement a policy that actually works?

Pictures of detention centers from Obama's presidency were used to slander Trump. Time magazine mislead people with a dishonest picture of Trump and a little girl on the front cover. In some cases, people went as far as staging kids in cages and then took the pictures to stir the pot even more. Why? It's nothing more than propaganda.

So many people are blaming Trump for the separation of families who crossed the border illegally. As if it's his fault! What they seem to forget is that US citizens that break the law with their children present also get separated. It's because kids don't belong in jail with adults. There are laws in place to prevent kids from being in jail with adults. It's never been a problem until now. Families were separated under Barack Obama's presidency too, but no one freaked out about it. This has been going on for decades, but now that Trump is president they act like he's responsible for every problem in the world.

The Treacherous Migration Process Across The Border

Families crossing the border illegally often pay coyotes to help them in the process. It's a long, treacherous path where an estimated 80% of women are raped during their journey. If a US citizen put their child in a situation where 80% of the women get raped, most people would be fine with the government taking their kids away from them. So now we give illegal immigrants privileges that citizens don't have?

Many of the illegal immigrants that get across the border don't have proper documentation to prove the kids they're with are indeed their kids. Since it's not easy or cheap to sneak into the US, immigrants often are familiar with the process and try to cheat the system by bringing a child with them, knowing that the law prevents children from being detained for more than 20 days. So what they do is come here seeking asylum, knowing that the process takes more than 20 days, and until now they're usually released with their alleged children because the law prevents them from being held any longer. Basically, they use the children as "get out of jail for free" cards. All while we don't even know if the children are really their children! For all we know they could be smuggling the children in with the intent of selling them as sex slaves. Human trafficking is a huge problem that no one wants to talk about and Trump promised to do something about it and even started on day 1 with an executive order to crack down on it.

The Solution To Immigration

The solution to the negative effects of immigration is the same solution for many of the world's biggest problems - end the systemic corruption found in governments around the world. Corporations are using the power of the government to control us and keep themselves in power. Together, giant international corporations and banks team up with governments and run the world.

Once we rid the world of the inherent corruption in our current system, the world will be a better place in many different ways. The world will be more peaceful, prosperous, and free. This is a topic that is far too big to discuss here, but The Awareness Revolution is about spreading awarness to faciliate this process of making the world a better place. The best thing to do is sign up for our newsletter and read the free ebook, The Awareness Revolution Primer, that comes with it.