For better or worse, Donald Trump seems hell-bent on keeping a lot of his campaign promises. On one hand, I applaud his pardons, especially Ross Ulbricht, but also the January 6th protesters, many of whom have been in legal limbo for 4 years. What 6th manemdent? On the other hand, his obsession with illegal immigration should be cause for concern for everyone. Here is a brief overview of my thoughts on several related sub-topics regarding immigration, crime, and liberty.
Constitutionality
The Constitution of the United States says little about immigration. Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 mentions "To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization" among the enumerated powers of Congress. Article One, Section 9, Clause 1 allows future prohibition of slave importation. That's it.
The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1, begins, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This was part of the Reconstruction era incorporation of former slaves into the populace with legal definitions, and is now at the core of the birthright citizenship debate surrounding immigration.
In short, a pregnant foreigner who gives birth on American soil has birthed an American citizen. Trump is attempting to over-rule this Constitutional provision to fight what some term anchor babies. In Republican circles, this concept is one of the foundational concerns regarding immigration because of the potential tax burdens imposed by people perceived as more likely to burden the welfare state already laden with unfunded liabilities.
History
The US has had varying levels of immigration restrictions, and varying border enforcement compared to seafaring immigrants. As I understand it, the American southwest has tended toward a porous border until about a century ago, and laborers migrated freely.
The US/Canada border crossing only required valid ID to cross until after the September 11th attacks of 2001, and only fully implemented to require passports or other special ID in 2009.
Prior to World War I, there were also few instances where any international travel required passports or visas. I would argue real racism was often more of an issue at those times than at present, too.
It's fair to question whether the increasing demands for "papers please, citizen" has improved safety or helped prevent criminal activity.
Crime
The laziest complaint is that illegal immigration is criminal because it is illegal. Legality has no inherent moral or rational authority. As I have doubtless written before, slavery was legal and the Underground Railroad helping people flee slavery was illegal. The dictates of politicians are no foundation for right and wrong.
A real concern along the US/ Mexico border is the drug trade. There is no denying the violence inherent in Mexican drug cartels or the risks of black market goods. However, placing the focus on smugglers overlooks the root cause. A century ago, bootleggers and Baptists were perversely united in supporting alcohol prohibition, the former earning obscene profits on the artificially-created black market, and the latter puritanical control freaks feeling like they could sanctify society. Today, cartels and congresscritters are similarly united in supporting the drug war.
Addiction is a terrible thing, but vices are not crimes, and prohibition creates new problems which would not otherwise exist. Complaints about smuggling deflects criticism from where it truly belongs.
"Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.
"In vices, the very essence of crime—that is, the design to injure the person or property of another—is wanting."
—Lysander Spooner, Vices Are Not Crimes (1875)
However, it is also important to mention human trafficking as the third major criminal concern. Unlike narcotics, which are an inanimate object, smuggling people for labor or sex is certainly criminal. I do not know the degree, but modern slavery arguably remains a problem here in 2025. Simplifying or removing the process for legal migrant labor would make inroads on one concern, but other forms of human trafficking would require serious border patrols and enforcement.
Fortunately, real progress could be achieved by ending federal drug prohibition, simplifying naturalization, and eliminating most restrictions on migrants and tourists altogether would free up resources to handle real crimes. Unfortunately, I doubt Trump has enough libertarian advisors to encourage him to pursue this kind of policy.
Further concerns
I wrote a post back in 2017, originally on the old blockchain. I've already expanded on a few of its points above, but I'll copy in the remainder here as well, with some revisions.
Jobs are given by employers. Jobs belong to employers to give as they see fit. If you can't compete with an immigrant, your job was not stolen. It was given to someone else by the employer who owns the job and the right to employ whoever he sees fit. This is not fundamentally different from the employer hiring anyone else instead. If you can't compete with an immigrant who perhaps can't even speak English, maybe you are bad at your job. No one owes you employment. You need to earn it.
Of course, the economy is a mess, and government intervention at every level has created a lot of chaos, but blaming immigrants is incredibly misguided. Blame your congresscritters, the presidents, the faceless appointed bureaucrats, and the coproaches who protect them while enforcing their dictates.
They steal our money and ship it abroad!
The money sent elsewhere is not stolen, it was earned. The money was given to them in exchange for work. That work has value you do not see in your hasty analysis because money is only one side of the equation. Both parties benefit in any voluntary exchange. The worker values the money over the labor. The employer values the labor over the money. Wealth was created for both parties.
You can even go full Keynesian here and argue that the money will be circulated back to the US in exchange for more goods and services eventually. Wealth will be created again at some point when the dollars return to the US in more exchanges later.
Welfare, school, and medical care are stealing from us!
Welfare is theft by the government. When A robs B and gives to C, A is the thief. Not C. Whether C was born in the US, Mexico, or anywhere else is utterly irrelevant. Again, blame your congresscritters, the presidents, the faceless appointed bureaucrats, and the coproaches who protect them while enforcing their dictates.
Morality
Almost a year ago, I wrote a post entitled, How Should Christians View the Immigration Debate? I quoted several passages from the Old and New Testaments discussing how God commands His followers to treat foreigners. Some of the most vitriolic anti-immigrant rhetoric I have heard comes from self-professed Christians who seem to have forgotten their duties as followers of a new King.
In May of last year, I also wrote a follow-up which again covered many of the basic issues discussed here from a more secular standpoint. I feel like a broken record at times, but so do the folks cheering Trump, so I hope turnabout is fair play. In addition to the "it's wrong because it's illegal" and black market activity, I tried to address additional concerns I have seen from folks regarding nationalism and culture, abridged below.
Borders matter because national sovereignty matters
Even if I accepted the premise of national sovereignty in the first place, this remains an unsupported assertion. Are strong borders and stringent immigration or trade controls really essential to national sovereignty?
Additionally, many "illegal immigrants" are people who entered the country legally and just failed to leave when their visas expired. Why is government permission to travel necessary in the first place, and why is staying after some papers expired criminal? How is this existence without permission a threat to anything but the egos of authoritarians?
Illegal immigrants are manipulating politics
Undocumented immigrants cannot legally vote. To be fair, I also reject the legitimacy of all elections, but I do acknowledge the escalating concerns with each election cycle that something fishy might be going on.
Maybe Democrat posturing as "pro-immigrant" gets some favor, but if Republicans would stop talking like xenophobic nationalists and start welcoming immigrants while advocating for real naturalization reform, they wouldn't need to fear immigrants. Immigrants who want to earn a better living for themselves are likely to be aligned with a lot of "conservative values," too.
Culture
Lastly, many complaints I hear about immigrants consist of "X people are moving here," and "They have a different culture." I live in a region inundated by Californian immigrants, and this has accelerated over the past few years. This has had a detrimental impact on the local economy and culture. They aren't assimilating. They want to impose their politics on the locals. But they're already Americans, so it's totally OK, right?
Here, I recognize that any mass movement of people can be disruptive, and the US is hardly a homogeneous cultural whole. However, I argue that focusing on nationalism or nationality or race misses the point, and citing such concerns as justification for making innocent people into "criminals" is deeply unjust.
Conclusion?
I know my arguments are well outside the usual left/right paradigm, and my position of radical libertarianism likely rubs folks the wrong way, but I am here because I challenged my preconceptions. Feel free to challenge my arguments here, but challenge your own as well.
