Libertarians: The Secret Strength of the Immigration Reform Movement

There are generally two well-known perspectives on the immigration issue: One is that the United States needs to reform federal immigration policy, and the other we should enforce current federal immigration policy. What’s rarely heard, or taken seriously, is a different perspective altogether that actually questions the most fundamental arguments behind immigration policy—a perspective that could change the way Americans and American politicians think about the issue.

More and more, immigration is becoming a major issue among libertarians, who believe in smaller government and more personal freedom. Traditionally, libertarians are more open to immigration than both conservatives and liberals, explains Daniel Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian research center the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. “Most libertarians are sympathetic toward immigration. They see human migration as a personal freedom. That's in contrast to conservatives and Republicans."

Although progressives are open to reforming immigration law, some on the left have concerns about wage depression and the impact on labor unions, says Griswold. Beyond that, it seems to be a much broader philosophical argument about the power of the government.

“Libertarians are more inclined to ask the question, 'Why should it be illegal?' Conservatives are more likely to accept the term ‘illegal’ and to want to enforce it,” says Griswold. “What crime have these people committed other than trying to improve their human condition? Libertarians believe in rule of law, but they support laws that are consistent with individual liberty. Our immigration law doesn't meet that standard.”

But there is a clear-cut conflict among libertarians about how to deal with immigration law. Many want open borders, but not until we can privatize education and health care. If there's a division among libertarians, says Griswold, it's usually caused by economic concerns—but not because they believe immigrants cause the biggest financial burden. Most committed libertarians are sympathetic toward immigration and would like to see opportunities for legal immigration expanded.

"A lot of people use immigration as a scapegoat for the welfare state and the drug wars," says Alexander Falkenstein, West Coast Director for Students for Liberty, a national libertarian student organization, "but there is a true divide between the violence and the individuals who are just coming to work."

For Falkenstein, the biggest conflict about immigration among libertarians is different—and one that can be applied to any other political ideology. Falkenstein, an Arizona State University senior, sees immigration as a much more personal issue because he experiences it on a daily basis.

For libertarians living in border states, the immigration debate has become even more complicated. When Falkenstein talks about immigration, he mentions two kinds of libertarians: “people who live among immigration and people who just have principles.”

“People [in the north] don’t understand the immigration debate as well as people living in border states,” says Falkenstein. “They do not understand that there is a difference between people who just want to work and people who are coming for drugs. Young libertarians not near the border do not understand that there is a true divide between the violence and the individuals who are just coming to work.”

While the consensus is that immigration is a federal issue, some libertarians do see states and local government as fit to create and enforce immigration policy. There are a growing number of libertarians who are opposed to immigration reform and want stronger enforcement. “One of the most bizarre developments in the past decade or so,” writes Donald Boudreaux, an economics university professor, in a 2007 Pittsburgh-Tribune Review article, “is the insistence by a small handful of people who parade under the banner ‘libertarian’ or ‘advocate of free markets’ that the state has both the right and the duty to limit immigration.”

With a greater number of states pushing for local immigration policies and movements like the Tea Party, the number of libertarians favoring stronger immigration enforcement could be a possibly.

But don’t expect a huge push for local immigration policy from the libertarian movement any time soon. A majority of libertarians take issue with the fact that everyone suffers with certain kinds of immigration laws, like Arizona's SB 1070 or housing regulations that target undocumented immigrants like Farmers Branch, Texas' Ordinance No. 2592 [PDF]. Such laws can create a your-papers-please policy which place unnecessary burdens on residents and citizens.

"SB 1070 has a lot of un-libertarian characteristics," says Wes Benedict, executive director of the Libertarian National Committee. "It’s too much intrusion on privacy. We’re taking away too many rights. It penalizes everyone when only a few people are breaking some law."

The problem with local immigration policy, says Falkenstein, as someone who lives in Arizona, is that there isn’t “any positive reform coming from the state or local level, it just seems to be a continuation of failed policy ... Libertarians in Arizona think SB 1070 is an infringement on our rights, police officers demanding to see papers."

Ultimately, what libertarians think of SB 1070 may not matter much in the long run. “I do not know whether the law can withstand constitutional challenge,” writes Fairleigh Dickinson University Professor Roger Koppel in ThinkMarkets, the blog of New York University’s Colloquium on Market Institutions and Economic Processes, about one of the most controversial immigration laws in the country. “Be it constitutional or not, however, no friend of liberty should support SB 1070.”

But with their support for the expansion of legal immigration and a clearly different stance than either the right or the left, libertarians could have an impact on the immigration debate. “I do think we’ll influence the debate," says Benedict, who doesn't see immigration as the biggest libertarian issue this year. "A lot of Republicans respect the views of libertarians even though they don’t agree with us completely. And they won’t listen to Democrats. But when libertarians present facts on immigration, Republicans tend to listen."

Julissa Treviño is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She graduated from Ithaca College in 2009.

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