The Misguided Cruzade for Total Border Control [Open-Border Libertarians]

Reason.com ^ | March 31, 2015 | Shikha Dalmia

[SoConPubbie]

The Texas senator's fencing plans will impose a hefty cost on Americans

Sen. Ted Cruz launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination last week by promising to "finally, finally, finally secure the borders" and put an end to unauthorized immigration. This will warm the hearts of restrictionists, no doubt. But it should scare Americans who love their pocketbooks and liberties more than they hate undocumented Latino immigrants.

Restrictionists accuse many of these immigrants of being welfare queens who come to America illegally and live off taxpayers. Cruz has contributed to the hysteria by proposing bills barring undocumented workers from ever receiving any means-tested benefits, presumably even after they become legal.

Accusations that undocumented Latinos strain the welfare system are a red herring. If anything, immigrants, legal and illegal, constitute something of a welfare windfall. How? By coming to this country during their peak working years, after another society has borne the cost of raising and educating them, they save our system a ton of money. Studies generally don't take this windfall effect into account, and still find that the economic contributions of low-skilled Latinos far outpace their welfare use. For example, a Texas comptroller study found that although unauthorized workers consumed about $504 million more in public services than they paid in taxes, without them, the Texas economy would shrink by 2.1 percent, or $17.7 billion. A full accounting of these folks would likely show them to be an even bigger economic boon (especially since the employment participation rate of Latino men is higher than the native born, and their overall welfare use is lower).

Meanwhile, as Cruz and his ilk whine about the (exaggerated) welfare costs of immigrants, they act as if their own plans to erect the Great Wall of China on the Rio Grande would be costless. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Cruz wants to establish "100 percent operational control" of America's southern border by completing a double-layer fence on the entire 2,000 miles, tripling the size of the border patrol, and quadrupling the number of helicopters and cameras.

This is beyond ill conceived. First of all, 45 percent of all illegal immigrants are visa over-stayers. So Cruz's efforts are totally irrelevant for nearly half of America's illegal immigrants. What's more, even the Berlin Wall, the most fortified border in modern history, was successfully breached 1,000 times every year. That rate will be a gazillion times greater on America's southern border, which is not a barren, open expanse of land. In fact, it has a varied and rugged terrain with mountains and valleys and national parks (one the size of Rhode Island) and rivers that the wall will have to hop, skip, and jump around.

The Rio Grande has myriad tributaries that feed millions of people on both sides of the border. If Cruz's wall is anything like the current 18-foot-high structure with rust-red hollow posts sunk six inches apart in a concrete base, it will have to stop several miles short on each side to avoid damming the watershed, leaving major openings for people to walk through.

And what would a double-wall cost taxpayers?

It is very difficult to get a full grip, but the construction cost alone of a single-layer fence on the 1,300 or so unfenced miles would likely be upwards of $6 billion (assuming, as per a CBO study, pedestrian fencing costs of $6.5 million per mile and vehicle fencing costs of $1.7 million per mile). Annual maintenance costs would be hundreds of millions more.Tripling the number of boots on the ground wouldn't be cheap either. President Obama has already deployed 20,000 border patrol agents, over twice more than he inherited.

Tripling this number would cost a whopping $7 billion or so more a year since, according to the CBO, the annual cost of an agent is about $171,400.

And the bill in dollars pales in comparison to the price Americans will have to pay in lost liberties.

Conservatives are outraged when the government confiscates private property for environmental or other ends. Indeed, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, a vile man with retrograde views on race, became an instant conservative hero when he stood up to Uncle Sam and let his cattle graze on land that the federal government had, in his view, illicitly obtained. Yet Cruz and his ilk have no qualms about authorizing Uncle Sam to perpetrate an even bigger property grab in the name of their Swiss-cheese wall.

Over half of the recently constructed 700 miles of fence was on private property that Uncle Sam deployed blatant strong-arm tactics to obtain. It confiscated ancestral land that had been in families for over 200 years and offered virtually peanuts to Texas landowners who couldn't afford to hire expensive lawyers to duke it out with Uncle Sam in court. Oscar Ceballos, a part-owner of a small trucking business, recounts how a government lawyer went so far as to figure out how much his assets were worth to dissuade a free legal clinic from representing him in his fight against the government's ridiculously low-ball initial offer. Cruz's even grander wall ambitions will only compound such abuse.

Nor would Americans on the border be the only ones affected. The vast majority of undocumented workers are here because there are Americans, especially employers, who benefit from their presence. Hence, Cruz and his fellow anti-immigration fighters want to force all American employers to verify the work eligibility of potential hires—American or foreign, legal or illegal—against a federal database through E-verify. Should this program become mandatory, all Americans will be effectively required to obtain a government permission slip to work.

What's ironic about Cruz's crusade to build a wall between two free—and friendly—people, divert billions of taxpayer dollars to militarize the border, and abrogate the civil rights of Americans is that he is doing so while vowing to "stand for liberty."

If this is his idea of liberty, what would tyranny look like under President Cruz? (Actually, don't answer that—I hope to never find out!)

[rellimpank]

—exactly—if the “undocumented immigrant” went back across whatever border , (in handcuffs or a body bag, if necessary) just a short while before the employer that hired them went to prison , we’d soon have no problem with illegals—

[thorvaldr]

“if the “undocumented immigrant” went back across whatever border”

Send him home with a chip in his arm that shows he is not allowed to ever enter the country legally.

[taxcontrol]

I see you caught that as well. Amazing how basic economics and basic math seem to be so far beyond the grasp of liberals.

[CyberAnt]

These people who want “open” borders .. should be required to house the terrorists who are crossing illegally.

Their logic is unbelievable.

[taxcontrol]

Illegals can make compressed earth blocks (CEB) which are a way of turning mud, clay and sand into blocks that can be used to build the wall. They can also build the wall under supervision of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Make the base of the wall 12 or 15 feet high and wide enough to put a vehicle path on top. Every mile or so, put ramps on the inside so a vehicle can drive up to the top. On the Mexican side of this road at the top of the wall, put an additional fence 10 feet tall, topped with concertina wire.

Also use the blocks to create posts or barracks for the border patrol and connect theses posts via a train that provides connections and resupply. The train line can also be used to move the CEBs and other construction materials and equipment from the interior out to the construction site to build the wall.

Reorganize the Border Patrol into the Border Guard, similar to the Coast Guard, and train them as both Infantry and MPs. Illegals caught by the Border Guard should should be fast tracked via a separate court system that determines if the individual is an American citizen and if not, then is sent back to the other side right away.

The e-verify system should be integrated between SSN and IRS data to identify those SSNs that are reporting incomes 1) from different addresses 2) from dead people, flag those accounts as requiring additional verification.

ICE should be re-tasked to the IRS for the purpose identifying those businesses that are using illegals and charging those businesses with tax violations. Businesses that use illegal aliens should be restricted from declaring dividends for the year in which they have hired illegals and taxed at 40%. Use of e-verify would be protection against this action.

[ansel12]

The libertarians seem to be avoiding this Reason magazine thread.

Here is the libertarian position on immigration.

COMPLETE PLATFORM TEXT
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL ORDER

IMMIGRATION:
“”THE ISSUE: We welcome all refugees to our country and condemn the efforts of U.S. officials to create a new “Berlin Wall” which would keep them captive. We condemn the U.S. government’s policy of barring those refugees from our country and preventing Americans from assisting their passage to help them escape tyranny or improve their economic prospects.

THE PRINCIPLE: We hold that human rights should not be denied or abridged on the basis of nationality. Undocumented non-citizens should not be denied the fundamental freedom to labor and to move about unmolested. Furthermore, immigration must not be restricted for reasons of race, religion, political creed, age or sexual preference. We oppose government welfare and resettlement payments to non-citizens just as we oppose government welfare payments to all other persons.

SOLUTIONS: We condemn massive roundups of Hispanic Americans and others by the federal government in its hunt for individuals not possessing required government documents. We strongly oppose all measures that punish employers who hire undocumented workers. Such measures repress free enterprise, harass workers, and systematically discourage employers from hiring Hispanics.

TRANSITIONAL ACTION: We call for the elimination of all restrictions on immigration, the abolition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, and a declaration of full amnesty for all people who have entered the country illegally.””

[moehoward]

It’s worth noting the cited “study” is also written by Shikha Dalmia. It’s full of numbers which appear to have been pulled directly out of her hindquarters.

[trisham]

[zzwhale]

we blockaded teh entire south vietnamese coast... and that is why they had the hcm trail.

we ahve the techology to do it... just not the political will...

who cares if 10% of the illegals are from jihadi countries... no big deal if you are in wash dc... who cares if they murder, rape, rob and kill people with drunken driving, kidnap and molest kids.... no one in congress got hurt yet..

[zzwhale]

easy..... just make it a free fire open season hunting zone and dump the corpses in the rio grande and flush it once a day.... no problema amigo.... next problem... a traitor in the white house...

[Raymann]

Hardly an apt comparison, you had to be invited to Galt’s gulch because it was totally privately owned. Also libertarians aren’t objectivists, the concepts the nation and citizenship matter little to libertarians while they are very important to objectivists.

Now while objectivists are divided on the issue, I say build the wall then open up legal immigration to all the law abiding and productive immigrants from non Islamist, non tribal, and non communist countries that we can process. They get no benefits other then what comes with military service.

[cdcdawg]

I’d say you had to be invited to Galt’s Gulch because they didn’t want to the looters to destroy it.

“Also libertarians aren’t objectivists, the concepts the nation and citizenship matter little to libertarians while they are very important to objectivists.”

That’s a fair and important distinction, but that does nothing to take away from the iconic status of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged among open-borders libertarians/anarchists. Incidentally, I loved the book, mainly for her portrayal of the Left. She nailed them.

I agree with you on building the wall, then having a sane immigration policy that doesn’t reward the worst more than the best. Take away the public benefits, and the problem partially solves itself anyway.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank advancing free minds and free markets.

Dalmia is a Bloomberg View contributor, a columnist at The Week, and writes regularly for Reason magazine. She also writes frequently for The Wall Street Journal and numerous other publications such as the Times of London, Time, USA Today and The Daily Beast. She previously served as a columnist for Forbes and the Washington Examiner.

Dalmia was co-winner of the first 2009 Bastiat Prize for Online Journalism for her columns in Forbes and Reason.

From 1996 to 2004, Dalmia was as an award-winning editorial writer at the Detroit News, covering a variety of policy issues, including the environment, immigration, Social Security, welfare reform, health care and foreign policy. She also worked as a reporter for the Patriot, a national daily newspaper based in New Delhi, India, where she grew up and earned her B.S. degree in chemistry and biology from the University of Delhi.

Dalmia frequently appears on Fox Business Network, BBC Business Matters, MSNBC and other television and radio outlets.

Dalmia, who taught news writing courses at Michigan State University, earned a Master's degree in mass communication from Louisiana State University. She also holds a post graduate diploma in journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communications.

She lives in the Detroit area with her husband and son.