I just heard the US attornery general speak on the Rush Limbaugh
show yesterday, he was talking about requiring employers to give more
proof that a employee is legal, he was talking about new ID
technologies that might be
required.
Hey conservative that usually are weary of central government
and libertarians that are calling for a crack down stop being
foolish, your yelling about the federal government must do something
is going to backfire on American workers. If you can't stop being
foolish then mind your own
business.
Sheldon makes good points not only on this issue but others, I'm
going to subscribe to the hardcopy edition of the Freeman which he is
the editor.--- In [email protected], "Victor Bozzo"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Independent Migrants Have Rights Too
> by Sheldon Richman, June 2, 2006
>
> You'd never know it from the recent public discussion, but the
people disparaged as "illegal aliens" - in fact they are independent
migrants - have the same natural rights to life, liberty, and
property that Americans have. As long as they violate no one else's
natural rights, they should be free to go about their business.
>
> Immigration restrictions are doubly invasive of rights. They
violate the migrants' rights because they prohibit them from entering
the property of Americans who would otherwise welcome them: employers
and landlords, for example. And they violate the rights of those
Americans who aren't free to hire migrants or rent and sell to them.
Any American who wishes not to associate with a migrant should be
perfectly free not to do so. But that American has no right to stop
the rest of us from doing so. Nor has he a right to ask Congress to
stop us.
>
> But, it is said, a country has a right to control its borders. What
does that mean? A country is not a country club. It's not a single
parcel of land with common owners. If it's a free country, it's a
collection of free people living in the same geographical area with a
more or less common set of rights-protecting laws. It should have no
rules of "membership" for living there beyond this rule: Respect the
life, liberty, and property of others. Under those circumstances,
borders lose their significance. As it is, people engaged in economic
activities ignore national boundaries unless government intrusion
(trade barriers) makes that impossible. Businesses usually are not
interested in which side of an arbitrary line their potential
customers were born.
>
> Imagine an American whose land borders the boundary between the
United States and Mexico. Is he not entitled to think of that border
as his own? And if so, can't he welcome anyone to his property,
including citizens from the other side of that line? To say no is to
demonstrate how far we have drifted from our individualist and
voluntarist moorings.
>
> The issue of citizenship distracts us from more important matters.
If government didn't have the open-ended power to deprive us of
liberty and property, voting would represent no threat. As it stands
today, I have no more reason to fear a Mexican in the voting booth
than I do a native-born American. It is not first-generation
foreigners who brought Leviathan to America. If the problem is the
welfare state, let's get rid of it instead of oppressing migrants.
>
> Fear-mongers spend a lot of time disparaging Latino migrants for
speaking Spanish and living in their own enclaves, as though similar
things weren't said about earlier migrants. (A knowledge of history
has never been a distinctive trait of the anti-migrant forces in this
country.) I could point out that within a few generations the
descendants of migrants speak English and assimilate. But I place no
weight on that argument, because migrants are under no obligation to
assimilate. As long as they violate no one's rights, they should be
free to move here, engage in voluntary transactions, and speak -
exclusively if they wish - any language they want. Of course, they
should also accept responsibility for their choices. That's called
freedom.
>
> For these reasons, the bills pending in Congress are objectionable.
The borders should be open to migrants, but not the tax coffers. No
one, native or migrant, has a right to stolen money. Moreover, the
guest-worker program is an insult. It says that "we" will let
migrants in as long as they are the right kind. What of the rights of
the "wrong kind" (the low-skilled)?
>
> The Fourth of July holiday is about a month away. Wouldn't it be
nice if this time we could celebrate American freedom and really mean
it?
>
> Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom
Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare
State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog "Free
Association" at www.sheldonrichman.com. Send him email.
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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