Immigration: Anarchy Worked

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 01 May 2010 12:54:03 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Thomas L. Knapp at Center for a Stateless Society - America had no immigration controls for over a century. It wasn't until 1882 that Congress passed the first statute restricting immigration. And comprehensive regulations covering immigration have been in place since only 1952. It worked. The immigration debate is all about giving the state more power, though many are tricked into believing that restricting immigration will benefit them.

The history of US immigration regulation is part and parcel of the history of expansion of government power in America. In its form of the last 60 years, it represents the tail end of New Deal social engineering and the front end of "the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores" which "conservative" activist William F. Buckley, Jr. called for pursuant to the Cold War.

When someone claims to be for "smaller government" while simultaneously clamoring for "border security" and against "amnesty" for peaceful people whose only "crime" is crossing an imaginary line drawn on the ground by a street gang on steroids, they're contradicting themselves. There is no smaller form of government than anarchy, and anarchy worked when it came to immigration. It would still be working today if not for the fact that an unrestrained government (and no government allows itself to be restrained forever) grows into every niche, and strangles every outgrowth, of human activity.

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