Badnarik and immigration...

[MicroBalrog]

Immigration is among the most contentious issues facing America today, and the specters of terrorism and war have only added fuel to an already fiery debate. Let's take an objective look at immigration, borders and legitimate national security concerns.

By any reasonable measure, immigration is not just beneficial to the American economy but indispensable to the goal of a nation of freedom and opportunity. This nation was built on immigration. Allowing peaceful people to enter our country is not just an option. It's a benchmark by which we measure whether or not we're living up to the American ideal.

This does not mean, however, that the national defense must be sacrificed to some naive conception of "open borders." The right to enter the United States is not the same as the right to enter the United States in contravention of its legitimate interest in securing itself against those who would do it harm.

Immigration and borders are two separate issues. When they are mixed, the result is both deadly to peaceful immigrants and subversive of the security of the United States.

Peaceful immigrants should be allowed to enter the US at conveniently located Customs and Immigration stations, subject only to brief vetting to ensure that they are not terrorists or criminals. They should not be forced by restrictions or quotas to place their lives at risk by crossing the border at remote locations, often under the guidance of ruthless "coyotes" who are as likely to leave them to die as to get them safely across, and to then lead lives of fear of detection, detention and deportation. I do not regard the existence of the social "safety net" as a good excuse for excluding immigrants. The welfare state needs to be eliminated. It would need to be eliminated whether immigration was an issue or not.

Not only are immigration restrictions bad policy in and of themselves, they make national defense a more difficult task. Immigrants crossing into the US illegally, because they were denied legal entry for no good reason, provide cover, by sheer dint of numbers, for terrorists and criminals. The black market in smuggling humans constitutes a vector for bringing the nation's enemies into our homeland.

Coupled with open, easy immigration for the peaceful, I advocate a vigorous national defense against our enemies. Terrorists and criminals who attempt to enter the US via a Customs and Immigration station should be denied entry and, where applicable, arrested or extradited. Terrorists and criminals who attempt to enter the US via other points along its 95,000 miles of border and coastline should be treated as what they are: invaders against whom our armed forces must respond. There are obvious exceptions Cuban and Haitian "boat refugees" who don't have much control over where they make landfall, for example but they are exceptions, not the rule.

As a Libertarian, I reject a conception of national defense that keeps American troops overseas, meddling in the affairs of other nations. Instead, I advocate a national defense which, sans any attack which might require retaliation elsewhere, focuses on the logical area: the nation's borders. As president, I would work to eliminate the Border Patrol and treat border issues as what they are: defense issues coming under the mission and scope of the armed forces. In an age where the equivalent of a large invasion force can be packed into a suitcase-sized box containing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, no lesser response will do

Just defusin' a rumour or three...

 

[mvpel]

"Open the borders, and close the schools," is how Vin Suprynowicz put it.