Eminent domain, border fence & immigration

The newpaper reports about the Tamez family of El Calaboz , Texas who is resisting the plan for a border fence on their property, is a chilling reminder of how far we have allowed the federal government to take away our rights, especially since 9-11. In a sense, the terrorists have won. They have conned us into accepting a pact with the devil: “give me your freedom”—he says, “and I will give you security.” Now the people implementing that pact, the same people who gave visas to the 9-11 terrorists, the same people who could not thwart the 9-11 plot, the same people who suspended our right to seek relief from unlawful detention and the same people who monitor our bank accounts, listen to our international phone calls and read our emails without a search warrant issued by a judge and without our knowledge, these same people are going to use eminent domain to expropriate the Tamez land. The whole affair should remind us that what is at stake here with all the anti-immigration hysteria is not the Tamez family’s “psycho-historical attachment to the land,” nor Americans’ inability to “understand their own history” as one of your interviewees in the article below suggested. No. The question the Tamez family plight raises is how the border fence and all other anti-immigration efforts violate our own private property rights here in America.

Eminent domain is a fancy name for the violent expropriation of our private property by the state. It forces a law abiding US citizen to give his property to the state in exchange for “fair market value.” This is simply a violation of the natural right to use and enjoy our private property according to our wishes, as long as we are not violating anyone else’s rights. Eminent domain expropriation is a form of involuntary violent exchange. Even if there is payment by the government at a “fair market value” this does not make the expropriation legitimate because the government cannot ever compensate a property owner for the subjective value he assigns to his property. Fair market value is only meaningful when both parties to the exchange voluntarily agree to a price, which is how things work in a true free market. Expropriation, therefore, is more akin to highway robbery than the sale of any good.
One powerful argument for the border fence is that it will prevent illegal immigration. But do we ever ask ourselves if restricting immigration (legal or illegal) violates our individual private property rights? As long as the illegal immigrant is moving into a piece of private property whose US owner is willing to take him, there is nothing wrong with their exchange. This is a voluntary transaction, free from coercion and without any victims. When the immigrant crosses the border and is employed by a factory that needs labor, eats at a restaurant that needs patrons, rents a vacant apartment from a landowner, whose rights are violated? These are mutually beneficial forms of economic exchange in which both parties agree to a price and exchange goods and services. Nobody’s rights are violated. But on the other hand, when the government tells a farmer that he cannot hire an immigrant from Mexico to pick tomatoes, when it tells a mother that she cannot hire a babysitter from Guatemala to care for her children, when it tells a landlord that she cannot lease her apartment to an immigrant from Nicaragua to fill a vacancy, when it tells a hospital that it cannot hire a nurse from the Philippines to take care of patients, when it tells a high-tech company that it can not hire a programmer from India to program its computers, when the government does this to prevent immigration, whose rights are violated? The private property rights of farmers, mothers, landlords, hospitals and high tech companies to use their property for their own business goals. Does this mean that Mexican immigrants have an inherent right to come here simply by virtue of their economic plight in Mexico or by virtue of the demand for their services? Absolutely not. But what it does mean is that property owners have the right to decide who they want in their property, regardless of the legal status of the person with whom they are making an economic exchange. As long as both the immigrant and the property owner agree voluntarily to the terms of the exchange and as long as they are not violating other people’s rights, there is nothing wrong, unnatural, unethical, improper or unconstitutional with such arrangement.

p>Some would argue that since immigrants and illegal immigrants abuse our welfare system and use our libraries, schools and other so called “‘public goods”, the rights of property owners must be superseded by the government acting act on behalf of the common good, the nation or the taxpayers. But this argument is in fact more of a condemnation of welfare rather than of illegal immigration. Among many evils, welfare creates a permanent underclass, promotes dependency on the state, increases unemployment, destroys the moral character of the recipient, reduces the spirit of giving and is financed by coercive taxation of working men and women. We must end the welfare state for everybody, not just immigrants.

Others argue that since immigrants might use welfare in the future we should also curtail immigration now. This argument is also wrong. If it was correct, it would mean that we should incarcerate all young black males on the grounds that some of them will commit crimes in the future or that we should prevent Hispanic females from having children because some of them will be involved gang crime when they grow up. In any event, all these “public goods” should be privatized, thus eliminating the illegal immigrant free rider problem. But even if we don’t have the political will to do so and public goods remain subsidized by taxation, I am certain the tax bureaucracy in Washington and the state capitals can figure out a way to keep track of and force immigrants to pay their share of taxes, just like it forces the rest of us.

Finally, some make perhaps the most powerful argument against illegal and legal immigration--that immigrants will destroy the American culture that makes freedom itself possible. But once again, this is incorrect. First of all, we are no longer the freest country in the world. Hong Kong , Singapore and Australia already score higher than the US in the Index of Economic Freedom published by the Heritage Foundation. Second, countless immigrants and their children and grandchildren have promoted freedom throughout our history. Third, at least in the near future, these "conniving" immigrants would be using owr own democratic system to destroy our way of life. But think about it, that millions of Hispanics could vote for communism, socialism, Nazism, welfareism or other interventionist programs is more a condemnation of the US system of democracy than of illegal immigration. That anybody, not just immigrants, can vote to support the right of a third party to forcefully take away our property is the biggest real threat to our freedoms. These freedoms have been taken away systematically using majority rule voting ever since President Lincoln waged the War to Prevent Southern Independence; therefore, we know this erosion started prior to the current wave of Mexican illegal immigration. Granted, many of those past voters were immigrants from Italy , Ireland or Germany , but by and large, we must admit that regardless of our migratory background, we have been the ones using democracy to undermine our own freedoms.

If we are serious about significantly curtailing Mexican immigration, there are very effective and very inexpensive ways to reduce it to a trickle without violating US citizen’s private property rights. It is simple: the inevitable tendency for people to migrate from poorer countries with excess supply of labor (like Mexico ) to richer ones with shortages of labor (like the US ) has a direct and opposite counterbalancing flow that is currently blocked: the flow of capital in the opposite direction. The federal government, therefore, could unilaterally declare the full free flow of capital from the US to Mexico and the free flow of goods from Mexico into the US . Under such unilateral free trade conditions, entrepreneurs and capitalists would take advantage of cheaper labor in Mexico and move their capital across the border to build plants and equip farms. If those Mexican goods were allowed to freely flow into the US , American consumers would benefit from more and cheaper goods and American capitalists would benefit from a higher return on capital. But more importantly, these flows of capital and goods will cause an increase in the demand for labor in Mexico, which will increase wages in Mexico and will thus reduce the pressure that the Mexican poor feel to migrate to the US. Ergo: no need for artificial restrictions on immigration, no need for a fence, no need to violate Americans’ private property rights. But alas, that would mean the unmasking of the political machinery of fear and xenofobia that seems to have taken over America. Therein lies the rub.
For the newspaper report on the Tamez family plight, click http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/land_15400___article.html/border_tamez.html