I'm going to create a very basic situation to define the boundaries of discussion.
Person A crosses the U.S. border without documentation. This is illegal. Person A is now correctly designated as an illegal immigrant.
It is yet to be determined if Person A is a criminal (aside from their illegal status). For all we know, Person A could be a pacifist genius.
Now, should Person A be deported? Why or why not?
Truthfully, you shouldn't need to know the character of a person to make this decision. Too often I see either side of the debate try and use examples of illegal immigrants acting benevolently or malevolently. To me, those arguments don't hold any weight.
The reason is simple. Laws must be enforced by violence. It's a fundamental part of state authority. Now, Libertarians are more than aware of this. The nature of the law is violent. If you break the law, no matter how insignificant your offense was, a man with a gun and a badge can [i]always[/i] get involved.
This doesn't necessarily mean that every police encounter has to be violent. That's [i]far[/i] from a Libertarian idea. However, if somebody enters the nation illegally, they have broken the law. At some point, violence or the threat of violence must come into play. If you enter illegally, you get sent back. You can comply or you can be forcefully ejected.
"But Stallcall, there's arguably better ways to solve an illegal immigration problem. We could give them temporary amnesty or a faster path to citizenship..."
I won't argue that there aren't other options that appear to be more convenient. But to me, it's irrelevant. Here's why:
If we remove the threat of violence from a particular law, but not others, then violence perpetrated by the state becomes arbitrary. In essence, we as a society say, "Some rules are worth enforcing, others are not." Keep in mind that the previous examples of amnesty and paths to citizenship would mean the law is [i]not[/i] enforced.
TL;DR As a Libertarian, I do not support arbitrary violence. It's the fact that violence must be used that makes it important to keep laws as just as possible. I support deportation in this hypothetical situation.
What are [i]your[/i] thoughts on deportation?
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1 ReplyI think it would be a major waste of time and funding to round up every single illegal in the country. I think we should ramp up boarder security and all that and then give all the illegals currently in the country 4 years to make themselves known. If the only crime they've committed is coming over the boarder illegelly, that should be pardoned and they should be given a work visa. Then, after 4 years we work on rounding up all the people who didn't step forward (the criminals). I just think the situation is too far gone to warrant kicking a decent chunk of our workforce out of the country. And of course during and after those4 years we could heavily crack down on those still trying to enter illegally.