The age old debate. Do we stick with our principles and call for the elimination of borders or do we try to be practical and go with closed borders?
It's somewhat of a trick question because there are a lot of variables involved. Are we talking about right now or in a totally libertarian society? Are the borders going to be 100% closed or just guarded better against illegals and potentially dangerous individuals? In this article, I will attempt to discuss these issues since they tend to plague every discussion group centering libertarianism.
Let's start by going over the border issue in modern-day America. Would opening the borders be beneficial to society in any way? As of 2015, there were 11,000,000 illegal immigrants in the United States. Out of those, 8,000,000 had jobs or were actively looking for jobs. This information was provided by the unbiased think tank, "Pew Research" on their website at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/ So what we can take away from this is that undocumented immigrants are largely a member of the work force in the United States.
How much do illegal immigrants pay in taxes? According to Forbes, it's $11,640,000,000 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/10/06/how-much-tax-do-americas-undocumented-immigrants-actually-pay-infographic/#2012d4cb1de0. PolitiFact says, more or less, the same thing. However, they also calculate how much they receive in government benefits. They pay an average of $10,334 per household, but receive $24,721 in benefits per year. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/oct/02/maria-teresa-kumar/how-much-do-undocumented-immigrants-pay-taxes/. Contrastly, American citizens pay $20,994 per year in taxes. https://www.fool.com/taxes/2017/03/14/how-much-does-the-average-american-pay-in-taxes.aspx and receive ~$20,000 in benefits. http://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/20000-household-the-highest-level-federal-spending-world-war-ii To summarize this paragraph, undocumented immigrants pay about half as much in taxes per household, but receive arguably the same amount of benefits.
Now to move on to the security issue. Would open borders be detrimental, as society stands now, to American security? According to PBS Newshour, (the donation funded, unbiased media website) with more immigrants comes less crime. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/fact-check-immigration-doesnt-bring-crime-u-s-data-say/ Even so, isn't one of the great things about libertarianism being able to defend yourself against attack with weapons? In states and cities with a low level of gun regulation and control, it's much easier to defend yourself. In case you needed statistics that show "more guns = less crime" then here's another piece from Pew Research. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/17/despite-lower-crime-rates-support-for-gun-rights-increases/
Now on to the hypothetical situations. In a libertarian social order, is there a need for closed borders? Again, it's somewhat of a trick question. Some people conflate "borders" with "property lines" (which is intellectually dishonest). Borders are lines that separate nations and property lines separate one or more private pieces of real estate. Would there be national borders in Ancapistan? Of course not, there wouldn't be a government to enforce them. Would there be gated communities? Of course there would. Homeowner's associations exist now and they would continue to exist and flourish without a state to hinder them. With no welfare state to exploit, the more people that can join the work force, the better. A free market is always starving for workers and if people born in a certain geographical area don't want those jobs, then some other people from another geographical area might want them and that's fine.
When it comes to crime, the answer is much simpler. Without a state, there are no restrictions on how many or what weapons you can own. If a radical individual wants to do you harm, you have every right to defend yourself or to delegate that responsibility to a third party (such as ADT or Brinks, for example). It would work much like it works now, except it would be completely voluntary and competition would improve the services while lowering the prices. If fear is one of the reasons someone might want national borders without a government, then that argument has no leg to stand on.
All in all, the topic of borders is a tough one. There are many variables and a lot of them are subjective. If we opened up all the borders right now, would crime and economic despair ensue? Probably not. Either things would largely remain the same or the system would collapse (arguably a win-win). One argument that will not stand up to scrutiny, however, is the notion that we will need borders to protect us in a free society. A free, armed society is a peaceful, prosperous one.
-Kody Fowler
