January 2008

Justice Or Just Us?

By Robert Stephens

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While speaking recently to a local unit of the League of Women Voters in Springfield, I attempted to frame the question in terms of something other than the various complaints I discussed in an earlier “ShowMeFreedom” column. A chart showing the pattern of immigration from 1960 to the present was distributed—it showed a relatively flat trend line for most of the chart and then a rapid increase over the last ten years. I then queried the group on whether this seemed to correlate with their experience in southwest Missouri. There was significant agreement throughout the group.

I then indicated that the chart in question was the pattern of recent immigration into Europe. Most of the immigrants into the European Community were going into Spain, France, Portugal, but into the other western European countries as well and most were coming from Africa. The point is that immigration is a global issue—not one that is indigenous to the U.S. or to southwest Missouri alone.

If we were to venture onto the home page of the U.S. Department of State, we would find a chart indicating that Mexicans wishing to come to this country legally face a wait of almost 15 years for the legal paperwork to be processed by the Immigration bureaucracy. Is there any wonder that many simply choose to come where the jobs are—regardless of status?

Furthermore, the U. S. Department of Commerce notes that approximately 1 million immigrants are granted visas to come into the US to work each year. However, the private sector requires about 1.5-1.8 million workers to fill the jobs available.

In the company where I used to work, we had a saying: “every organization is perfectly structured to get the results that it does.” So—if we are not happy with the way immigration is being handled—and I can’t imagine many Libertarians who are—then the structure must be changed.

Our Libertarian Party platform displays a very realistic proposal for dealing with immigration: the federal government should focus on securing the borders (remember that line about “the common defense?”) and then screen potential immigrants for criminal records and communicable diseases. Other than those items, the market economy will more efficiently regulate the flow than any other artificial means.

Is it realistic to expect eager workers to idly wait 15 years to be legally admitted to the U.S.? Is it realistic to expect the federal government to be efficient in any endeavor? As Libertarians, most of us would answer “no.”

Baby boomers will soon be retiring in record numbers. Illegal workers don’t pay into Social Security. If the current illegal labor force could be registered and pay into the system (as the rest of us do), many of the concerns about the continued viability of Social Security would be alleviated. Of course, as Libertarians, we would ultimately like to see the whole system privatized, but—in the interim—more efficiently using the systems we have is a laudable goal.

So—the immigration issue is not for “just us,”—it is an international issue and will continue to be. And within the US, the concept of justice requires fairer treatment and more efficient handling of those who desire to embrace our way of life.