Libertarian Jacob G. Hornberger Addresses Open Border Issues on C-Span

Jacob G. Hornberger, founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, a libertarian foundation based in Fairfax, VA, delivered a speech entitled "Leading the World to Open Immigration" on C-Span Saturday, Feb. 5, as part of C-Span's American Perspectives series. This speech was delivered at the Advocates for Self Government anniversary conference last fall.

Hornberger is the leading advocate for open borders in the United States. He is the co-editor of The Case for Free Trade and Open Immigration, which was published by FFF in 1995. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Charlotte Observer, Las Vegas Tribune Journal, and others, as well as in more than 50 Hispanic newspapers, including El Nuevo Herald (Miami, FL), La Prensa San Diego, El Mundo (San Francisco, CA), El Chicano (San Bernadino, CA), The Semana Newspaper (Houston), El Hispano News (Albuquerque, NM), El Latino (West Palm Beach, FL), and La Opinion (Los Angeles, CA). They have also appeared in Latin American newspapers, including El Mercurio (Chile), El Mundo (Bolivia), El Mundo (Puerto Rico), La Tribuna (Nicaragua), Perfiles Liberales (Mexico), La Prensa (Nicaraqua), and El Comercio (Peru). (A complete list of newspapers, as well as Mr. Hornberger's articles in Spanish, can be found in the "FFF en Espanol" section of the FFF's website at http://www.fff.org.

His published articles on immigration include "Why Not Open the Borders?", "The Mexican Heritage of the American Southwest", "Repatriation: The Dark Side of Immigration Controls", "Open Borders: A Gift from Our Founders", "Domestic Passports for Hispanic-Americans", "To Support the Dissidents, Lift the Embargo", and "The Heart of Mexican Independence."

Hornberger has traveled throughout Latin America. Last year, he traveled to Brazil and Argentina, where he delivered a series of lectures on economic liberty and the Constitution. Last spring, he spent a week in Cuba, where he conducted an informal study of Cuba's socialist system and the effects of the U.S. embargo, which resulted in a "spirited exchange" of letters with a Communist official in the Washington, DC (also included in both English and Spanish in the "FFF en Espanol" section of the FFF website).

Hornberger was raised on a farm along the Rio Grande in Laredo, TX, where he worked in the fields with undocumented workers. Fluent in Spanish, he has led the libertarian movement in speaking out against the tyranny of immigration controls in essays, speeches, and radio interviews. In 1996, he delivered a speech at the national Libertarian Party convention entitled "Open Minds on Open Borders."

Hornberger said, "We have lost support because of our open-immigration position, but we have never wavered in our conviction that our position is the right one. Immigrants have brought to America a richness, a vitality, and an energy that are immeasurable. Most important is the fundamental moral question: "Why shouldn't a person be free to cross a border in search of work or to visit family and friends?"