Ever since I established The Future of Freedom Foundation 27 years ago, I have argued that the perpetual, ongoing immigration crisis in America is rooted in federal immigration controls. That’s because immigration controls are a form of central planning, which is a variation of socialism. As any citizen in the Soviet Union can tell you, central planning inevitably produces crises. That’s because it doesn’t work and is incapable of working.
I have also argued that immigration controls inevitably lead to police-state policies, owing to the enforcement measures that come with immigration controls. Just travel to the U.S.-Mexico border and you will see what I mean. There are highway checkpoints inside the United States — miles inside the United States — where immigration gendarmes wield the authority to stop you, search you and your vehicle, and demand to see your papers, just like in communist and other totalitarian countries. There are also roving Border Patrol checkpoints, where immigration gendarmes arbitrarily stop vehicles simply to search them. There are warrantless trespasses and searches by immigration gendarmes of privately owned ranches and farms, not only on the border but also miles away from the border. There are raids by immigration gendarmes on businesses and farms to arrest the illegal immigrants who are working there and the employers who dare to hire them with their own privately owned resources. There is the Berlin Fence along the border, which was supposed to end the immigration crisis once and for all. And, of course, there are the snitches who report on housewives who are committing the heinous crime of hiring illegal aliens as maids.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, none of this has worked to resolve the decades-old, perpetual, ongoing immigration crisis. Again, that’s because immigration controls themselves are the root of the problem. As long as there are immigration controls, the immigration crisis will continue, no matter who is elected to public office and no matter what immigration reform measures are adopted. Immigration controls equal crises, chaos, and disorder. The only thing that works is freedom and free markets, which necessarily entails the free movement of goods, services, and people across borders.
Now we have the ultimate in immigration tyranny — the president of the United States issuing immigration decree-laws, just like dictators in communist and other totalitarian regimes do.
Ordinarily, we would expect Congress to debate and deliberate over immigration reform. What should be the immigration quotas for each country? What should be the prerequisites for immigrants? How many total immigrants should be admitted each year? What factors should go into determining refugee status?
That’s how a democratic, constitutional republic operates. The legislative branch of the government enacts the laws, the executive branch enforces the laws, and the judicial branch interprets the laws.
Trump could have gone to Congress with an immigration reform package and asked Congress to enact a law that did all the things that his decree-law has done, including the imposition of a ban on immigrants from countries where the Pentagon and the CIA intend to continue bombing, assassinating, and shooting people.
Trump chose not to do that. Instead, he decided that it would be much easier to issue a decree-law that ordered federal bureaucrats to enforce his personal immigration reform package. He is the ruler. He is in charge. He is the man on the white horse, the one who is going to finally resolve, once and for all, the ongoing, perpetual immigration crisis. He can’t wait for Congress to decide. He wants action now. All he just needs a pen and paper, enabling him to immediately issue his order. Voila! An immigration decree-law, one that is faithfully enforced by his immigration gendarmes.
That’s how dictatorships operate. The dictator decides. He issues his decree. The decree automatically becomes law. The law is enforced by loyal bureaucrats. The legislative and judicial branches are expected to support or at least remain quiet and certainly not interfere.
Not surprisingly, Trump’s immigration decree-law has produced massive chaos — or, as Ludwig von Mises put it, planned chaos. That’s not only what immigration socialism produces, it’s also what immigration dictatorship produces — planned chaos.