Liberals are ecstatic over the Biden administration’s decision to no longer use the term “illegal alien” in governmental communications. They consider it an enormous achievement. The official term to be used now to describe foreigners who are here in the United States without official permission is “undocumented noncitizen.” No doubt reflecting the views of liberals everywhere, Mother Jones copy editor Daniel King calls it a “major milestone” for immigrants’ rights activists seeking shifts in language and law.
What a crock! What these liberals are doing with their pretty little word changes is papering over their continued allegiance to America’s system of immigration controls, a cruel and brutal socialist system that continues to punish people for committing the “heinous crime” of coming to the United States without official permission in the quest to improve their lives.
When it comes to immigration, conservatives often accuse liberals of favoring open borders. That is a flagrantly false accusation. Liberals favor controlled borders as much as conservatives do. The only way they disagree is with respect to various manners of enforcement.
For example, conservatives favor a Berlin Wall along the southern border. Liberals favor a Berlin Fence. Conservatives favor separating children from their parents. Liberals do not.
But when it comes to immigrations controls as a system that needs enforcement, conservatives and liberals are on the same page. For example, they both favor forced deportations. (Don’t forget that President Obama was known as the Deporter in Chief owing to the large number of people he deported.) They also both favor such enforcement measures as warrantless searches of ranches and farms, violent raids on private businesses, felony prosecutions of employers, domestic highway checkpoints, roving Border Patrol checkpoints, and other totalitarian-like measures to enforce their jointly supported immigration-control system.
I suppose I should mention the much ballyhooed liberal plan to create an easy path to citizenship for illegal aliens — oh, pardon me — undocumented noncitizens who have been living here for some period of time. Liberals say that that reflects how good, caring, and compassionate they are.
But why should people be forced or pressured into becoming U.S. citizens? Maybe they don’t want to become U.S. citizens. Maybe they would prefer to simply retain the citizenship of their country of origin. What’s wrong with that? Today there are more than a million American citizens living in Mexico. Many of them don’t assimilate. They don’t learn Spanish. They pay taxes to the IRS. They keep their money in American banks. They cheer for American sports teams. Should they be forced or pressured to become Mexican citizens? Of course not. They should be left alone to live their lives the way they want, which is precisely what should be the case with foreign citizens who come to the United States.
Notice that in the meantime, liberals continue to enforce their system of immigration controls against new people who illegally enter the United States or illegally remain here. People will continue dying swimming the Rio Grande, crossing hot deserts in the Southwest, or being transported in the back of 18-wheelers. Border Patrol agents will also continue to shoot them. Fathers or mothers will continue to be separated from their family members through deportation.
How do liberals reconcile all that death and suffering with their purported sense of goodness, care, and compassion? They don’t and they can’t. They just celebrate their beautiful little word changes.
Hey, don’t get me wrong, liberals are not the only ones who suffer from the hypocrisy malady when it comes to immigration. Conservatives are famous for their mantra “free enterprise, private property, and limited government.” How do they reconcile that mantra with their system of immigration controls? They don’t and they can’t. They just keep mouthing their mantra at the same time as supporting and enforcing their socialist immigration police state in the American southwest.
It is only we libertarians who favor free markets and open borders — i.e., the free movements of goods, services, and people across borders — not just internal state borders but also international borders. Unlike liberals and conservatives, we focus on the liberty and well-being of people rather than on pretty words and pretty mantras.