Ron Paul's Immigration Misfire

Since there is only One of woman born who was perfect, it's hardly a news bulletin that Ron Paul, though a decent and principled man, is susceptible to error.


It's easy to make allowances where Dr. Paul is simply mistaken, since he has proven repeatedly that he's willing to change his views as dictated by the facts, while remaining true to his principles. But it is disappointing to see him succumb to the impulse to pander to a certain slice of the GOP's activist base, as is the case with his most recent campaign ad on immigration policy. (See it here or at the bottom of this essay.)

One suitable definition of the verb “to pander” would be: “To promise something clearly impossible in the hopes of winning votes.” By that definition relatively little in that advertisement qualifies as pandering.

Three elements of the five-point plan recommended by the ad – no amnesty for illegal immigrants, no welfare benefits for the same, and an end to “birthright citizenship” -- are either sound or at least defensible. But they are sandwiched between two thick, crusty slices of pure pandering – the promise to secure the border physically, and to end “student visas from terrorist nations.”

It's always a bad sign when a candidate begins his pitch by offering something that is impossible. It is entirely impossible to create a physical barricade around our nation that will prevent illegal immigration. Attempting to do so (as I've pointed out before) will cause immense harm to the property rights of American citizens who live near the border. And with the Regime increasingly taking on the character of an undisguised garrison state, do we really want it to be in the business of sealing up the border?

Dr. Paul, an immensely intelligent man, knows all of this, which is why this element of his ad is particularly disappointing.

In his critique of the Paul campaign ad, Justin Raimondo correctly points out that the second slice of unmitigated pandering – the promise to end “student visas from terrorist nations” -- traffics in “the concept of collective guilt....[I]s every citizen of these unnamed `terrorist nations' to be declared persona non grata on account of the actions of a minuscule number of their countrymen?”

If we're going to get into the business of assigning collective national guilt for the terrorist actions of a few, how could we object if Americans were subject to international travel restrictions because of the crimes committed by Bush and Cheney and their ilk?

While the other points presented in the ad are worthier of Dr. Paul, the same can't be said of their presentation. The imagery of dusky-skinned immigrants swarming into the country is a classic Brown Peril trope, as is the ominous voice-over informing us: “Today, illegal immigrants violate our borders and overwhelm our hospitals, schools, and social services.”

Why the border fence won't work, assuming it's ever built.

Speaking on his own behalf in the Republican debates, Dr. Paul has dealt with the same subject in a way that addresses the fundamental economics of the issue: We cannot have a centralized welfare state and a fiat money economy and long, permeable borders without having immigration-related problems of the sort under discussion.

Witness Dr. Paul's comments during the Univision debate earlier this month. Taking issue with the idea of a “tamper-proof ID for illegals or immigrants,” which he said (correctly) would lead to a national ID card, Dr. Paul offered a brief lecture on the economics of immigration:

“But we have to realize where the resentment [against illegal immigrants] comes from. I believe it's related to our economy. When the economy is weakening and there's resentment because of our welfare system – jobs are going overseas; our good jobs, [and] pay is going down.... There's a lot of resentments because the welfare system is based on mandates from the federal government to put pressure on states like Florida and Texas to provide services which the local taxpayers resent. Some of our hospitals are closing. So it's an economic issue, too. If we deal with the welfare state and a healthy economy and a sound money [system] and all this wasteful spending overseas, we would have a healthy economy; I think this problem [with illegal immigration] would be greatly reduced.” (Emphasis added.)

This analysis puts the blame for overburdened “hospitals, schools, and social services” on the central government and its onerous mandates, rather than placing it entirely on the backs of the swarthy northbound masses from Latin America.

Lest it be thought that Dr. Paul was pandering in that answer – seeking to ingratiate himself in a Spanish-language debate before a Latino audience – it's worth recalling what he did just a few minutes later.

In one of the most insanely courageous acts of political principle I've ever seen, Dr. Paul – speaking in the teeth of outraged boos from the audience – defended re-opening diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba and Venezuela on the basis of the principles laid down by George Washington. He then managed to win over at least part of the house by explaining that “we create the Chavezes of the world, we create the Castros of the world, by interfering and creating chaos in their countries” -- a process which also does quite a bit to generate pressures that lead to illegal immigration.

In an interview with Newsweek, Dr. Paul reflected on the fact that as an obstetrician (is there any profession that can more properly be described as “doing God's work”?) he delivered children now referred to as “anchor babies” -- US citizens born to parents here illegally – who were “immediately put on [welfare] benefits. They can get housing allowances, food allowances, and Americans resent it because our economy is weak.... I want a healthy economy. Then we will be able to have a much more generous immigration policy, which would fit my personal philosophy and our Constitution.” (Again, emphasis added.)

Perhaps his clearest expression of this point came in Dr. Paul's interview with an Iowa newspaper editorial board, in which he elaborated on the dangers of government-enforced multiculturalism, including compelled bilingualism and welfare benefits for non-citizens.





Something to remember, lest we get just a little too sanctimonious in decrying the immigrant "invasion"....


After reiterating his complaints about the impact of those policies on local communities, Dr. Paul cut to what he considers the nub of the issue: "I'm also convinced that if we didn't have the welfare state, this would be a non-issue. If we had sound money, no welfare state, and we were thriving.... It's because we're having these economic problems that I say the illegal alien becomes an easy scapegoat."


There's the word that only Ron Paul, of all the Republican contenders, would have the candor and credibility to use. And that's the word, tragically, that best summarizes the use of illegal immigration in the most recent Paul campaign ad.


That ad is redolent of the influence of opportunistic PR flacks -- people who reflexively seek to blunt principled messages, as if they're afraid of cutting themselves on sharply defined positions. It certainly doesn't reflect what Dr. Paul has described as his "personal philosophy" regarding the issue. It also suggests that Dr. Paul needs to impose some message discipline on his campaign right now, before it falls victim to consultants and others lured by his fundraising achievements -- the sort of people who would re-brand him as the thinking man's Tom Tancredo, as if such a creature could exist.




Dum spiro, pugno!

Building a Fence to Nowhere: The Real Border Invasion

Government action generally splits the difference between “useless” and “harmful.” Although it began as a perfectly useless and demented idea, the federal campaign to build a fence on the southern border has graduated from mere uselessness into a genuinely harmful undertaking.

Perhaps the only unintended benefit of that initiative (unintended benefits being the only variety conferred by most government action) is the fact that it illustrates to any reasonable observer that we have far more to fear from the government ruling us than we do from the foreign nationals flooding across our southern border without official permission.

For many years, many Americans living along the border with Mexico have found their properties wrecked and polluted by caravans of desperate people who are shepherded northward by cynical flesh-peddlers called Coyotes. Some communities in the southwestern US have found their hospitals and school systems overburdened, largely because of federal policies requiring that such institutions accommodate people who crossed the border illegally, irrespective of their immigration status (or, where hospitals are concerned, their ability to pay).

There is a perception (one I've done more than a little to help create) that the current influx of immigrants from Mexico has created a huge population of welfare parasites and violent criminals. That perception is a reasonable one, even though it hasn't been clearly validated by statistical studies. And as troublesome as it is to manage the current influx, it is not an unusually large one in historic terms. Nor are the cultural differences separating the mainstream US population from Mexican and other Latino immigrants as vast as we're sometimes told.

To me it seems clear that the key distinction between today's immigration challenge, and that of roughly a century ago, is the existence of the welfare state and the influence of a large and well-funded counter-assimilationist lobby.

We should also bear in mind the economic role played by the Federal Reserve, which didn't exist during most of the great immigration wave of the late 19th-early 20^th centuries. Much of the illegal immigrant laborer population attracted to the United States during the past several years found work in housing-related fields that flourished as a result of the Fed-engineered housing bubble; the bursting of that bubble has already had a measurable impact on the rate of illegal immigration – probably a much larger impact than any enforcement action taken by the Feds.

The incentive structure built by our rulers has created an economic gradient favoring unchecked immigration from Mexico. This is why enforcement measures simply don't work: It's a bit like standing at the threshold of a large waterfall and trying to beat back the currents with a toothbrush. If we had a system akin to the one that existed a century ago – a hard money economy without a government welfare safety net -- it's likely we wouldn't attract as many illegal immigrants, and those who came here wouldn't be an economic burden of any kind.

But in time-honored fashion we've seen the immigration issue transmuted into yet another justification for expansion and enrichment of government power. And thanks to the asinine Border Fence campaign, American citizens who were not threatened in any tangible way by illegal immigration now confront the prospect of losing their homes, property, and businesses through eminent domain seizures.

One thing must be addressed up front: The Border Fence is not going to be completed. Sections of it will be constructed, and huge profits will be made by the corporations who have received contracts to develop and deploy sensing technologies for the “virtual fence.” But there's no way Washington is going to erect a seamless barricade running the length of the border with Mexico. Yes, there might be some kind of Potemkin fence that starts in San Diego and ends in Brownsville Texas, albeit with gaps at least as large as the ones in the continent-spanning “human chain” created during the 1986 “Hands Across America” fiasco.

“Hands Across America” was pointless and stupid, but it didn't cost anything (apart from the $10 a head paid by those gullible enough to participate). The Border Fence is pointless, stupid, and immensely expensive. It was inspired by coarse political opportunism, and whatever portion of it is eventually built will be a tangible testament to the vanity of our political class.

Not since the ancient Egyptian ruler Cheops wasted the lives of 100,000 slaves a year to build his mausoleum (Herodotus says that the king actually forced his daughter to turn tricks in order to raise funds once the treasury was depleted) has the world witnessed such a concentrated outburst of servile enthusiasm for a project that would serve no purpose beyond gratifying the whims of a ruling elite. At least the Pyramid is as architectural marvel that has endured for millennia. Within fifty years, whatever is built of the Border Fence is likely to be nothing more than rotting, rusting debris.

For those who live along the southern border, construction of the Border Fence may mean the loss of everything they hold dear. They are doing what they can to obstruct the federal officials who have descended on their communities without invitation and are making plans to seize whatever acreage is necessary to construct the Fence.

Noel and Cecilia Benavides, who live in Roma, Texas, are in some ways representative of those who stand to lose their property to the Border Fence scam. The land on which they live has been owned by Cecelia's family since 1767. In recent years, Noel and Cecelia have grudgingly given the Feds more or less permanent access to their property in order to conduct counter-narcotics and border enforcement operations. But they have dug in their heels after the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to run its Border Fence right through their land.

“They're going to destroy an ecosystem that took centuries [to nurture] and that's never going to come back,” complained Noel, a village alderman, to the Washington Post. “But it's the law, we're told, and it's homeland security.”

Last Friday, residents of South Texas who had refused to permit federal surveyors on their land received an ultimatum from Michael Chertoff, the Commissar for Homeland Security. With the magnanimity that comes from the discretionary power to impoverish and kill those who don't cooperate, Chertoff expressed an interest in negotiating with the refractory property owners but said that if a deal isn't reached, the Regime will go to court and “seek title and possession [of the lands], and the court will determine fair market value.”

This refers, of course, to what I regard as the second most troubling provision of the US Constitution, the power of “eminent domain.” (The most troubling, I think, is the line permitting Congress to suspend the habeas corpus guarantee under certain conditions; if I had my way, both of those provisions would go the way of the Fugitive Slave Clause.)

Name the drone in this photo: George W. Bush poses next to a Predator B Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) developed for battlefield use and now deployed along the southern border. At least one Border Patrol Predator has crashed (below).

Just a few years ago, most of the conservative movement was in high dudgeon over the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, which upheld the seizure of private property through eminent domain for the purpose of enriching politically connected private developers. Well, exactly the same thing is now facing scores, or hundreds, of property owners along the southern border – and where is the conservative movement's property rights auxiliary?

Oh, that's right: They're at a Minuteman rally somewhere, being marinated in a rich broth of nativist rhetoric about the Brown Peril before adjourning to the local Mexican restaurant for chalupas and margaritas.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and the engine of official expropriation is being revved up.

“The door is still open to talk, but it's not open for endless talk,” insists Chertoff, adding: “We won't pay more than market price for the land.”

Oh, how cute: After pissing away countless billions in unaccountable “cost-plus” deals for “reconstruction” projects in both the Persian Gulf and the US Gulf Coast, the Regime has suddenly discovered the merits of austerity when it comes to paying Americans whose homes and lands they plan to seize.

The same corporatist junta that was sending pallets of freshly minted $100 bills to Baghdad, whence they were tossed from the back of flatbed trucks in football-sized bundles, now considers itself honor-bound to low-ball the price it will pay to property owners along the border.

Did I mention that at least some of the corporate interests connected to the Border Wall project likewise profited from the Iraq War and reconstruction racket, as well?

These are some of the reasons why there is a literal rebellion brewing along the border.

“I tell you, on this one issue, the Farm Bureau, the United Farm Workers, Democrats and Republicans, white, black, brown, everybody is against the border fence,” insists Hidalgo County Judge Juan D. Salinas.

For a long time, the immigration wave across the southern border has been referred to as an “invasion,” which is both usefully inflammatory and factually imprecise usage of the expression. Whatever can be said about the problems generated by unchecked immigration, or the grandiose ambitions of the Reconquista movement, the word “invasion” applies much better to the actions of the federal government, which is prepared to seize the property of innocent, law-abiding citizens by whatever means may be necessary.

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Dum spiro, pugno!

Illegal Immigration, Past and Present: An Exercise in Thinking Out Loud

A Border Patrol Agent detains 12 Mexican nationals apprehended near Sells, Arizona. Smuggled into the U.S. by a Coyote, the Mexicans shared a single canteen.


"Wherever there's a prohibition, there's a bootlegger" -- James Burnham, "Burnham's Laws," No. 5.

Indifferent to borders, the invaders swarmed over a rich and cherished land. Many of them were hungry and desperate, and the lure of economic opportunity was irresistible. Others were comfortable, and driven by vulgar greed. But every one of them crossed the border in defiance of laws and solemn agreements. From the perspective of those whose land they now occupied, each of them became a criminal the moment his foot touched their soil.

Because the invaders were covertly supported by their government -- including supposedly rogue elements of the military -- the first tentative trickle of illegal immigrants quickly grew into a deluge.

Protests over the invasion were met with solemn and dishonest assurances that the border would be enforced. But the government issuing those assurances was playing for time, waiting for the invaders to establish a foothold. It had gone so far as to create a highway -- the "Robber's Road" -- to facilitate the invasion. Elements of the government likewise secretly provided the squatters with food, water, and other necessities.

Some of the land's long-time residents, convinced that their nation was being quietly dispossessed, protested to their government. When that proved unavailing, they began to harass the illegal immigrants directly, sometimes to the point of bloodshed.

Once the squatters had firmly established themselves, all pretense was dispelled. A summit meeting was held; territorial demands were made to, and rejected by, the nation whose territory was under assault. Failing to secure the territory after which it lusted on terms it considered appropriate, the aggressor government prepared for war. And once "this machinery of government began moving, it became an inexorable force, mindless and uncontrollable," wrote Dee Brown in his classic study of the dispossession of the Plains Indians.



















The Familiar Ritual of Dispossession: William T. Sherman presides over the signing of the Ft. Laramie Treaty.


The history of Washington's war on the Indians is a narrative of cupidity and corruption, aggression and avarice, deceit and dishonor. In examining the case of Washington's seizure of the Black Hills, however, I am struck by the cynical use of illegal immigration as an instrument of territorial conquest.


General George Armstrong Custer, who has a prominent place on my list of people I would kill if they weren't already dead,* was sort of a Coyote-in-Chief for the white settlers who flowed into the Black Hills. Despite the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty that solemnly promised the lands to the Sioux in perpetuity, Custer led what Evan S. Connell called "a creaking, jingling, clanking train of canvas-topped wagons and malodorous cavalrymen" into Sioux territory in search of gold.



Well-known as a mass murderer, he was also one of history's most consequential advocates of illegal immigration.

Of the Black Hills, the Laramie Treaty specified that "no persons except those designated herein ... shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory...." Ah, contended advocates of white settlement, that was before our gold was discovered on their lands, and this changes everything. Decrying the treaty as an "abominable compact," the Yankton (South Dakota) Press and Dakotanian complained: "What shall be done with these Indian dogs in our manger? They will not dig gold or let others do it."

In such frustrating circumstances, if you're the government, or interests wedded to it, the answer is obvious: You steal the land.

It was Custer who established the "Robber's Road." It was Custer who was ultimately tasked by the execrable Philip Sheridan to carry out "total war" against the Sioux when they refused to ratify the results of white illegal immigration by repudiating their rights under the Laramie Treaty in exchange for a mere fraction of what the land was worth.

Reading some contemporaneous newspaper editorials unearthed by Connell, I'm struck by how they resemble some of the themes embraced by the Mexican "reconquista" movement. Take, for example, this specimen from the Bismarck Tribune, which was published as Custer "reconnoitered" the Black Hills:

"This is God's country. He peopled it with red men, and planted it with wild grasses, and permitted the white man to gain a foothold; and as the wild grasses disappear when the white clover gains a footing, so the Indian disappears before the advances of the white man. Humanitarians may weep [for the Indian], and tell the wrongs he has suffered, but he is passing away. Their prayers, their entreaties, can not change the law of nature; can not arrest the causes which are carrying them on to their ultimate destiny -- extinction. The American people need the country the Indians now occupy; many of our people are out of employment; the masses need some new excitement. The war is over, and the era of railroad building has been brought to a termination ... and depression prevails on every hand. An Indian war would do no harm, for it must come, sooner or later...."

Isn't this more or less the same game being played by the Mexican government -- using illegal immigration as an economic "safety valve" by exporting surplus workers? The chief difference here, and it's not one that reflects well on the US Government of the time, is that the 19th century version of demographic warfare was actually intended to cultivate bloodshed.

When the Sioux tried to "crack down" on illegal immigrants, its actions were portrayed in the press as a terrorist campaign. As Connell writes, it had been widely anticipated that the "stampede of whites through Dakota Territory would bring war," and as the editorial quoted above indicates, most Yankees thought this would be a good thing. And obviously, the U.S. Government was capable of doing far deadlier damage to the Plains Indians than anything the Mexican Government could do to us. Yes, the Feds lost at the Little Bighorn, but this proved to be merely a setback on the road to Wounded Knee.

Amid the apocalyptic rhetoric generated by the immigration "crisis" (I write as someone who has made his own contribution), I find myself musing that perhaps the only people in this country who really have standing to complain about the problem are descendants of the Plains Indians.

This doesn't mean I think our nation should dissolve itself as an act of penance for the sins of our forebears. But I do believe we could profit from re-examining some of the premises and assumptions behind the immigration issue, the first being that Americans living today are uniquely besieged innocents facing an unprecedented invasion.

There are Americans living along the border whose lands and homes are under siege from Coyotes and drug smugglers. The question I pose is: Should we perceive such crimes as the unique product of illegal immigration, or as an illustration of the universal truth of Burnham's Fifth Law (see above)?

The logic of Burnham's observation is that wherever prohibitionist policies are enforced, criminal behavior -- including occasional violence to persons and property -- will result. If this is true of immigration from Mexico, then the way to reduce the violence would be to end the relevant prohibition. One way to end the siege of ranch properties along the southern border would be to announce that we would accept all of the immigrants Mexico is willing to send our way. This would put the Coyotes out of business immediately.

Would this be a good idea? I don't know, but it might not be any worse than what we're doing right now, which creates a thriving immigration black market while doing little to prevent illegal immigration. In this respect the prohibition on non-government-sanctioned immigration from Mexico makes exactly as much sense as prohibitionist policies toward alcohol, narcotics, and opioids. Which is to say, none at all.

As in so much else, the key to solving the immigration problem is to define the problem correctly, while bearing in mind another of Burnham's Laws: Where there is no solution, there is no problem.

Among the problems commonly attributed to illegal immigration are the dilution of our public culture through multilingualism, the expansion of the prison population, and the huge costs of welfare subsidies for illegal immigrants.

The question of a common language may be the easiest to deal with: There is no reason why governments cannot be compelled to conduct official business in English, and every reason to insist that they should. Government has no business dictating the language in which we conduct our private affairs. Most immigrants, absent government intervention to prevent assimilation, will learn English out of social and economic necessity.

















A "Reconquista" Protest: Radicalized Mexican activists are theatrical, obnoxious, and sometimes violent -- but are they typical?

Recent studies of incarceration rates for immigrants and native Americans demonstrate that immigrants are not the source of a significant spike in crime; in fact, the findings suggest that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are native-born citizens. Granted, there are plenty of criminal syndicates -- some of them shockingly violent -- that draw from the immigrant population. The question, once again, is if enhancing the current prohibitionist approach is the most intelligent way of dealing with the specific problem of crimes committed by immigrants. And, once again, given the existing track record, I'm inclined to think it's about time to try something else, such as focusing law enforcement efforts solely and exclusively on prosecuting those who commit crimes against persons and property.

Where welfare subsidies for illegal immigrants are concerned, I earnestly believe that the focus is excessively narrow and entirely misdirected: Why make the immigrants the issue, as opposed to the welfare programs themselves? As Sheldon Richman points out, one would expect conservatives to cite immigrant welfare services in order "to convince the American people to dump the welfare state [by showing them] it is financially unsustainable." Rather than doing so, most conservatives profess anguished outrage that outsiders are an impermissible burden on our system of institutionalized plunder.

What is even worse, and more perplexing, than this unwonted conservative desire to preserve the sanctity of the welfare state is the way that many of them want to expand the role of the State in what remains of the private economy in the name of immigration control.

Consider the "No Gravy Train For Illegals" model legislation being promoted by some organizations as a way to address the "crisis." The proposal is built around two sets of recommendations, the first dealing with the public sector, the other with the private economy. Under the model, each state, county, and municipality would be urged "to pass a law that makes it illegal to provide anything whatsoever to an illegal alien":

From the government sector:

• It shall be illegal, by STATE LAW, to provide anything at all to illegal aliens including, but not limited to: welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, driver's license, business license, government housing, tax supported education, or any other assistance.
• There will be no state tax deductions for payments to illegal aliens.
• All government transactions will be done in English only (i.e. voter registration, employment applications, permits, etc).

From the private sector:

• It shall be illegal, by STATE LAW, to do anything at all for an illegal alien including, but not limited to: rent housing, sell real estate, sell vehicles or mobile homes, make loans, sell insurance, provide employment, provide indigent care, cash checks, enroll students, or provide transportation other than back to their country of origin.

The recommendations concerning government policy are sound. The ones dealing with the private sector are abhorrent -- and, frankly, totalitarian: They would effectively deputize every merchant and businessman as an informant and enforcer, or turn him into a criminal for providing a legal product or service to a customer of whom the government disapproves. It would be the duty of the businessman (or health care professional) to demand identity papers.

Laws of this kind have been passed in Oklahoma and Georgia, and are being considered elsewhere. An individual I respect who works as a spokesman for the organization that once employed me writes that "prosecuting either the American citizen or the illegal alien [under such a law] would deter the transaction, but prosecuting both the American citizen and the illegal alien would be best. Illegal aliens would find that they have nothing that they could do here: except to go home and get back in line with those seeking to legally immigrate."

Two problems with that assessment leap immediately to mind. The first of which is that my friend is assuming that quasi-totalitarian laws of this sort would eventually be enacted nation-wide; otherwise immigrants would simply migrate to states where such laws don't exist. The other problem is that this approach would actually expand the size and expense of the welfare state, since it would leave the existing structure intact while using access to it as an incentive for additional legal immigration.

By following this approach, we would end up with a larger, more expensive, and dramatically more intrusive version of the corrupt Leviathan State that presently rules us. Perhaps the government would succeed in keeping at least some brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking people out of the country, and for some people that seems to be a suitable trade-off.

In the current issue of The American Spectator, Tom Bethell -- a naturalized U.S. citizen and an authentic conservative -- suggests a radically different approach to immigration.

"Let those who want to work come," writes Bethell. "Pay them their wages, give them raises where necessary. Let them send money back home to Mexico, El Salvador, and the rest. But let's also discourage [better yet, abolish outright -- W.N.G.] government handouts, and keep them out of the embrace of union organizers. Let's also make sure that they don't vote."

The last recommendation is critical: The franchise is a red-letter distinction between citizen and non-citizen. And voting in a republic is a defensive exercise intended to keep the state at bay, rather than the ritual of participatory plunder it has become under our regime.

The desire to cultivate new client-constituencies is one reason both branches of the Establishment Party favor a larger immigrant population. It is also the reason why nothing will be done to limit immigration as long as we live under the current political system -- an authoritarian corporatist state supported by a degenerate mass democracy.

There is another possible outcome, however, one that is becoming increasingly likely. Should America finish its descent into an undisguised garrison state -- a process that is aided considerably by the immigration restriction movement -- our problems with both immigration and emigration will evaporate. All of us will live in a vast gulag as blighted as any Indian reservation -- which is where Washington deposited the Indians while it re-settled their lands with illegal immigrants.

A quick note --

As the title of this essay indicates, my opinions about immigration is in flux, and the foregoing represents an honest effort to think through the issue and some of its permutations. While I'm always interested to hear other points of view, in this instance I'm particularly eager to read what you think.
_____________________
*I'm only kidding, sort of.

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The New Conservatism: Chekists and Collaborators

A multi-use facility: One of the newly constructed immigration detention centers that could very easily be used to pen protesters, dissidents, or draft resisters.

Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, a Republican presidential hopeful, is the House's most conspicuous advocate of border enforcement. He is also a stalwart defender of the Warfare/Homeland Security State.

Last September, Tancredo voted in favor of both the Military Commissions Act – which destroyed the habeas corpus guarantee – and a “reform” of the Insurrection Act that gives the president the power to use the National Guard as his personal army. Interestingly, Tancredo is also a devoted supporter of Iran's so-called Iranian People's Mujahadeen (MEK), a bizarre terrorist cult whose official ideology is a fusion of Marxism and Sufism. The Warmakers in and around the Bush Regime have embraced the MEK as an ally in the low-intensity war underway between Washington and Tehran.

It seems to me that people genuinely concerned about border security would be wary of cultivating foreign wars, which inevitably generate streams of refugees and an appetite for retaliation – both of which are bad for the cause of secure borders. Thus it appears to me, at least, that Rep. Tancredo's positions are in conflict – unless his focus is on empowering Washington at all hazards, in which case his apparently contradictory positions would make some sense.

I've made this point before, but it bears repeating: The movement-wide conservative obsession with immigration reflects a successful effort to seduce “limited government” activists into supporting the creation of a garrison state -- and Tom Tancredo embodies that order of priorities perfectly.

Former Congressman Bob Barr recently made the same point in a Washington Times op-ed column referring to efforts by Tancredo and other House Republicans to pass legislation “prohibiting financial institutions from extending mortgages to anyone who cannot establish their bona fides by producing a valid Social Security number.”

Does anybody else remember – perhaps through a glaze of sepia-tinted nostalgia – that bygone era when conservative Republicans opposed the use of Social Security numbers as a de facto national identification number? Barr does, and he criticized Republican congressmen for trying to compel “private financial institutions to do the heavy lifting of combating illegal immigration because government has failed in its responsibility to properly police and monitor our borders.”

“Where, for example, will the mandates they seek – forcing businesses to determine if a person is in this country lawfully before extending credit or selling a product for which that person is otherwise eligible – be next applied?” continues Barr. “Will a bill be introduced that prohibits automobile dealers from selling a motor vehicle to anyone who cannot produce a valid Social Security card? Will landlords be forced to rent their property only to those who possess a Social Security card? Would it not make just as much sense for these advocates to require presentation of a Social Security card prior to bedding down for the night at a local Marriott?”

What Barr is describing through illustration here is a foundational principle in every surveillance society: The government must compel its subjects to act as the eyes and ears of the State. Embraced with a passion by most of the Establishment-led Right after 9-11, that principle is attracting new converts now thanks to concerns over border security.

Likewise, many of those limited government conservatives who kept their wits about them when 9-11 inspired calls for creation of an even larger “national security” leviathan have surrendered now that the police state pretext du jour is the immigration crisis.

The Denver Post points out that the new “immigration control” campaign has led to “the biggest border prison boom in decades [and created] the federal government's larges enforcement arm” -- the latter being the expanded Border Patrol, which is now an appendage of the Department of Homeland Security.

Dozens of new federal prosecutors are being hired to prosecute immigration cases. Thousands of armed federal enforcement agents are being hired and trained. Huge sums of taxpayer money are being sluiced into the coffers of the Corrections Corporation of America, Geo Group Inc., and other penal system profiteers.

All of these assets and personnel, it should be remembered, are fungible. The newly hired federal prosecutors targeting Mexican agricultural workers today could very easily be tasked tomorrow to prosecute American citizens for violating some arcane provision of the tax code or some exotic permutation of the Patriot Act. Border Patrol Agents could be seconded to other federal agencies – say, the Marshals Service in the event that muscle is needed to back up the Selective Service when the draft is reinstated. Prison spaces now filled by immigrant families could come in quite handy if the Regime decides it needs to deal roughly with dissidents or draft resisters.

For supporters of the new border initiatives, “it's a long-overdue effort to establish the rule of law,” notes the Post; “for foes, it's a slow militarization built on prison shackles and razor wire.”

Which view is accurate? That depends on whether we assume that it's possible to cast out Beelzebub by the power of Beelzebub, since the same regime that has brought us torture, military tribunals, executive rule through “signing statements,” illegal domestic surveillance, and other garrison state innovations is building the new “border security” regime.

Not your Daddy's idea of Border Security: U.S. Coast Guard Port Security Unit 311 trains at Camp Lejune, N.C.

It is irrational to believe that the same Leviathan state that waging war on liberty both at home and abroad can be trusted to use these expanded powers only for the purpose of securing our borders. We should view the DHS as America's embryonic Cheka, an assumption fully warranted by both its structure and widespread corruption. It's worth recalling, once again, that the Soviet Cheka had a large, well-armed, and very competent Border Guards Directorate – and the Soviet Union had no problem with illegal immigration.

Too many on the Right – I'm irresistibly tempted to call them Chekist Conservatives – are abetting our descent into unalloyed despotism in the name of border security. That cohort includes, alas, some people for whom I've had great respect and affection.

Shortly before I underwent an involuntary career change last October, one of my associates – a JBS official who is involved in defining that organization's agenda – explained to me in an e-mail why fighting the creation of an American Reich simply wasn't a priority for the Society:

“If a police state happens in America, and we are unable to stop it, which version do you think will be worse: 100 million Americans armed to the teeth within a walled-in country fighting against a corrupt regime? Or a tri-national police state [through the so-called North American Union] that has folded in the Mexican government and drug cartels ... into the Department of Homeland Security, with more terrorists flowing in across Latin American borders from elsewhere? Which one would you prefer taking your chances with? We don’t want either, but I go back to what I said to you elsewhere. We have a chance at winning the immigration issue and in the process drawing a lot of people to our ranks (even if the Repubs are cynically exploiting it to their own advantage), which will allow us to have more influence to stop the police state from fully blossoming.”

Why a "walled-in" police state would permit us to keep our firearms to fight the "corrupt regime" it was created to protect, my friend didn't say. Nor did he explain how it would be possible to "win" on "the immigration issue" -- as "victory" is currently defined -- without actively abetting the growth of the very police state that would suffocate what remains of our liberty. If we lose on the police state "issue," we get all of the horrors my friend describes -- and others too gruesome to describe.

It must be said: The statement quoted above (which wasn't shared with the Society's membership at large) is the authentic voice of collaboration. Every collaborator insists that he is working within the system to bring it down, and disavows the actions of more radical elements who actually take the fight to the enemy.

Most collaborators have surrendered after the State has begun to exercise its consolidated powers; in this case we see preemptive capitulation as a cynical marketing strategy. What is really painful about this particular example is that we still have a chance (an infinitesimal one, to be sure) to abort the creation of an American Reich before it comes to term, and the only alternative to outright servitude would be a gallant but doomed recourse to arms.

Chekist conservatives are more interested in building up the State than in preserving constitutional freedom. And the sad truth is that you can't expect leadership for freedom from collaborators.


Please be sure to visit The Right Source -- a collaborator-free zone for freedom-centered news, commentary, Kevin Shannon's radio program, and -- brand new! -- our Action Agenda for citizen activism.

The Scum Also Rises

Those are supposed to go on beneath your slacks, idiot.

Sewage, like water, seeks its own level. A suitable illustration of this principle is found in the recent agreement between the Homeland Security Department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division and Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County.

Doubtless there are many honorable and conscientious people among the deputies who serve under Arpaio, just as there are thousands of dutiful field officers employed by ICE. But Arpaio has become properly notorious for his proprietary brand of arrogance, authoritarianism, self-promotion, and petty corruption, and the agreement with ICE would effectively federalize one of the most scandal-ridden “local” law enforcement agencies in the nation.

Tucson's NBC affiliate KVOA reports:

“Federal immigration officials and the Maricopa County Sheriff's office signed an agreement Monday [February 26] to allow trained deputies to enforce immigration laws. Under the agreement, [ICE officials] will begin training 160 Maricopa County deputies ... to be authorized to detain and arrest suspected illegal immigrants both in the county jail and on the streets.... The agreement that Sheriff Joe Arpaio signed makes Maricopa County's participation the largest one-time addition to the effort.”

Query the first: If the suspected illegal immigrants are already in jail for alleged violations of local laws, why would Sheriff Joe need federal help to “arrest” them on immigration charges?

Query the second: Why can't local police and sheriffs arrest suspected illegal immigrants without federal “permission”? Although border security is a federal responsibility, there are ways that local law enforcement agencies can deal with the issue. For example: Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, frustrated with federal inaction, began to arrest illegal immigrants on criminal trespass charges. (Chief Chamberlain appears to be that rarest of specimens, a police chief willing to confront the Feds on behalf of his community over a matter of principle.)

I grant that this is not the optimal way of dealing with the matter. I cite Chief Chamberlain's example simply to illustrate the fact that there are better options than entrenching federal control over “local” law enforcement.

In fact, about a year ago, Sheriff Arpaio – working in tandem with County Prosecutor Andy Thomas, who yields to nobody in his implacable greed for publicity – devised another inventive approach to border security: As the Washington Post recounts, Thomas “issued an interpretation of a new state anti-smuggling law that said illegal immigrants could be arrested if they were party to a deal to smuggle themselves into the United States. Punishment could be up to two years in jail.” Arpaio promptly assembled a posse to sweep up as many illegal immigrants as they could find.

This may or may not be a good idea, but it demonstrates, once again, that federal "permission" is not necessary to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. Yet Arizona -- which is suffering tremendously as a result of the collapse of our southern border -- has been primed for a federal "solution" that will make matters even worse, as all such "solutions" invariably do. (I find myself wondering if this is an outgrowth of Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon's plea last December for additional Homeland Security funding.)

In a report published yesterday (March 1), KVOA observed that four more Arizona police departments “are considering possible deals with the federal government that would give a limited number of local and state officers training in immigration law. If the four departments ultimately get the training, they would join two other agencies in Arizona that have already ... inked agreements with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out certain federal immigration duties.”

Once again, if the federal government were carrying out its duties with respect to border security, the “need” to expand its control over nominally local police agencies. But we must remember that the Feds don't expand their powers to deal with problems – they create or exacerbate problems in order to enhance their powers. This is true whether the “problem” in question is poverty, terrorism, narcotics use, or illegal immigration.

What makes the last issue so dangerous is the fact that the entire conservative movement – from the Bu'ushist media mullahs at Fox to the leaders of the John Birch Society (this fellow being a worthy exception) – has become monomaniacal on the subject of illegal immigration. Most conservatives abandoned their skepticism of federal power in the aftermath of 9-11; too many of those who held out in defense of the Bill of Rights have displayed a willingness to set aside such scruples to deal with the “border crisis.”

Sheriff Arpaio may be the single most appropriate living symbol of the conservative movement's unabashed authoritarianism.

Joe Arpaio, who appointed himself the “Nation's Toughest Sheriff” upon being elected to the position in 1992, spent several decades working for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, both in domestically and in Mexico and Turkey.

From his experience with the DEA -- during which time he was known as "Nickel-Bag Joe" for his habit of running up stats through picayune drug busts -- Arpaio apparently learned how to exploit the “war on drugs.” It's tempting to think that his time in Mexico and Turkey inspired him to create a county jail system that has become infamous for petty corruption, abuse, torture, and lethal mistreatment of non-violent offenders.

Roughly a decade ago, a federal investigation of Arpaio's county jails conducted by Oregon corrections consultant George Sullivan concluded (as summarized by the Phoenix New Times) that “an unwise abundance of stun guns, pepper spray, restraint chairs and the practice of hog-tying, combined with Arpaio's macho rhetoric about getting tough on inmates--70 percent of whom await trial under an assumption of innocence--has led to an environment where Arpaio's employees have made `unprovoked, unnecessary and, consequently, unjustified and excessive' use of force.” Nearly identical findings were reported in a separate federal inquiry two years earlier.

The Sheriff himself has compiled a record heavily laden with odd instances of hypocrisy and casual corruption:

*Five years ago, under the threat of a federal lawsuit, Arpaio was compelled to shut down a live webcast of female inmates using the bathroom.

*During a 2004 Republican primary against former Mesa Police Chief, Daniel Saban, Arpaio leaked unsubstantiated rape allegations against his political rival to a local television station.

*In the course of a prostitution sting four years ago, Arpaio authorized undercover deputies and members of his volunteer “posse” to disrobe and even engage in sexual contact with prostitutes as part of their “investigation” -- conduct that, if carried out by private citizens, would have earned them a stay in Arpaio's tent city. In fact, although most of the 70 people arrested in the “sting” were released without charges, but a handful of customers were prosecuted for conduct more or less identical to that of Arpaio's “investigators.”

Hypocrisy and corruption are good and sufficient reasons for Arpaio to be removed from office. The lethal treatment occasionally handed out by his hired thugs is a more serious matter.

In 1996, a small-time drug offender named Scott Norberg was killed while in the custody of Arpaio's deputies. An investigation by Amnesty International documented that Norberg, who had supposedly “attacked” the deputies, was handcuffed with his face shoved into the floor when he was dragged to a “restraint chair,” where he died of “positional asphyxia.” The County eventually reached an $8 million settlement with Crenshaw's family.

Philip Wilson, who was arrested and sentenced to two months in Tent City on a parole violation, was lethally beaten with a blunt object five days after being incarcerated in July 2003; he died after several months in a coma. His mother Pearl, founder of an advocacy group called “Mothers Against Arpaio,” is a former prison guard who believes – on the basis of her experience and knowledge of Arpaio's facility – that her son was “set up” by camp guards after he had complained about conditions at the jail. According to a lawsuit filed by Pearl, the inmates who killed Philip (with the alleged connivance of guards) beat him so severely by “his blood was sprayed across the tent.”

Just a few weeks ago, the County offered $1.3 million to settle lawsuits filed by Pearl Wilson and the family of Deborah Ann Braillard, a 46-year-old diabetic woman who died of medical neglect in 2005 after being jailed on a drug charge. The lawsuit on behalf of Braillard points out that since she was a repeat offender, Tent City officials knew that she was a diabetic, but they denied her appropriate treatment for two days.

The Arpaio body count also includes Brian Crenshaw, jailed on drug and petty robbery charges, who was beaten into a fatal coma shortly after being put behind bars, and Charles Agster, a mentally handicapped man who was killed in the County Jail shortly after being arrested on misdemeanor loitering charges.

Brian Crenshaw (l.), Charles Agster (r.).

Let me repeat: Arpaio's squad of degenerate bullies killed a mentally handicapped man who had been arrested for loitering.The official story was that Crenshaw somehow suffered his fatal injuries by falling off his bunk.

I am of the opinion that drug use should not be a criminal offense; honorable people can disagree in good faith. Obviously, theft of any sort is a crime. Loitering might be considered an offense against public order, or perhaps a form of harassment in some circumstances. But obviously none of these behaviors merits the equivalent of a death sentence, particularly death through torture.

Over the past decade, Maricopa County has paid more than $13 million in legal settlements arising from incidents of this type.

As the County has absorbed the costs of his maladministration and suffocated beneath the stench of his corruption, Arpaio has withdrawn into a dictatorial cocoon: He created a “Threat Assessment Squad” -- essentially an armed praetorian guard – to insulate himself from the handful of journalists who ask him pointed questions; he has repeatedly refused to comply with requests for information he is compelled to provide under Arizona law; and last December he and his allies threatened the staff of the New Times with felony charges for publishing his home address.

The rationale offered by Arpaio is a familiar one to anyone who understands the significance of the phrase “Reichstag Fire”: The valiant Sheriff insists that his enemies are trying to kill him, as illustrated by a purported attempt to plant a bomb in his car in 1999. As it happens, the alleged bomber, a small-bore street crook named James Saville, was paid $2,000 by an undercover agent to create a dud bomb, and then led by the same undercover agent to the Sheriff's parked car. Saville was acquitted of charges in 2003.

Arpaio has never worked an honest day in his life; every cent he has been paid he has received from the taxpayers. He has been marinated for decades in statist assumptions, and as age-related dementia claims what little rationality he once possessed, he has blossomed into an undisguised megalomaniac.

Given all of this, is it any wonder that Arpaio and his Sheriff's Department would find themselves working hand-in-mailed-fist with the Homeland Security Leviathan?

Just days ago, Mitt Romney – whose presidential bid has received the blessings of the Bush crime family -- appointed Arpaio to his campaign committee in Arizona. Should Romney make it to the White House, it's likely that Arpaio would be given an elevated post – perhaps even more than a sinecure – in the Homeland Security bureaucracy.

Obiter dicta

For those who are interested in hearing my interview yesterday on Chris Arzen's program "Iron Sharpens Iron" (thanks, Chris), it is archived at the website of the Christian Liberty Party, here.

The wonderful CLP site has a huge and very valuable audio and video archive well worth your time.