With the campaign and election of Donald Trump there’s been a whole lot of talk about immigration, including a good bit of chatter in the libertarian community.  Some libertarians are in favor of open borders and other are not.  Rollo had a bit of a back and forth with Liberty Hangout a few months back and just the other day wrote an article titled “Does Immigration Grow the State?”.  I’m going to piggyback off his latest article.

The argument that Rollo addressed was a libertarian argument in favor of closed borders that says something like, “the reason we need closed borders is because many immigrants end up on welfare, once you’re on welfare you rarely get off, and that will grow the state.”  I think this misses the real issue and only argues to legitimize the welfare state.

If you understand that taxation is theft (if you do not realize that, please explain in the comments how it isn’t) why do you care where the stolen money goes? Shouldn’t we be saying, “Stop stealing!”?  If someone routinely broke into your house and stole $20, why would you care what he did with the $20?  Don’t you just want him to stop stealing?  Does it make a difference whether he gives the money to your next door neighbor, someone who lives in another state, someone who just moved here from some other country, or just spends it on himself?

Let’s say this neighborhood robber not only stole your money, but everyone’s in the neighborhood.  He then opened up a store in the neighborhood giving away “free” stuff.  It would make sense that people would want to go there to get the free stuff.  The problem isn’t so much with people from other neighborhoods getting the stuff as much as that the stuff is paid for with stolen money.  Let’s take steps to stop the theft.

By differentiating between welfare going to immigrants and citizens you’re implicitly saying there is difference between the two.  I think you’re missing the real issue and, in effect, saying that while welfare to immigrants is wrong, welfare to citizens is legitimate.