Immigration

The MinuteManProject has focused a lot of attention on Immigration. Yesterday some co-workers asked my opinion on this topic.

I told them that I believe that all men are created equal and that no matter where they were born they should have the freedom to live whereever they want. As part of allowing open immigration we need to drastically reduce the government handouts that are available to immigrants. We should also reduce the handouts available to native citizens.

One of the things that led me to this belief was an article I read many years ago about a family trying to come to America from Cuba. With a little searching I found the article, Bringing the Border War Home. It was published in the October 1995 issue of Reason magazine. Whenever I read this story it brings tears to my eyes.

In the national din over immigration, Lizbet Martinez's story barely rates a whisper. She's just a little girl, born in Cuba in 1983. Her mother was a dentist, her father a truck driver, and Lizbet was their first child. Like all new parents, Danne and Jorge Martinez found that having a child changed their lives in ways they couldn't have imagined before she was born. Sleeping through the night was a thing of the past. And a simple trip to the market suddenly required so much planning and preparation that it seemed like a military operation.

Yet it was only when Lizbet was old enough to go to school that the most profound change of all became obvious. Like many, probably most Cubans, Lizbet's parents led double lives. At work, they dutifully chanted the praises of the Cuban Revolution and its all-powerful leader, Fidel Castro. But at home, behind closed doors, they cursed him for turning Cuba into an economic waste land and political dead end, a country without a future.

That was fine when it was just the two of them. But now Lizbet would be leaving the house each day to sit in class with a teacher who owed his job to his membership in Cuba's Communist Party. What happened if the little girl repeated something she had heard at home? How long would it be until her parents were fired, or their ration cards were confiscated, or their house was seized, or they were summoned to the Ministry of the Interior for questioning?

Read the full story.

Here is an article about where Lizbet Martinez is today.

The following is an excerpt from the Libertarian Party position on Immigration:

The Libertarian Party has long recognized the importance of allowing free and open immigration, understanding that this leads to a growing and more prosperous America. We condemn the xenophobic immigrant bashing that would build a wall around the United States. At the same time, we recognize that the right to enter the United States does not include the right to economic entitlements such as welfare. The freedom to immigrate is a freedom of opportunity, not a guarantee of a handout.