Immigration

The current outburst of protests against President Trump’s enforcement of immigration laws is overshadowing a question that is not being asked: Can we defend having national borders in the first place?

Vivek Ramaswamy promotes a fictional version of American history in which a handful of people created America and that culture and religion are canceled out by an ideological "creed." In truth, the American nation and the American state are two different things. 

New scholarly work is appearing regularly in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Here is a sampling of recently published articles.

Immigration is discussed in the context of the view that treating public property as privately owned by the taxpayers is the only coherent and justifiable libertarian position.

On this episode of Power and Market, the group discusses the fallout from Israel's strikes on Iran and the Trump Administration's (changing?) position on immigration enforcement.

Bob breaks down the recent Soho Forum immigration debate between Dave Smith and Alex Nowrasteh, clarifying the critical libertarian questions around property rights, open borders, and government authority.

The federal government didn't take charge of immigration policy until the 1880s. In the early republic, almost everyone agreed that immigration policy was a matter for the states.

Immigration is an economic issue among others, and the reality is that resources are finite.

For all the political rhetoric about building “affordable housing,” the reality is housing prices will only go up, and tariffs will contribute to the increase.

Remittances—financial transfers from migrants to their home countries—are often lauded as a driver of economic growth in developing nations. While remittances provide short-term relief for recipient households, their overall impact on economic growth remains questionable.