Stop Border Patrol Harassment in Vermont

For the fourth time since May, agents were stopping traffic on the bridge about 30 miles south of the Canadian border and screening drivers for their citizenship status…

The Libertarian Party does not support the unconstitutional harassment, fishing expeditions and detaining of American citizens by border security. The Libertarian party supports the removal of governmental impediments to free trade and relationships. The current immigration/ border policy unreasonably constrains the right of citizens to interact/ trade across borders and should be dramatically reduced if not removed.  Read this LP press release regarding similar practices on the southern border. Also here is the Libertarian Party Platform for more info.

Some selected viewpoints below:

Excerpt from “Border Patrol Checkpoints Do Not Work — End Them“

The allocation of Border Patrol man-hours and the percent of illegal immigrant apprehensions by location comes from pages 29 and 41, respectively, of the GAO report. The marijuana seizures by weight come from page 81, where I multiplied the number of seizures by the maximum possible weight in each category, standardizing for ounces. For the category of marijuana seizures that weighed 250 pounds or more, I assumed that the average seizure was 500 pounds. Marijuana seizures by Border Patrol that weighed 250 pounds or more were only about 1.8 percent of seizures and only 3.7 percent of them occurred at checkpoints so any error from my over-or-underestimation of 500 pounds doesn’t much change the result.

Defenders of checkpoints could argue that they deter illegal immigration, so the best measurement of their effectiveness is not necessarily the number that they do actually apprehend at checkpoints. By occupying checkpoints, Border Patrol agents could divert illegal immigrants and drugs into the hands of Border Patrol agents occupying other non-checkpoint locations. Thus, checkpoints wouldn’t get the apprehension or seizure credit even though they would deserve much of it. Those are defensible theoretical arguments but they lack evidentiary support. Border Patrol should provide that support to justify its seemingly wasteful deployment of agents to checkpoints.

A simple comparative static analysis of man-hours spent on Border Patrol checkpoints shows that they result in apprehending far fewer illegal immigrants and seize less marijuana, per man-hour, than Border Patrol manpower deployed elsewhere. The government needs to make a reasonable case for why this seemingly inefficient allocation of Border Patrol resources to checkpoints is wise. If they cannot do that then they should shut down the checkpoints and stop harassing motorists.

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Excerpt from “There Is Only One Libertarian Position on Immigration“

There is a common perception that there are two alternative libertarian positions on immigration: government-controlled borders and open borders.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is only one libertarian position on immigration, and that position is open immigration or open borders.

After all, government-controlled borders and open borders are opposite positions. How could opposite positions on immigration both be consistent with libertarianism? That’s just not possible. One is consistent with libertarian principles and the other isn’t. If a position that purports to be libertarian isn’t consistent with libertarian principles, then as Ayn Rand would have said, “Check your premises.”

Why do many libertarians believe in government-controlled borders and oppose open borders?

For the same reason that there are many libertarians who believe in the national-security state, an enormous standing army, and selective foreign interventionism: they came into the libertarian movement as conservatives, owing primarily to an attraction to libertarian free-market economic principles, but unfortunately have been unable to let go of their conservative views on immigration (as well, for some, on foreign policy and other issues).

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