Freedom of Movement: The Case Against Bordertarians

By: San Man

Introduction: The Forgotten Border

There cannot be a right to restrict the freedom of movement of others, unless they are violating your rights."
- Murray Rothbard (paraphrased from “Power and Market”)

In the pantheon of libertarian priorities, sound money, decentralization, free markets, and personal autonomy, the issue of immigration often sits in an awkward corner. It shouldn’t. Of all modern institutions, the border is perhaps the clearest expression of state control, collectivist fear, and taxpayer-funded coercion. Yet many who proudly call themselves libertarians, champions of individual liberty and enemies of state overreach, make a peculiar exception when it comes to the free movement of people

They’ll argue for the abolition of the Department of Education, but not Border Patrol. They’ll rightly decry price controls on milk, but advocate for quotas on labor. They oppose tariffs, yet support border agents who prevent willing employers and willing workers from transacting. The contradiction is glaring.

The root of the confusion lies in the nation’s seductive appeal. Unlike other state structures that libertarians see, such as welfare bureaucracies or tax agencies, the nation appeals to identity. It wraps coercion in culture, central planning in patriotism. The flag on the border fence doesn't read "Government Property, Keep Out." It reads “Home.” That psychological framing clouds judgment, even among those otherwise committed to voluntaryism.

But from a strict libertarian or anarcho-capitalist lens, the state border is not a moral boundary. It is a legal fiction maintained through violence. It is not owned, it is claimed. Rights do not protect it, but by surveillance towers, boots on the ground, drones in the sky, and detention camps on standby.

The state doesn't own your land. It claims dominion over who may cross it using your money, without your consent, to limit who you can trade with, associate with, or invite into your home. The principle at work is not one of defense; it is one of prohibition.

If you are genuinely committed to property rights, free association, and non-aggression, then you must ask: Who owns the border? Who owns the roads? The sidewalks? The entry points? Who gets to say "No" on your behalf? And who gets to do it with guns?

This is not a debate about left versus right. It is about principle versus power. The border, as enforced by governments, is a collectivist institution that restricts the movement of peaceful individuals based on arbitrary national origin. It is an affront to liberty, cloaked in the language of order.

Indeed, to support the idea that people may be stopped, detained, or deported, not because they have harmed anyone, but because they were born on the wrong patch of dirt, is to affirm a form of legal apartheid. It is statism at its purest: control for its own sake, enforced by a monopoly on violence.

The libertarian commitment to liberty must be universal, or it becomes a brand, not a principle. A movement for personal freedom that forgets the freedom to move has forgotten its roots.

The sections ahead will explore this in detail, covering property rights, welfare objections, cultural fears, and the vision of decentralized, private control over movement. But it must start here:

The state border is not sacred. It is not legitimate. It is not yours.

And if libertarians are to be consistent, they must confront that reality head-on.

Property Rights, Not National Rights

"The libertarian position is simple: people have the right to do anything that’s peaceful. If you want to stop them, you’d better own the property they’re standing on."
- Jacob Hornberger, The Future of Freedom Foundation

In a libertarian worldview, property rights are the cornerstone of civilization. They emerge not from majority vote or geographic accident, but from homesteading, contract, and voluntary exchange. The right to exclude, to say “this is mine, not yours,” applies not to collectives but to individuals and associations who rightfully own something.

But the state does not own the land it polices. It taxes it. It regulates it. It claims it. And nowhere is this more apparent than at the so-called “national border.”

The United States-Mexico border, for instance, is not a chain of privately owned homesteads each exercising voluntary control. It is a government-imposed line drawn across deserts, rivers, and neighborhoods, enforced by public agents funded by coerced taxation. To claim that “we” own the border is to collectivize property. It is to imply that by living within a tax jurisdiction, you somehow gain a share in the exclusionary power of the state, a bizarre form of state-sanctioned “public ownership,” enforced at gunpoint.

The idea that “we the people” own the border is a myth. It is the same myth that undergirds socialist public housing, government-run parks, and state-controlled industries: that because it’s “ours,” the state has the right to manage it, exclude others from it, and police its usage. Libertarians rightly reject that logic in economic contexts. Why, then, do some embrace it in immigration?

The Private Border Thought Experiment

Let’s imagine a free society: a world where all land, roads, homes, and businesses are privately owned. In such a world, there would be no "immigration policy" at all, only property rights. You cannot enter a home unless invited. You cannot trespass on a ranch. You cannot squat on a business’s doorstep. But if a property owner does invite you if they wish to house you, employ you, sell to you, or welcome you into their voluntary community, there is no moral basis for anyone else to interfere.

In this context, the freedom of movement is simply the freedom to be invited, to engage in peaceful, consensual relationships with others across arbitrary lines. Any outsider who infringes on property is subject to justice. But someone walking down a privately funded street, on their way to a consensual job interview or to rent a room, is not a criminal. They are simply... moving.

Thus, the immigration debate is not truly about movement; it is about ownership. And here the state reveals its fraud.

If you oppose a peaceful migrant crossing the desert to take a job on a private farm, what you are really saying is: “I believe the government owns that desert, the road, the sky above it, and the right to tell the farm who they may hire.” That is not libertarianism. That is state ownership writ large.

The Nationalist Fallacy

Some libertarians invoke a second-order justification: “But in the absence of a fully privatized society, shouldn’t we restrict immigration on public lands to protect taxpayers?”

This line of thinking is tempting but dangerous. It grants the state power to exclude based on collective entitlement. Imagine applying the same logic elsewhere: banning certain people from public parks because they might litter, or from public libraries because they might not be proficient in English. It would be seen as racist, coercive, and authoritarian. Why is it acceptable when the park is the border and the library is the city?

We already live in a mixed economy. Public roads exist. State schools exist. So do taxes, welfare, and government buildings. But our principles do not shift based on state ownership. If we oppose gun control, we do not make exceptions for government-owned spaces. If we support free speech, we do not abandon it at the door of a state university. Why, then, should we abandon freedom of movement at the border?

Philosopher Michael Huemer sharply stated this principle:

"If you would not be justified in using violence to prevent a person from walking down a street to accept a job offer, you are not justified in hiring someone else to use violence to do it on your behalf."

The statist border is, ultimately, a rejection of property rights. It says: “You cannot invite whom you want into your home, into your business, onto your farm, or into your church unless they’ve been approved by bureaucrats 2,000 miles away.” That is not freedom. That is managed association.

And let us be clear: it is not a temporary compromise. It is a central planning regime that governs labor, housing, trade, and residency. It turns people into permits, workers into contraband, and the human journey into a paperwork puzzle.

The Myth of the Welfare Magnet

“The welfare state is the problem, not immigration. End the subsidies, not the freedom to move.”
- Ron Paul

One of the most common arguments leveled against open borders, even from within the libertarian camp, is the claim that immigrants will exploit the welfare state. It’s a fear often framed as pragmatic rather than ideological: “I support open borders in theory, but not until we dismantle the welfare system.”

On the face of it, this concern sounds reasonable, but dig deeper and you find not a principled argument but a misplaced moral hierarchy. It is a justification for collective punishment: restricting the liberty of peaceful individuals based on the fear that some might access taxpayer-funded benefits. This turns immigration control into a preemptive strike, punishing the innocent for the alleged future sins of the system.

Let’s address this objection on three levels: empirical, ethical, and strategic.

I. Empirical Reality: Do Immigrants Drain the System?

The data tells a consistent story, one that directly contradicts the populist narrative. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, tend to be net contributors to public finances, not drains. They are younger, more likely to be of working age, and far less likely to receive public benefits compared to native-born citizens.

A 2013 report from the Cato Institute found that noncitizen households use welfare programs at lower rates than native-born households once you control for income. More recent analysis shows that undocumented immigrants are especially unlikely to receive benefits because they are legally excluded from most programs. Yet, they pay billions in taxes annually, including sales tax, property tax (through rent), and income tax (via ITINs and payroll withholding).

Consider Social Security: undocumented immigrants pay into it using false or borrowed Social Security numbers, but cannot legally claim benefits. The SSA’s own estimates suggest that these contributions exceed $12 billion per year, funds that prop up the system for everyone else.

What about public education and healthcare? Yes, immigrants use these services, but they also fill the jobs that make those systems run. They are overrepresented in eldercare, janitorial work, construction, and agriculture. They don’t just cost the system, they build it, staff it, and subsidize it.

In short, immigrants are not looters. They are taxpayers, workers, and economic agents just like anyone else.

II. Ethical Reality: The Welfare State is Not an Excuse for Tyranny

Even if immigrants did overuse public benefits (they don’t), that would not justify stripping them of their right to move, work, or live freely.

Libertarians do not believe that government redistribution justifies infringing on rights. We oppose gun confiscation, even if some gun owners commit crimes. We oppose speech restrictions, even when some individuals use language to offend. We reject the premise that abuse by a few justifies coercion against all.

Why, then, do so many libertarians suspend this principle when it comes to immigrants?

Let’s make the logic plain: If you believe that immigrants should be denied entry because they might use public benefits, you are arguing that access to freedom should be means-tested. That’s not libertarianism, that’s technocratic paternalism.

By that logic, one could just as easily bar low-income citizens from reproducing, or prohibit unvaccinated people from entering hospitals, or forbid the elderly from relocating to warm-weather states where healthcare costs rise.

The ethical standard must be this: liberty is not contingent on cost-efficiency. It is not a reward for good behavior. It is a right, and to deny it because of the structure of state welfare is to concede that the state owns the commons and everyone in it.

III. Strategic Reality: You Don’t Shrink Government by Expanding It

Some argue for a “temporary compromise”: limit immigration until the welfare state is dismantled. But this is backwards. Using the apparatus of coercion to protect us from other government programs does not shrink the state; it reinforces it.

Every dollar spent on immigration enforcement is a dollar poured into surveillance, checkpoints, militarized borders, and bureaucracies that exist to police peaceful people. Immigration restrictions are not “neutral.” They are enforcement-heavy, rights-stripping programs with real victims’ families separated, workers detained, and refugees deported. The costs are paid in human freedom.

Moreover, the welfare state has never shrunk because immigration was restricted. On the contrary, the surveillance powers created to target immigrants are eventually turned inward, used against citizens in the name of national security. Every border wall becomes a precedent for internal checkpoints. Every “papers, please” demand at a port of entry becomes a norm on the city bus.

Want to fight the welfare state? Do it at the source. End subsidies. End entitlements. But do not sacrifice the rights of foreigners in the hope that Leviathan will be satisfied. It never is.

The Voluntaryist Response

A truly libertarian solution is to privatize the commons, not fortify the border. If welfare is the concern, then allow private charities, mutual aid societies, and market-based services to flourish. Let property owners decide whom they welcome. Let employers hire. Let renters rent. Let travelers move.

In that vision, “immigration” is not a policy. It’s just people moving, trading, building, and living. The borders disappear because the land is already owned, just not by the state.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
- George Bernard Shaw

Indeed, many fear that freedom will bring chaos. But that fear is not a license to control others. If we are to be consistent advocates for liberty, we must not build cages around the world and call it prudence. Let us instead tear down the walls of state control, welfare, and border alike, and create a world where freedom of movement is not feared, but embraced.

Culture, Crime, and Fear: The Hidden Collectivism in Anti-Immigration Thinking

“If we are to be free men, we must resist the temptation to control others simply because they are different. The price of liberty is letting others live as they choose, even when we wouldn’t choose it ourselves.”
- F.A. Harper, Liberty: A Path to Its Recovery

Once the economic myths surrounding immigration begin to unravel, and it becomes clear that immigrants do not drain the welfare state, but rather often contribute more than they take, a second, more visceral objection emerges: cultural preservation and public safety.

This is where the libertarian conversation about immigration often goes off the rails, because it reveals a dangerous flirtation with collectivism in the name of order. In the name of “preserving American values,” many libertarians begin to sound less like advocates of freedom and more like conservative central planners.

They argue that immigrants might not share “our culture.” That they may not understand property rights, or value liberty, or speak English. They worry that high immigration levels might undermine social cohesion, lead to higher crime, or change the character of neighborhoods.

These are emotionally powerful concerns, but morally bankrupt ones if you apply libertarian ethics consistently. Let’s examine why.

I. Culture Is Not a Valid Basis for Rights Denial

Libertarians reject the idea that group characteristics justify coercion. We don’t deny free speech to religious fundamentalists because they might oppose free thought. We don’t deny the right to bear arms to those who vote for gun control. We don’t ban conservatives from California or progressives from Texas on the grounds that they will “change the culture.”

Why, then, do some libertarians accept this logic when it comes to foreigners?

There is no libertarian version of “cultural gatekeeping” that doesn’t immediately collapse into majoritarianism or statism. It assumes that a centralized entity (the federal government) must assess the “cultural compatibility” of individuals and enforce it with state violence. This is the same logic behind every regime that bans dissenters, expels minorities, and forces assimilation at gunpoint.

To believe in liberty is to believe that people can coexist with different values as long as they do not initiate force. That is the non-aggression principle in practice. If you fear someone's religion, language, customs, or economic habits, you are free to avoid them. You are not free to coerce them out of the country because they don’t match your aesthetic ideal.

“Libertarians don’t believe in controlling others based on what they might do. We believe in punishing actual aggression, not preemptively restricting liberty.”
- Sheldon Richman

Culture is not static. It is constantly evolving. And liberty is what allows different cultures to interact without violence, through trade, persuasion, and voluntary association. If a culture is worth preserving, it will be maintained by people choosing to live it, not by fences and force.

II. Crime and the Immigrant Scapegoat

The crime argument is equally familiar: that immigrants bring lawlessness, drugs, or violence.

This is not only false, it is perhaps the most empirically debunked myth in the immigration debate.

Study after study, whether from Cato, the National Academy of Sciences, or Harvard’s Kennedy School, has shown that immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than native-born citizens. In some jurisdictions, the difference is dramatic. And among undocumented immigrants, the crime rate is often even lower.

Why?

Because immigrants, especially those without legal status, have strong incentives to avoid run-ins with the law. They tend to work long hours, build families, and avoid public trouble. Their biggest “crime” is being present without paperwork, a crime created not by moral wrongdoing, but by bureaucratic decree.

And yet, in popular discourse, they are painted as criminals. One policy violation, entering a country without state permission, is used to justify entire systems of surveillance, detention, and deportation.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: if libertarians were to apply that same logic to other policy violators, say, gun owners who forgot to register their firearm, or cannabis users in prohibition states, we would rightly cry foul. We would not call them “criminals” in a meaningful moral sense. We would call them victims of unjust laws.

Immigrants deserve the same presumption.

“Breaking an unjust law does not make one a criminal. It makes one a rebel against tyranny.”
— Lysander Spooner (paraphrased)

The “immigrant crime wave” is a fantasy born from fear and political opportunism. Libertarians should not indulge it. We are supposed to be the rational, principled counterweight to populist panic, not its enablers.

III. Fear Is Not a Justification for State Violence

Ultimately, both the culture and crime arguments boil down to one thing: fear. Fear of the other. Fear of change. Fear of difference. And fear, when legitimized, is the fuel of authoritarianism.

It is fear that allows governments to suspend rights, build walls, profile travelers, and turn peaceful laborers into threats. It is fear that lets bureaucracies justify mass surveillance and unaccountable raids. And it is fear that causes many libertarians to quietly close the door when it opens just a little too wide.

But fear is not a justification for violating the rights of others, especially when those “others” are doing nothing more than seeking a better life through peaceful means.

If someone commits a crime, they should be punished. If someone violates property, prosecute them; however, do not presume guilt based solely on their birthplace. That is the essence of collective judgment, the very thing libertarianism opposes in every other context.

“Individualism means that every person is to be judged as an individual, and held responsible only for his own actions. Nothing else is consistent with liberty.”
- Ayn Rand

Libertarians must apply their principles universally or not at all. If you believe in the sovereignty of the individual, in free association, and in voluntary order, then it does not matter whether someone comes from Syria, Sweden, or San Diego. What matters is their behavior, not their biography.

To oppose immigration on cultural or criminal grounds is to sacrifice principle at the altar of prejudice.

And that is a price too high for any movement that claims to stand for liberty.

Borders Are Statist: The Machinery of Control Liberty Forgot to Fight

"You cannot have a free society and a closed society at the same time. One must give way."
— Sheldon Richman

If libertarians pride themselves on anything, it’s their hostility toward state power: its bureaucracy, its violence, its surveillance. We rally against TSA pat-downs, FBI overreach, and NSA wiretapping. We mock the alphabet soup of federal agencies, the bootlicking of law-and-order statists, and the mindless expansion of the national security state.

However, curiously, for some libertarians, one agency stands out. One wall is sacred. One set of uniforms is met not with suspicion, but reverence: Border Patrol.

This double standard reveals a deep fracture in the libertarian psyche. The very people who oppose checkpoints, ID laws, facial recognition, and government monopolies make an exception for immigration enforcement, a sector that relies on all of those things.

Let’s be blunt: borders are not just lines on a map. They are regimes of control. They are where the state deploys its most militarized, discretionary, and rights-violating tools, not to stop aggression, but to prevent freedom of movement.

Let’s take a hard look at what borders actually require, and what they have become.

I. A Bureaucratic Machine of Coercion

Immigration enforcement in the United States is administered by a sprawling constellation of agencies: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and countless local law enforcement bodies deputized under “287(g)” agreements to enforce federal immigration law.

This alphabet army:

• Maintains a 100-mile “Constitution-free zone” around the border, where agents can stop, question, and search anyone without a warrant or probable cause.

• Operates detention centers, often privately run, where peaceful migrants, including children, are caged for days, weeks, or months.

• Deploys drone surveillance and vehicle-mounted scanners to track movement.

• Raids workplaces, private gatherings, and homes based on anonymous tips or algorithmic profiles.

• Routinely separates families, deports long-time residents, and bars entry to peaceful travelers based on quotas, caps, or country of origin.

This is not “defense.” This is not “security.” This is central planning with a badge and a gun.

“The worst part of government is when it decides who can go where, live where, work where, based on arbitrary national origin. That is not freedom. That is apartheid.”
— Bryan Caplan, Open Borders

Libertarians cannot claim to oppose the bureaucratic state and simultaneously support its most authoritarian branch. To defend the modern border regime is to protect a Leviathan of cages, checkpoints, and command-and-control policing.

II. A Surveillance State in Disguise

Border enforcement is not confined to the perimeter. It creeps inward, slowly but surely infecting the rest of society. The tools used to track immigrants don’t stay confined to deserts and ports of entry; they become standard everywhere.

We now see:

• Internal checkpoints dozens of miles from the border, asking citizens for ID without suspicion.

• Biometric databases shared across agencies, fed by DHS facial recognition at airports.

• “E-Verify” programs that turn private employers into agents of the state, forcing them to screen hires through federal systems.

• National Real ID requirements that tie mobility to government approval.

• Local police collaborating with ICE in traffic stops and arrests, creating de facto immigration enforcement far from any border.

Each of these expands the state’s reach. Each normalizes the idea that the government must approve your movement, your work, and your identity.

Libertarians should recognize this as the infrastructure of tyranny. The surveillance state, once justified in the name of “border security,” becomes the default mode of governance. It doesn’t stop at immigrants. It starts with them, then spreads to everyone.

III. The Border as Welfare for the National Security State

Ironically, the border has become one of the most effective excuses for growing government.

Billions are poured into ICE and CBP. Drone contracts. Detention centers. Biometric scanning software. Armed vehicles and riot gear. New departments. New authorities. New laws.

It is the perfect racket for the managerial state: paint foreigners as a threat, then sell the solution as control.

This is why every budget cycle expands DHS. Why both political parties vote for more fencing. Why tech companies quietly partner with border enforcement agencies: fear sells authoritarianism.

Libertarians often warn that government power expands through emergencies, wars, recessions, and pandemics. The border is treated like a permanent emergency, justifying a permanent surveillance and enforcement regime.

In this sense, the modern border is not just a statist institution. It is a statist Trojan horse, one that smuggles in authoritarianism while the population cheers it on.

IV. A Wall Is Not a Market Solution

Sometimes libertarians try to split the difference: “I don’t want ICE raids, just a secure border,” or “I just want orderly immigration through proper channels.”

This is magical thinking.

There is no such thing as an "orderly, government-controlled border" that does not require state violence. There is no “channel” that is voluntary. You either have a government-enforced exclusion system, with all the force, paperwork, and detention that implies, or you don’t.

Even the wall itself, a favorite symbol of border hawks, is a perfect metaphor for state dysfunction: a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer-funded boondoggle, eminent domain seizures, contracts handed to crony firms, and no measurable impact on migration.

There is nothing free market about a wall. It is the government telling you who you may trade with, hire, house, or invite into your life. That is not capitalism. That is prohibition.

“If the government told you who you could or couldn’t hire for your business, you’d call it fascism. But put a border between you and the worker, and suddenly it’s patriotism?”
- Anonymous X user (I forgot)

V. Private Borders vs. Government Borders

A common defense from more Hoppean-minded libertarians is: “In a libertarian society, borders would exist; they’d just be private.” This is true. But that’s precisely the point.

Private borders are the logical extension of property rights. If you own land, you can exclude others from it. If you run a community or business, you can set the terms of entry. There’s no contradiction.

However, that is not what currently exists. Today, the state excludes people from public property it claims to manage, but does not own. It tells employers whom they may hire. It blocks voluntary contracts, forbids peaceful residence, and overrides consent between parties.

That is not private property. That is a state monopoly.

Libertarians must not conflate exclusion with authority. Yes, you may exclude people from your home. No, that does not give the government the moral right to exclude someone from walking down a road, entering a building, or applying for a job someone voluntarily offers.

Conclusion: Liberty Doesn’t Stop at the Border

"Either you believe in freedom of association, or you believe in central planning. There is no neutral ground at the border."
- Jacob Hornberger

Borders are more than lines on a map. They are lines in the mind, lines that too many self-described libertarians allow to distort their moral clarity.

We reject government schools because they are coercive.
We reject welfare programs because they are redistributive.
We reject tariffs because they interfere with voluntary trade.
We reject the drug war because it punishes nonviolent behavior.
We reject surveillance because it presumes guilt without cause.
We reject central banking because it monopolizes the lifeblood of the market.

And yet, when it comes to the movement of people, many libertarians flinch. They make exceptions. They appeal to "public property," to "cultural stability," to "pragmatism." They invoke fear of change, fear of strangers, and fear of consequences, forgetting that fear is the fuel of every authoritarian impulse ever enacted.

The border is not a wall that keeps “them” out. It is a wall that keeps the state in, in your wallet, in your relationships, in your labor contracts, in your hiring decisions, in your housing options, in your community associations.

It is the ultimate restriction on free association. It tells you who you may welcome into your home, your business, your place of worship, not based on your consent, but on a bureaucrat’s checklist.

And what does it require to enforce?

• A national security state.

• Taxpayer funding.

• Internal checkpoints.

• ID requirements.

• Biometric surveillance.

• Detention without trial.

• Raids on homes and workplaces.

• Armed agents tasked with stopping people who have harmed no one.

That is not libertarianism. That is a soft police state, and too many libertarians are cheering it on.

We don’t abolish the welfare state by empowering ICE.
We don’t protect property rights by nationalizing association.
We don’t shrink government by giving it more guns and fences.
We don’t secure liberty by treating foreigners as threats until proven otherwise.

This is the great irony: To defend the state border is to betray the free society.