To sum it up for arturo, who seems only interested in justifying lawlessness, being an American is not a “right” one has. That considered libertarians do not see any problem with laws concerning immigration except like LP said when they favor people arbitrarily from certain countries.

Current immigration laws set aside a good deal of slots for persons from Central and South America when they should make no distinction as to origin only qualification to be productive citizens who believe in liberty and are willing to support inalienable rights.

If Mexicans don’t like their own country, they have the inalienable right to reform it and even emulate us when reforming theirs. But they do not have a right to live in ours. Such a right was never articulated by any of the founders or any of the philosophers that influenced them.

“That with illegal immigration has come prosperity means the government was wrong in making it illegal. Amnesty means we take responsibility and we’re fixing our mistake.”

No, the prosperity came despite illegal immigration not because of it. Nice try but your attempt to justify the commissioning of a crime by claiming that the crime brought good things is not going to fly.

Amnesty means that you don’t want to be held accountable for committing a crime you knew was a crime.

“I’m surprised that a libertarian believes that economic interests should surrender to bad government laws, rather than laws being guided by the free market.”

Then you do not understand “libertarianism”. You probably have been listening to those faux libertarians who believe in open borders. Libertarianism believes in rights with limits that you do not infringe on someone else’s rights.

You assume the law was bad. But you have not explained why the law is bad. You have just simply stated it as being bad.

Here is why it is not bad. As a nation, we have to determine who can and who cannot come here. The sad reality of it is that we cannot accept everyone with a desire to come here. So we set standards to test to see if someone is worthy of becoming an American.

The first of those tests are our immigration laws, which if anything, are “bad” because they arbitrarily favor people from certain countries (like Mexico) instead of judging each person based on their own merits.

There is nothing inherently bad with a country securing its borders and desiring to keep out people not interested in following her laws. Illegal aliens would fall into this category because they cannot even follow simple procedures to come here legally. We do not want or need people like this the United States.

When you break those laws you fail the test. And when you do further criminal acts such as stealing the identities of other people to get jobs and harm their credit, etc. you are certainly harming their rights.

One does not have a right to be in a certain country because you do not like your nation of origin. It is a privelege you must earn. And that violates no one’s rights.

I’m surprised that a libertarian believes that economic interests should surrender to bad government laws, rather than laws being guided by the free market.

“But they take back with them ideas that work, freedom and democracy.”

No, what they take back with them is the idea that it is ok to break the law and that they will be rewarded for doing so. Wrong lesson to teach.

The only thing that is an “embarrassment” is on Mexico’s part such as many of their people would rather come to America illegally than live in their own country legally.

Reports are coming out now that the downturn in the economy is causing migrations back. When an illegal immigrant is not needed, he’ll leave. When and where he’s needed, it means those areas of the economy are healthy. Government harassing those healthy parts of our economy is a very bad idea. Yeah, enforcement works, because it accelerates the downturn in the economy.

Over the past 30 years, the size of the average Mexican family in Mexico has decreased from mom-dad-six-kids to mom-dad-two-kids. With a stable population, and a growing free market economy, soon Mexicans will no longer be interested in us. In fact, it’s likely the recent decreases in crossings (apprehensions) are simply a result of that.

The fence is a big waste of money. In twenty years, we’ll be looking at it with embarrassment.