I think that’s an incorrect construction.

A solution would be to allow unlimited visas which carried neither political franchise nor entitlement eligibility. No one needs to provide “papers” UNLESS they want to avail themselves of the coercive apparatus of the state. No one is ‘illegal’ for existing.

In any case, let me be clear that I completely oppose any state laws or action that restricts immigration.

It would seem that Mr. Kinsella believes that, in taking the strict libertarian property rights view on which he bases his analysis, his is the correctly “plumb line” view. (Or at least potentially the properly “plumb line” view.)

However, he cites not only libertarian property rights and restitution, but also majoritarian sentiment as a proper basis for restitution to the taxpayer in the particular case of gov’t borders, which is an interesting reason for why a “plumb line” Hoppean argues in favor of some kind of government control of borders.

If we’re going to take a strictly property rights view, I think it would be just as “plumb line” for libertarians to argue against gov’t control of borders on the basis that they seek to provide an easement to immigrants, such as we would have in the absolutely stateless alternative universe.

Why the granting of easement may be construed to be even more “plumb line” libertarian, and is thus the argument taxpaying libertarians should be making to taxpaying nonlibertarians, compared to Mr. Kinsella’s argument, is that it logically concludes with not de facto advocating for gov’t agents to run about the borders rounding people up for not having the proper papers and sticking them into KBR corporate welfare detention centers–perhaps for months at a time–before being shoved back to the other side of the border and back into the piss poor poverty-ridden conditions they fled from. (Much of which was created to some degree by one-sided NAFTA trade policy favoring politically connected U.S. business interests at the expense of Latin American business interests.)

(BTW, I’m well aware that Mr. Kinsella does not advocate for or condone the gov’t actions/policies cited in the above paragraph. But as a “plumb line” anarcho-capitalist he knows full well that is frequently the logical conclusion of allowing some degree of gov’t monopoly control over any property, whatever rationale he may be offering for it. Thus he must recognize the consistency of this logic with regard to gov’t borders or else reduce himself to being a minarchist reformist on the immigration issue.)

(I must say that I often like taking the side of the immigrationally obsessed. See the blog The Lesson Applied for recent debate. The consequences of previous interventions are especially nasty when it comes to immigration.)

I guess the libertarian stance would be: See folks, this is the mess that your interventions have wrought. And whatever fix you propose, it, too, will likely fail, thus calling up another opportunity for more coercion in society. If you fix it, it will get worse. Until you let us provide OUR fix: Freedom.