A Question for Anti-Immigration Libertarians

[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

I accept the traditional libertarian arguments for open borders. But I’m not going to rehash those arguments here.

Let me try a different tack.

Libertarian defenders of gun rights like to point out that gun control has often been a precursor to, because an enabler of, democide. When they are asked “do you really think our government poses that sort of danger?” they rightly remind the questioner that relatively benign regimes are sometimes succeeded by rather less nice regimes, who conveniently inherit a disarmed public, or at least a gun-registered public (so they know just where to go to round up the arms), from their predecessors. (Obvious example: the Weimar Republic.)

So here’s a reminder and a question for anti-immigration libertarians, and particularly for those who support the proposed U.S.-Mexican Border Fence.

A wall that can be used to keep people out can also be used to keep people in.

Do we really want to trust the U.S. government – meaning not only the present regime but all future U.S. regimes – with a tool of that nature?