In 2016, I ran for state Senate as a Libertarian Party candidate. I took the race as seriously as I could, given my limited time, budget and chances. One of the rules I followed, to the best of my ability, was to always show up when invited to an event. Early in the campaign, that included speaking at a conservative luncheon. The group wasn’t fond of Republican frontrunner Heidi Gansert and was shopping for alternatives, so they asked me to make my case. I still remember the first question I was asked when I introduced myself:

What are you going to do to keep Syrian refugees from bankrupting Washoe County schools?

I glibly and facetiously replied that I would “Build a wall on the Sierras and make California pay for it,” which carefully elided something I knew full well: The Libertarian position on migration is far more open and liberal than even most Democrats would embrace (out loud), and this was the same crowd to which Adam Laxalt is now throwing red meat when he expresses thinly veiled skepticism of domestic migration.

After enjoying the laughter that followed my remark, I followed another rule I had adopted for the campaign trail and answered it seriously and straightforwardly. I explained that the federal government, with support from the Supreme Court, had made it clear that immigration was a federal issue, not a state issue, and besides, Nevada already has constitutionally guaranteed open borders with all of its neighbors. So (I helpfully pointed out) they probably wouldn’t like me as a congressman, but as a state senator, I’d serve them nicely.

It turned out I was wrong.

Since the election of President Trump, immigration has become a state issue. Had I been elected to the state Senate, I would be out of step with both parties. The Libertarian position on immigration, according to the Libertarian Party platform and which I broadly agree with, is crystal clear:

3.4 Free Trade and Migration

We support the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. Political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital across national borders. However, we support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a credible threat to security, health or property.

For some Libertarians, even the sentence at the end (are we really going to let President Trump independently define “credible threat” for all of us?) is a bit too close to the position held by most conservatives, myself included. The bottom line is this: Libertarians do not believe people of any origin should be prohibited from living anywhere they wish to live and work, as long as they do so peacefully. I do not recognize or accept any government’s right to make the free movement of people across borders “illegal” based solely on their nation of birth.

Some Libertarians argue that banning, say, Muslims makes as much sense as banning guns. And for some, even that doesn’t quite go far enough. The Center for a Stateless Society, for example, argues that America has always been a nation of criminals, so there’s no use singling immigrants out specifically. The group calls for decriminalizing (not legalizing, in which the government explicitly grants permission) immigration and opening the U.S. border entirely.

I favor decriminalization and when the issue of making Nevada a sanctuary state came up last year, I would have voted in favor it.

Sanctuary states aren't new

This isn’t the first time in U.S. history the federal government has felt compelled to control the movement of people, nor is it the first time state governments have had to decide how closely they would cooperate with those efforts.

Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution states:

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Despite that passage, an escaped slave who made his way to a free state, as Frederick Douglass did in 1838, could generally expect to find freedom. In many free states, in fact, it was expressly illegal for anyone, even if he or she worked in law enforcement, to cooperate with any person attempting to return a former slave into servitude. The federal government did try, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, to compel state law enforcement officers to return escaped slaves to their captors, but Prigg v. Pennsylvania made it clear that states were not obligated to use their resources to enforce federal law — and so, many didn’t.

That all changed with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

For the first time in American history, it was a federal crime for anyone, whether a state official or a private citizen, to refuse to cooperate with the return of a slave, even if he or she was residing in a free state. The free states reacted by declaring themselves, to use modern terminology, sanctuary states. Wisconsin flatly declared the Fugitive Slave Act to be unconstitutional and refused to enforce it. Vermont responded more passive-aggressively — they required former slaves to be cleared through an intentionally arcane state judicial process before they could be returned to their owners.

In many other free states, former slaves had to be convicted by a jury trial before they could be returned to their captor, but frequent use of jury nullification by free states’ juries ensured that law was never enforced. These exercises of states’ rights and jury nullification were so successful and so ingrained in the fabric of free states that the Articles of Secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia and Texas specifically mentioned them as chief causes for their exit.

Today, we face a similar situation. As the University of Chicago Law Review put it in “Lessons from the Past: How the Antebellum Fugitive Slave Debate Informs State Enforcement of Federal Immigration Law:”

First, the terms of the debate in both disputes [antebellum slavery and immigration] take the form of questions of state enforcement. Second, both cases center on the status of individuals whose presence in those states is illegal under federal law.

Just as occurred in 1850, the federal government seeks to restrict the free movement of individuals, and also seeks to require the help of state and local governments to enforce its policies. And, just as in 1850, some states seek stronger enforcement than even the federal government is willing to require. Arizona, for example, passed SB 1070, which required law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of someone arrested or detained when there is “reasonable suspicion” they are not in the U.S. legally. California passed Proposition 187 in the early 1990s, which prohibited undocumented immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public education and other services in the state. However, other states and local governments once again seek to protect the freedom of movement enjoyed by their new residents, and some states — like California — that once sought stricter enforcement in the past have recently changed course.

In 2015, more than 200 state and local jurisdictions refused requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain individuals and, in 2017, the list of jurisdictions with policies to restrict compliance with ICE detainer requests included New York City, Baltimore, Seattle, Chicago, California, Connecticut and even Washington, D.C.

Nevada, unfortunately, is nowhere to be found on that list — but we should be.

Nevada: Open, free and prosperous

Nevada, more than any other state, has proven that the free movement of people from one place to another leads to freedom and prosperity for everyone. Only 25 percent of today’s Nevadans were born in Nevada — less than any other state in the country — yet, for decades, we consistently have been one of the most economically healthy and desirable states to move to.

In 2008, tourism and construction — the two largest sectors of Nevada’s economy — collapsed. In many states, the recession led to a collapse of similar magnitude and was followed by a big exodus of laborers. Many years of scarce work and joblessness ensued and still remain (see: the Rust Belt) — but not so much here in Nevada. Though our unemployment rate remains higher than the national average, it still compares well to the Rust Belt — and that’s despite our steadily growing labor force. While many states are only now creating enough jobs for their existing citizens, Nevada is already creating enough jobs for both its existing and future citizens.

We struggled, but we bounced back, in part because we remained open to anyone who wished to live and do business here. This phenomenon isn’t unique to Nevada: of the top five fastest growing states between 2010-2017 (Nevada was #6), two are Texas and Florida, both business and immigrant-friendly states. Our open attitude has profited our state and its residents handsomely, both economically and reputationally. U.S. News recently described Nevada as the “future state of America” because “Instead of thwarting the migration and immigration that are transforming the state, lawmakers, business owners and union leaders are embracing it.” We continue to attract new residents of all kinds and, crucially, we continue to create new jobs and careers for everyone to work in.

Nevada’s openness doesn’t just extend to ethnic diversity — it includes social diversity as well. Henderson, for example, is one of the most inclusive cities in the country, according to an analysis of the 274 largest cities by the Urban Institute, ranking it 14th overall. This is important for two reasons. First, as the report points out, “There is a strong relationship between the economic health of a city and a city’s ability to support inclusion for its residents” (though CityLab notes that the data is somewhat ambiguous on this point). The second reason is much more important: poor people become members of the middle class by being able to afford to live right next to, and intermix within, middle class neighborhoods. According to Strong Towns:

Poor kids who grow up in more mixed income neighborhoods have better lifetime economic results. This signals that an important strategy for addressing poverty is building cities where mixed income neighborhoods are the norm, rather than the exception. And this strategy can be implemented in a number of ways — not just by relocating the poor to better neighborhoods, but by actively promoting greater income integration in the neighborhoods, mostly in cities, that have higher than average poverty rates.

Poor people need to be able to live affordably enough to save up and leave their poverty behind. As Market Urbanism points out, this can only be done if you have vibrant, growing cities with employment and educational opportunities and affordable housing that enables its inhabitants to progress financially. To wit:

The East Tremont community demonstrates the ability of low-income people to improve their families’ plights in less than a generation. Not only had the people of East Tremont saved up to leave the tenements, but according to Moses’ account, all of the families in the community were saving to send their children to college, indicating further economic mobility for the children who were born in New York’s worst housing.

Despite our state’s attitude of openness, and the clear rewards we’ve received from that openness, some here seem to believe there is political hay to be harvested in demonizing immigrants. I would remind them that in 1860, the Republican Party’s platform strongly favored freedom of migration:

That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws or any state legislation by which the rights of citizens hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.

What were the naturalization laws in 1860? Live in the U.S. for five years, and renounce any other allegiance for three of those years. That was it. This, needless to say, is not the standard President Trump’s administration follows today. No — this is the administration that deported David Chavez-Macias, a 30-year Reno resident, last month.

A bit of anti-immigration history

But negative sentiment about immigration isn’t new. The Alien and Sedition Acts were the first attempt to restrict the rights of immigrants. They were signed by President John Adams in 1798 in an attempt to stifle support for the French Republic at a time when federal policy was pushing the U.S. toward war against the new regime. Among other things, the acts granted the president the power to imprison or deport any males over the age of 14 that hailed from “hostile nations,” and increased the period of naturalization from five to 14 years. These restrictions were swiftly lifted after Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams’ re-election bid. Upon Jefferson’s election and the repeal of the Alien and Sedition Acts, immigration and naturalization returned to the same standard that remained in effect through 1860.

By the middle of the 19th century, however, attitudes surrounding immigration were beginning to sour. In the 1840s and 1850s, when immigration to the U.S. from more Catholic parts of Europe increased (Ireland and southern Germany, especially), the Know-Nothings organized to actively oppose immigration. Their platform led Abraham Lincoln to remark:

I am not a Know-Nothing – that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

By the 1850s, attitudes surrounding immigration were serious enough to spark lethal rioting in some places. In Louisville, more than twenty people — mostly Irish and German immigrants — were killed in the Bloody Monday riot. In Cincinnati, German immigrants defended themselves with a cannon against Know-Nothing mobs. Meanwhile, closer to Nevada, California passed the Foreign Miners’ Tax of 1850, a tax explicitly designed to prevent Latino and Chinese immigrants from mining gold.

After the Civil War, the Republican Party flipped its position on immigration and passed the Naturalization Act of 1870, which granted naturalization to the recently freed descendants of slaves, but retroactively removed that right from anyone else that wasn’t of European descent. This led to Yung Wing, the first Chinese-American graduate of Yale, having his citizenship revoked. A few years later, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which categorically forbade Chinese immigration. Due to the political popularity of restrictions against Chinese immigrants, politicians and American society at large started to question the entire concept of immigration entirely, and not in flattering terms. In 1890, Popular Science asked, “What Shall We Do with the Dago?” — dago being a racial slur applied to Italian immigrants at the time.

World War I and the deep recession that followed proved to be the nail in the coffin of unrestricted immigration into the U.S. — the imposition of widespread race-based immigration policies quickly followed. The Emergency Quota Act instituted nation-based immigration quotas. Next, the Immigration Act of 1924 forbade “non-white” immigration, except immigration from Africa and, curiously, Latin America (which immigrants were “white” and which ones were forbidden varied depending on the political winds of the time).

The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s encouraged politicians to rethink explicitly racist immigration policies. This led to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which maintained the same overall immigration quota set in 1924, but changed how the quotas are apportioned from a nation-based quota system to a hemisphere-based one. Since then, immigration policy in the United States has focused on the size of the quota and what criteria should be applied to ensure that, to borrow a phrase, we’re only “getting their best.”

In conclusion

With more than a century of immigration restrictions and their effects to look at, what have been the results? As prominent free speech lawyer and Las Vegas resident Marc Randazza put it:

My paesani will never forget the names Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. They won't ever let you forget that the largest mass-lynching in American history was in New Orleans — where a crowd lynched 11 Italian immigrants. But, for some reason, many of us point to the years of discrimination and seem to say "if we got over it, why can't these new immigrants."

[...]

And not just Italians. I only pick on them in this piece as an act of "cleaning my own house." But, way too many whose families arrived relatively recently seem to have such little compassion for our new arrivals. Many seem to think "we had it bad" should mean that new arrivals should toughen up and have it bad for a while too — prove their mettle.

No.

Mr. Randazza is right. Restriction and discrimination are not the answer. As a state that has openly and eagerly accepted new visitors and residents from all over the world, and that has profited handsomely from that generosity and openness, Nevada has the opportunity to take the lead and show the rest of the U.S. how it ought to be done.

Three out of four Nevadans — myself included — were not born in the state, yet we love and cherish it as our own. Our opportunity to do so was made possible by the freedom of migration — the freedom for people to move from one place to another in order to better their lives and the lives of their families. It is well past time for the vast majority of Nevadans to demand that we become a sanctuary state, one that accepts all comers regardless of origin, as long as they stay and work in peace.

David Colborne has been active in the Libertarian Party for two decades. During that time, he has blogged intermittently on his personal blog, as well as the Libertarian Party of Nevada blog, and ran for office twice as a Libertarian candidate. He serves on the Executive Committee for both his state and county Libertarian Party chapters. He is the father of two sons and an IT professional. You can follow him on Twitter @ElectDavidC or email him at [email protected]