Today’s great powers owe their status to migration flows that allowed them to build economically strong nations. That immigration has become a social and economic nuisance is nothing more than another failing of the state.

 

There are two types of immigration. The first is when individuals move from one country or region to another in search of a better job, greater freedom and, through hard work, a more prosperous future for themselves and their families. This is the kind of immigration that did wonders for the United States up to the 20 century or for Catalonia in the 1940s and 1950s. However, much of today’s immigration is in search of just the opposite.    

 

The second type of immigration is when individuals travel to other countries, or other regions within a single country, to take advantage of other people’s effort without offering anything in return. If we strengthen social security and education and public “aid,” we will only contribute to a process of de-capitalization, reap total losses and lower standards of living. We pay for the education, health care, subsidies, etc. of people who have never contributed to these services. Some immigrants come to Spain to get free operations or come with their families for free money and public services. There are daily examples of this. 

 

Neither walls nor satellites can stop this kind of parasitic behavior; the call of free goods and services is too strong. These controls and barriers will only increase costs (more taxes) and hand over more power to the state. Anti-immigration measure will only discourage and penalize immigrants who want to come and work hard. Right now, the government is deciding about the welfare and lives of thousands of people as if it were God. 

 

Let’s not fool ourselves. The state created this problem and the solution is not prohibiting the individual progress of immigrants. The only solution is to foster a culture of personal responsibility, eliminating those immigrants who come to live off our hard work. To do this, we have to seriously think about modifying or eliminating the false privileges that politicians have created with the welfare state.