That is true to some extent, but misleading if you leave out the remaining part of Libertarian positions with respect to immigration. First off, no Libertarian I know of is advocating illegal immigration when they advocate reducing restrictions on where and how people can travel and work. This is totally consistent with conservative positions, where the opposition is to illegal immigration, not immigration per se. But the most important part of the Libertarian position is not providing any government benefits for immigrants:
"However, the answer to this problem lies not in cutting off immigration, but in cutting the services that immigrants consume. The right to immigrate does not imply a right to welfare -- or any other government service."
"Suppose we increased the level of immigration, but the rule would be that immigrants and their descendants would have no access to government social services, including welfare, Social Security, health care, business subsidies, and the public schools."
Seeing the whole story puts the idea of more open (but still regulated) borders in quite a different light. The Libertarian position on immigration is actually quite a bit more "conservative" than the position any Republican politician has taken.
"However, the answer to this problem lies not in cutting off immigration, but in cutting the services that immigrants consume. The right to immigrate does not imply a right to welfare -- or any other government service."
Not really. That particular libertarian argument doesn't really hold much water because illegal immigration to this country from Mexico and Central America began occurring in large numbers prior to the introduction of serious social welfare spending by the United States (LBJ's "Great Society" nonsense). Even today, while illegal immigrants do indeed take advantage of free social services such as emergency rooms, food stamps, etc., this does not necessarily argue that they come across the border because of those welfare benefits. They would still come across the border, even if they couldn't get welfare, because of the fact that they make so much more money working here than working in Mexico (that is, if you can even find a job down there). As such, the welfare argument is something of a red herring when we talk about illegal immigration, per se. We still see, as your quote above seems to explicitly suggest, that libertarians believe in some non-existent "right" to emigrate across borders, in contravention of the laws of the country to which they are emigrating.
“That is true to some extent, but misleading if you leave out the remaining part of Libertarian positions with respect to immigration. First off, no Libertarian I know of is advocating illegal immigration when they advocate reducing restrictions on where and how people can travel and work. This is totally consistent with conservative positions, where the opposition is to illegal immigration, not immigration per se.”
Your comment is ‘true to some extent but misleading’. Essentially, the official Libertarian Party Platform calls for a virtual fence to ‘encourage’ the use of regular entry points and allowing anyone in who can pass a health check, security check, and a criminal background check.
It is true that this platform doesn’t advocate illegal immigration. It doesn’t have to since no immigration would be illegal.
“But the most important part of the Libertarian position is not providing any government benefits for immigrants:”
Incorrect, the Libertarian Platform on immigration only denies benefits to illegal immigrants.
“Seeing the whole story puts the idea of more open (but still regulated) borders in quite a different light. The Libertarian position on immigration is actually quite a bit more “conservative” than the position any Republican politician has taken.”
Libertarians would not ‘regulate’ the borders.
The libertarian position is not ‘conservative’ and is actually much more liberal than the liberal amnesty bill currently being debated in the Senate.