The Free Market: A Great Ally of Haitians in Chile

Look at this short video showing what a Baptist church in Viña del Mar (Santa Julia sector) is doing to help recent Haitian arrivals!

And they are not the only ones. A Baptist church in Casablanca (a town between Viña del Mar and Santiago) has been teaching Spanish classes to Haitians who attend Baptist services for several Sundays running. From what I hear, the same thing happens in Santiago and other parts of Chile, whether through Baptist congregations or other groups, but I only have personal knowledge about the churches in Santa Julia and Casablanca (pictured below).

However, many Chileans claim that Haitians are largely bad people who are taking advantage of the system. Yet, I do not see what "deception" these immigrants are practicing so long as they obey Chilean law and have obtained their visas legally. Sure, there have been some cases of irregularities, but the vast majority of Haitians have entered Chile legally. Nor have I seen news reports indicating that new Haitian immigrants are involved in more crime (in percentage terms) than any other group living in Chile.

The real issue is that many Chileans do not want poor people to enter the country, merely "to sell fruit at the farmer's market" (as one lawyer told me) or to sell candy on the street corner. They want only want well-trained people to come.

Similar to today's Haitians, I am also an immigrant. I arrived in Chile in 1996 with many children, without much money and without the ability to speak Spanish; nevertheless, according to my story, I established myself—after much effort—successfully in Chile. Coming from the United States, with white skin, gray-green eyes and five university degrees, I was readily accepted by Chileans I met, while today's Haitian is sometimes despised. Thus, the Chilean's respect for persons is apparently forged by pure racism or perhaps other reasons, such as supposed economic damage to the lower classes in Chile who now face stiffer competition in the labor market.

According to this philosophy, President Piñera promulgated his new executive order to limit the entrance of "less desirable immigrants," which are mainly Haitians.

I disagree with Piñera's decision, making it harder for Haitians to immigrate to Chile—and, to a lesser degree, Venezuelans. If we really want a positive outcome respecting the immigration issue, we must promote a market-based policy such as privatizing the border instead of entrusting such an important, complex and delicate matter to the state. Haitians have already arrived and more will come. Therefore, is not it counter-productive to reject them, pushing them to the nurture of the Chilean Left, instead of capturing the hearts and minds of the maximum number of them for our side? In the long term they will contribute to the economy, just as Milton Friedman, Julian Simon, Thomas Sowell and many other classical liberal economists have pointed out.

Furthermore, bear in mind that it is the fault of the state, not the free market, if immigrants come to Chile in a "disorderly" way. Neither greater state intervention or a "better" mixture of public policies will surpass what the free market can achieve. I am not defending someone entering illegally, but if they are in fact here, regardless of how they got here, I would prefer that libertarians (part of the right-wing parties in Chile) capture them as new members and learn libertarian ideas, rather than those of vile Chilean communists.

Do you get the tactical point? If the Baptists educate immigrants, perhaps making use of my recent articles on libertarian Baptist pastor John Leland, the first Baptist missionaries who arrived in Chile at the end of the 19th century and the likely libertarian ones at the beginning of the 20th century—or by utilizing other information sources to accomplish the same goal—we can educate Baptists regarding libertarian issues. Hence, both libertarians and the country in general will be doing much better, politically speaking, in about six years from now—once these new immigrants become new voters.

I greatly admire the Baptists for performing the task of helping to solve government failure. As I have said on innumerable occasions, the free market—which includes the spontaneous activity of Baptists—is our ally. The best policy solution that this ally can provide is to privatize the border.

Doing so would allow visas to be checked before boarding planes in foreign hub airports, and thus before arriving in Chile. In addition to preventing the entry of illegal immigrants, criminals, communists or terrorists, contagiously ill people, or pest-ridden plants and animals, the companies hired to monitor the borders would serve to complete the orders of companies or organizations with the exact quantity of immigrants they need. They would also make up for the low birth rate to ensure that Chile will continue to grow economically in the future (e.g., make up the difference between 1.8 and 2.7 births per couple).

The object of my hatred is Satan and the state, never poor immigrants looking for a lawful way to alleviate their grief. It is not the fault of the Haitian (or Venezuelan, Colombian, etc.) immigrants that Chile's migration policy has failed. In the same way, if Venezuelans—instead of staying in Chile—want to return to their country in order to free it from the communism that beleaguers it, doing so would be fabulous. Yet such a course of action is their decision. Maybe they will decide that living free in Chile is a better choice than fighting for freedom there. Who knows? So then, why is the treatment for Haitians different, and why are they not offered the same possibility of casting off the yoke as the Venezuelan may? The state causes distortions by deciding which group deserves a chance at freedom. Therefore, the goal or objective of libertarians should focus on the enemy—the state—and not point fingers at other people who have nothing to do with the root problem.

In short: (1) For libertarians, all non-communists who want to stay in Chile—whether Haitian, Venezuelan, Colombian, Spanish or North American—should be welcomed; (2) We may plausibly hope that, thanks to our support for them, we can add future votes in favor of the libertarian Right; (3) The shock of having so many new faces in Chile will resolve itself by market forces; (4) Any social degeneration caused by the state, can be fixed by the market. The video link at the beginning of the article gives us a good example. I am very happy to see that Chilean Baptist churches are already part of that solution, and I hope that others will follow suit.

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John Cobin, Ph.D.
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