Tim Cavanaugh wants free flow of people in North America

Mark has requested my comments on an article in the LA Times by Tim Cavenaugh. He thinks that the immigration problem can be resolved by:

But here's one good idea you won't hear about. Let's allow the North American Free Trade Agreement to live up to its promise and permit citizens of Canada, the United States and Mexico to move and work freely among the three countries.

I don't know if this was ever a vision of NAFTA as he implies or if he wants to take NAFTA one step further. Cavenaugh dismisses other solutions like mass deportation, guest worker programs and the wall as "doozies". Two claims are made that seem to defy the senses when reading them:
1) "A policy of borders without visas would in fact be more restrictive and formal..."
2) " Free movement would be more secure than our current system..."

He also attempts to debunk common sense by addressing the two objections to open borders:

There are two objections to an open border policy: national security and economics. One is specious; the other is based on ignorance of the way free markets work and free people behave.

In a final bid, he even goes for the holy grail by referencing the Gipper:

In a 1979 speech, President Reagan proposed open travel throughout North America.

While it is true that opening the border would require identification, this would only apply at checkpoints. If we have laxity at the border today, imagine the laxness from the standpoint of dropping prevention of the flow of people. One might think that the example of Western Europe might hold here, where travel is very free between countries. In this case the overriding point is that we have a huge descrepancy of wealth between the US and Mexico (and even Canada). There would be huge chaos as there would be a flood from both the south and the north. If we have millions trying to come with some level of resistance, imagine the flood with no resistance.

The bottom line is that Cavanaugh is nuts.