On Immigration
Most articles, editorials, and letters to the editor that you read on the immigration issue in the USA, whether arguing on any side of the issue, focus on specific aspects of the pending legislations in the Congress. Rarely do you find a principled, philosophical essay on the subject. I have found one that I think is superb, written by Harry Binswanger, titled Open Immigration, that captures almost perfectly my philosophical views on immigration. It is particularly long, and it is a very easy read. His opening paragraph summarizes his (and my own) views on immigration:
This is a defense of phasing-in open immigration into the United States. Entry into the U.S. should ultimately be free for any foreigner, with the exception of criminals, would-be terrorists, and those carrying infectious diseases. (And note: I am defending freedom of entry and residency, not the automatic granting of U.S. citizenship).
In the rest of his essay, Binswanger states his principled views on immigration, and gives the background philosophical premises that support them. What he doesn't do is provide explicit statements on current proposed legislation, or even his views on any specific proposals that might come up in the current debate on immigration in the US. In fact, you won't even find much use of hot-button terms used in the debate, like "guestworker", "amnesty", "fences", "minute-men", and so on.
However, I can't put a price on the value that an essay like this provides. It gives a clarity of thought to the issues, from which you can then formulate well-reasoned views on specific legislation or specific proposals. Some positions are pretty clearly implied by his essay, but specific implementation details are left open for debate and finalization. This includes what to do about recent illegal aliens regarding their residence and work in this country going forward and a potential path to citizenship. This also includes what to do about border security in regards to immigration, and to choose one concrete issue, whether or not to build a fence between US and Mexico, and if we do, where, what kind of fence, and so on. Rather than give direct answers to these questions, this essay provides a principled view of immigration to serve as a base for determining views on concrete suggestions.
Labels: philosophy, us_gov_politics
posted by Thomas R. Stone @ 5:51 PM
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2 Comments:
Good article overall. I agree, this sort of philosophical analysis of the issue is crucially important.
It becomes especially important today, when we see authors who had previously supported capitalism and individual rights convert to a collectivist and statist ideology in order to oppose immigration, and engage in blatant evasions and double-talk to rationalize their anti-immigration bigotry. First Thomas Sowell did it, and now Walter Williams. And even worse, The Atlasphere, a web site which is supposed to be aimed at admirers of Ayn Rand, inexplicably published Sowell's and Williams' collectivist propaganda. Binswanger's article sets a good philosophical context for considering the more concrete issues involved, and directly addresses the fundamental fallacies committed by Sowells and Williams; this makes it a good antidote, and I hope it reaches as many people as possible.
Unfortunately, there is one section of Binswanger's article in which he goes beyond discussion of the basic philosophical principles, and expresses support for specific legislation - the immigrant provisions of PRWORA. And this is the one section in which Binswanger's article goes bad.
A proper, philosophical response to the argument that "immigrants come here to get welfare", is to point out that this is an example of Mises' "controls breed controls" principle. Government controls (in this case, welfare programs) create problems, and then these problems are used as a pretext for calling for further controls (in this case, restrictions on immigration). To the extent that immigrants who go on welfare are a problem, the problem should be addressed by getting rid of the government controls that caused it - i.e. getting rid of these welfare programs - not by further controls.
Instead of pointing this out, Binswanger responds to the argument by saying he supports the immigrant provisions of PRWORA. Consider the meaning of these provisions: resident aliens are subject to the same tax burden as American citizens. This tax burden makes it more difficult for them to save money, or buy private insurance, to provide for unexpected future needs, just as it does for American citizens. Then, if the result is that an immigrant finds himself in need of government welfare programs, the immigrant provisions of PRWORA exclude him from these programs, which his own past tax money has subsidized. This is a clear injustice, and Binswanger's support for it is his one major lapse in an otherwise good article. The only way provisions, to exclude immigrants from government welfare programs, can be supported, is if they are accompanied by legislation to grant lower tax rates to immigrants, to make sure they are not forced to support welfare services from which they are excluded.
I thought that there was already in the immigrantion laws a provision that an immigrant could not become a public charge.
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