Federalism in a Dubious Cause

With federalism on our minds today, the Los Angeles Times reports on recent state efforts to beef up immigration restrictions beyond federal law:

In the first six months of last year, states considered about 300 immigration-related bills and passed 36 of them, the National Conference of State Legislatures said.

Florida allowed state law officers to arrest illegal immigrants. Arizona barred day-laborer centers from receiving public funds. Virginia denied some state benefits to undocumented workers.

This year, the proposals include cutting off benefits to illegal immigrants, allowing local police to identify those in the country illegally and, in Arizona, sending National Guard troops to secure the Mexican border.
......
Though the legislative season is young and state representatives and senators are refining their proposals, certain trends have emerged. A few proposals are friendly to illegal immigrants, such as a Massachusetts bill to extend in-state college tuition to them. But most are crystallizing around three categories: denying benefits, allowing local police to arrest people for being in the country illegally, and increasing fines on employers who hire undocumented workers.

The first of those three categories is unobjectionable, and could in fact help eliminate some anti-immigrant sentiment (though lots of people seem to have problems with working immigrants, as well as supposedly freeloading ones). The latter two are misguided and potentially dangerous. Most big cities with large immigrant populations have very wisely avoiding screwing with citizen-cop relations by turning local police into enforcers of immigration law. Having cops try to enforce such laws tends to make immigrant populations afraid to ever deal with the police for fear of immigration-related contretemps, which makes policing in immigrant-heavy communities more difficult than it has to be.

For some of the effects of "getting tough on immigrants" that even these activist state legislators might not like, see this op-ed by Nick Gillespie and Jesse James DeConto on immigrants' role in the Christmas tree industry. And Reason subscribers--and that could (and should) be you--and why not consider gift subscriptions for state legislators considering immigration crackdowns?--have already seen DeConto's February cover story "America's Criminal Immigration Policy: How U.S. Law Punishes Hard Work and Fractures Families."

Comments

happyjuggler0 | January 17, 2006, 3:25pm | #

Why does reason seem to tak ethe position that illegal immigration is good? Can't we have an increased legal immigration instead?

Yes, I read the Christmas tree article. It was very good, and the conclusion I came to is that when you have government restrictions that create a widespread black market, the government is simply distroting the inviolable law of supply and demand.

Of course, if we put up a barder wall, a real wall like Israel is building, and if we did in fact increase tremedously legal immigration, and enforce the laws on the books saying you have to be in the country with permission, then some of those Christmas tree farms may go out of business because many Latinos will do the same as born-in-the-USA folks do, and get easier jobs. And then we'd have to pay more for Christmas trees. What a bummer.

John | January 17, 2006, 3:45pm | #

I don't buy the immigrants will be afraid to deal with the cops argument. Here is what is happening right now all over the country. Police will pull over a car with an illegal alien with no identification, no insurance and nothing to show who he is. Since the police are not authorized to enforce immigration law, they can't arrest them for an immigration violation. Further, county jails are overcrowded and there is not much point in halling them down to jail where they will be released before the cop gets back on patrol. So, the police just let them go. If that were a legal resident, you would get a fortune worth of tickets and probably arrested and released on bond, but if you are an illegal, you go away scott free. Further, the INS generally will not come and pick up an illegal from a county jail. If an illegal is picked up for a petty crime that does not justify holding him without bond, he just gets released, probably never to return. Since he is an illegal, the locals have no way to ensure his appearance in court and can't keep him indefinitely without bail. It is a crazy system. It would help to empower local officials to enforce immigration laws and get the INS to come pick these people up and at least be able to deport them, rather than just letting them go.

FXKLM | January 17, 2006, 3:47pm | #

"Activist state legislators" is a completely meaningless phrase. The term "activist" is a criticism of judges because it suggests that the judge is allowing policy preferences and political considerations to affect his rulings. But all legislators are driven by policy preferences and there's nothing wrong with that.

You've really embarrassed yourself here, Brian. Please edit the post.

thoreau | January 17, 2006, 3:48pm | #

Most big cities with large immigrant populations have very wisely avoiding screwing with citizen-cop relations by turning local police into enforcers of immigration law. Having cops try to enforce such laws tends to make immigrant populations afraid to ever deal with the police for fear of immigration-related contretemps, which makes policing in immigrant-heavy communities more difficult than it has to be.

There's another angle. When the scandal in the Rampart division of the LAPD came out several years ago, some of the witnesses against the cops were in the country illegally. All of a sudden, those witnesses were deported. Fortunately, the DA sent investigators abroad to interview the witnesses. Which is a perfectly fine solution from a legal standpoint, but it is one reason why some cities may not want their cops rounding up illegals.

Warren | January 17, 2006, 4:06pm | #

I've read the Feb. issue of Reason. The immigration story was an 'up-close and personal' account. Along with the other feature articles (green corporatism, farm subsidies) they intermesh in a nice coherent way.

Lowdog | January 17, 2006, 4:19pm | #

I don't see anyone at Reason arguing that illegal immigration is a good thing. Your second paragraph answers your own question to a point, happyjuggler.

Personally, I don't think building a wall is a good idea on so many levels, I'll leave that alone. But I think that making it easier to live and work here legitimately is exactly the answer.

As with everything else, you shove something underground, it rots. (Except seeds, they grow, but in the case of black markets, those seeds bare ugly fruit.)

Jesse Walker | January 17, 2006, 4:25pm | #

It was a funny line, FXKLM. Brian has nothing to be embarrassed about.

R C Dean | January 17, 2006, 4:27pm | #

This year, the proposals include cutting off benefits to illegal immigrants

Bravo.

allowing local police to identify those in the country illegally

What's wrong with having the cops enforce the law? If you don't like the law, change the law. Leaving it on the books while having the cops wink at violations is a recipe for corruption and arbitrary and capricious policing.

I think the local cops should definitely be enforcing immigration law. I also think that we should have substantially expand our legal migrant worker programs.

Arizona, sending National Guard troops to secure the Mexican border.

Using the militia to secure the border sounds to me like it falls well within the inmost core of legitimate functions of the state.

Lowdog | January 17, 2006, 4:33pm | #

RC - I could agree with you re: militia, but it seems a little extreme to me.

I've been hearing rumblings that Napolitano (AZ governor) may be looking towards Congress or even the presidency, so it seems like a publicity stunt.

And I don't agree with the decision, or with my governor on most issues, for that matter.

Oh, wait, she's a politician. ;)

Xtra | January 17, 2006, 4:57pm | #

I'm not sure how things work in other states, but in California the only state benefits illegals get are emergency medical services and pre-natal care. It would be a bad idea to eliminate pre-natal care for the obvious reason that the baby will be a citizen, so it is in our interest for it to be born as healthy as possible.

It seems people are rarely specific when they say illegals get state benefits. Are illegals getting welfare checks and food stamps in some states? I seriously doubt it.
- Sometimes families are a mix of legal, illegal and citizens so some members are eligible for welfare benefits. The non-citizens are just left out of the equations when calculating benefits.

Here We Go Again | January 17, 2006, 5:09pm | #

Having cops try to enforce such laws tends to make immigrant populations afraid to ever deal with the police for fear of immigration-related contretemps, which makes policing in immigrant-heavy communities more difficult than it has to be.

Ummm, Mr. Doherty, doesn't the fact that police resources are overtaxed in the face of an illegal immigrant onslaught tell you something? As in perhaps we are allowing in more people than we can deal with? In other words, we don't have to police these communities if they never spring up to begin with.

But no, a pro-illegal immigration libertarian will never let the facts staring them straight in the face lead them to realize the truth.

And fractured families? Boo hoo!

happyjuggler0 | January 17, 2006, 5:12pm | #

Lowdog,

I think there are three basic arguments for a border wall, despite its expense. A real border wall mind you, not one of those silly fences we have on parts of the border which are are a joke of an obstacle.

1) I am shocked that terrorists have not crossed over from Mexico in large numbers yet, pretty much everyone else is. I hesitate even to mention it for moral hazard reasons, but it is in the public domain already so I'll list it.

2) It would surely radically decrease illegal immigration, much the same way the Israel wall radically decreased terrorism in Israel. Then we can finally have a reasoned debat ein this country about how many legal immigrants we want in this country.

3) It would surely radically cut down on of the many ways illegal drugs enter this country. When it doesn't have any real effect on changing US supply though, the prohibitionists lose a powerful common man argument for our current drug laws. Namely, that we aren't doing enough. Still. After. All. These. Decades.

Finally, regardless however many legal immigrants we allow into this country to work, I vote for a massively large proportion of them to be Mexicans, for both practical and selfish reasons. (Virtually the rest of them should be college grads in the math/science sphere in my opinion.) Why is allowing Mexaicans over other nationalities selfish? because migrant workers remit a sizable amount of their pay to their home countries. I am pretty sure everyone can follow the logic of having more dollars in the hands of our southern neighbor as opposed to India for example, where those dollars are less likely to be spent on US goods and services.

It's About the 14th Amendment | January 17, 2006, 5:16pm | #

If that were a legal resident, you would get a fortune worth of tickets and probably arrested and released on bond, but if you are an illegal, you go away scott free.

My point exactly.

This goes back to -- and reinforces -- my argument that this whole debate over immigration comes down to the 14th Amendment and equal protection under the law.

We libertarians are alienating (illegal alienating?) otherwise sympathetic non-members from other parties and political persuasions by refusing to acknowledge the sanctity of the law -- whether or not we support the law.

If we do not support the law, the way to change it is through the same old frustrating channels that everyone else does -- congress, referenda, etc. -- and not by force, as in standing by and sanctioning the storming of America by people who are literally barging their way into the country.

When you joined the Libertarian party, do you remember that you agreed to renounce the use of force?

Lowdog | January 17, 2006, 5:29pm | #

happyjuggler - I still can't abide by a "real" wall. A fucking wall, are you kidding me? Are we The United States of America, or a bunch of pansies? What an eyesore a huge wall would be. And probably not effective.

But my main problem with the wall is entirely based on principle. It kind of makes me queasy to think about America building a big ol' wall along it's southern border.

(BTW, I'm not yelling at you, but at the wall.)

happyjuggler0 | January 17, 2006, 5:35pm | #

I just thought of a fourth reason for a "real" wall. It just might inspire the Mexican government to make some serious market reforms instead of trying to pretend its poverty problem can be solved via illegal immigration. It could happen. :o

John | January 17, 2006, 5:43pm | #

Happyjuggler,

I agree. I firmly that immigration is worse for Mexico than it is for the U.S. It allows their corrupt caucasian elite to export their problems to the U.S. and avoid any real reform to a terrible system. Close off the border for one year and jerks like Vincente Fox would be hanging from lampposts.

R C Dean | January 17, 2006, 5:47pm | #

in California the only state benefits illegals get are emergency medical services and pre-natal care

Well, there is also schooling for their kids.

And, of course, if they have enough of a fake ID, they can sign up for any of the usual welfare programs as well.

Captain Awesome | January 17, 2006, 5:57pm | #

Xenophobic libertarians confuse me. If an immigrant has the permission of the landlord, and has set up voluntary agreements with an employer, where does US.gov derive the authority to say that can't happen because of the GPS coordinates of those agreements fullfilment?

happyjuggler0 | January 17, 2006, 6:07pm | #

Captain Awesome,

It is not xenophobic to say that unlimited immigration would be a disaster. The world is teeming with phenomallypoor people who would cross into the US ASAP. To think that we can handle a billion or so people so quickly is silly.

Especially when we have anything but a libertarian society, and instead have a huge government redistribution network and prohibitive regulations on the book like the minimum wage. Of course it would kill such redistribution virtually overnight, so it is not without an upside.

The US can and should seriously increase the amount of legal immigrant workers. This does not mean we should welcome the associated problems with illegal immigration like the non-reporting of crimes that mentioned in the O.P.

I am hugely in favor of a very large increase of legal immigration, and a viable method of reducing tremendously illegal immigration. How does this practicality make me xenophobic?

wayne | January 17, 2006, 6:22pm | #

"but in California the only state benefits illegals get are emergency medical services and pre-natal care."

How about workman's compensation?

Captain Awesome | January 17, 2006, 6:52pm | #

I was a little sketchy on the 'Mexican imigrants good Indian bad' bent from above, and the subtle mercantilist monetary fears. But other than that;
increase in American workforce
increase in demand for American real property
arbitrage of wealth the poorer people
impending impossiblity of welfare state realized

still don't see that part we need to be running scared of don't like.

happyjuggler0 | January 17, 2006, 6:58pm | #

Captain America, if you want me to respond to that last post you will have to reply in English. I'm sorry, but I truly can't understand what you just said. Try full sentences, and ones that include all the usual subject-verb-object stuff.

Captain Awesome | January 17, 2006, 7:44pm | #

Sorry, that was pretty screwy sounding. I was just trying to say that I liked a lot of the effects. Like rising demand for my property. Like a larger workforce on American soil (that's what the worker visa programs are for aren't they?). Increases in wealth and opportunity for the poor with the guts to move here. And a large untracked population screwing with the welfare state. That and I might have missinturpreted your statement about the remitances and them getting spent in closer poximity to the US even if not in it. I think that one of the biggest problems we'd face with open immigration would be violence from bigoted groups. I also think it's sad that that's true.

happyjuggler0 | January 17, 2006, 8:24pm | #

Okay CA, I can empathize with you there. I do suspect there would be serious riots though from not just bigots, but from people who lost their jobs from the newcomers. Then we'd really see xenophobia. Increased crime from displaced (US)workers would likely result in misplaced blame saying that the foreigners are committing the crimes. There may even be increased crime from frustrated foreigners who thought we were a land of plenty too, although at lower levels of immigration they seem to be more law-abiding than us.

I am pretty sure from my history that apartheid in South Africa started as an us vs. them job protection scheme, similar to unions. We'd probably see something like that attempted anyway.

I foresee possible water and sewage problems too. "Everyone" keeps talking about future water shortages in the US. Obviously at some point we'd have desalination plants or something, but I have no desire to speed up that day, nor deal with real water shortages in the meantime.

All in all I confess (blushes) to be in favor of government licensing of immigration, just much more of it than we have now. I also think that sooner or later it will occur to Democrats that significant immigration is at odds with the Big Government, and I'd like to increase that number (i.e. immigration)to a point of no return if possible. :o

MikeP | January 17, 2006, 9:36pm | #

I am pretty sure from my history that apartheid in South Africa started as an us vs. them job protection scheme, similar to unions. We'd probably see something like that attempted anyway.

Immigration law today already is something like that.

Captain Awesome | January 17, 2006, 10:43pm | #

Of course on of my other favorite ideas was to auction off citizenships. Then try to set the number and timing of the auctions such that it's a revenue maximizing funtion. It'd be great, then whenever compassion types wanted amnesty for someone they could start a fundraiser to buy the guy citizenship. You'd also have another source of revenue to fund some of this border guarding. It doesn't square quite right with my principals, but it sure seems cool.

Rhywun | January 17, 2006, 10:43pm | #

Finally, regardless however many legal immigrants we allow into this country to work, I vote for a massively large proportion of them to be Mexicans, for both practical and selfish reasons. (Virtually the rest of them should be college grads in the math/science sphere in my opinion.)

People come to the US for lots of reasons. Maybe they come here from repressive regimes other than Mexico; maybe they're persecuted for their religion or their sexual orientation. They are just as deserving of seeking a better life as cheap-working Mexicans.

Brian Courts | January 17, 2006, 10:48pm | #

It is not xenophobic to say that unlimited immigration would be a disaster.

No, it is simply a rather unsupported (and dubious) assertion. However, using that assertion (even if it was true) as a grounds for denying someone the same basic rights you take for granted without any kind of moral principle, based only on an accident of birth, is indeed xenophobic. Just as denying someone basic human rights based on the similarly arbitrary accident of birth called race is, well, racist. It hardly matters how strongly someone from another era might believe that unlimited emancipation, for example, would be a disaster for the north.

So let me ask, why do you get the right to live here and contract freely with employers, etc. while another human being born on the other side of an arbitrary line does not? Is it just lucky for you and tough shit for him? Is there some kind of moral philosophy guiding this position besides essentially saying 'I won the lottery of birth, and well... better luck next time Carlos'?

No, when something is a moral issue, making practical arguments about the (largely imagined) damage that doing what is right would cause should rightfully be ignored. After all, the same kind of arguments were made against abolitionists (ending slavery will take northerner's jobs) and against abolishing Jim Crow laws (it will ruin our southern culture). I suspect that someday we will look back and think the notion that someone born in one part of the world would not be free to work for, sell to, live with, move freely about, or otherwise associate with any other person on earth wherever they choose, will seem as backwards as the notion that some people are inherently less human than others. Indeed, denying someone those basic rights is saying just that.

happyjuggler0 | January 17, 2006, 11:56pm | #

Just out of curiousity Brian, do you believe that in this borderless Utopia that anyone should be able to vote where they live? Does citizenship confer you any rights or is that obviously immoral?

If they don't have voting rights, isn't that apartheid? If they do get to vote, do you really think they won't vote for a huge redistrubitionist party? Kiss your property rights away if that happens.

Despite your arbitrary decision that a society with borders is immoral, the fact remains that practical concerns can indeed trump morality. Sad but true. Is it moral that we let a dictator in North Korea allow/force his citizens to starve to death for his phenomenomally ignorant economic policies? I say no. But he has nukes. Apparently anyway. If in the process of taking him out for the sake of millions of people, he unleashes his nukes, the good is clearly outweighed by the harm. This is why despite an interventionist philosophy during the cold war we never seriously considered deposing th egovernment of the Soviet Union.

I do however long for a day when we live on a borderless planet. However simple logistics make it unfeasible for now in my opinion. You are free to disagree with my notion of feasible logistics of course.

I was raised to think that I was indeed lucky to be one of the 5% to live in the US. We can extend that "luck" to more people than we are already, but not everyone, not right away anyway, in my opinion.

Brian Courts | January 18, 2006, 3:20am | #

borderless Utopia

I never said it would be anything like a utopia; as a libertarian I am decidedly not a utopian.

If they do get to vote, do you really think they won't vote for a huge redistrubitionist party?

That is a valid concern, to be sure. But as a libertarian, the problem is not with those that would come to this country any more than it's with those already here who are all too eager to "redistribute" other people's property. The problem is with the extensive power of the government to do just that. But nonetheless, the moral issue does take precedence even here. Again, I'll point out that a similar argument was made against freeing the slaves and giving them full citizenship with voting rights (albeit at a time when the government was much less redistributionist, in general, than today). Do you think your pragmatic argument would have applied there? Something like: Maybe someday we'll be able to handle freeing the slaves, but right now the problems associated with doing so are just too intractable? Many people said just that and they were clearly wrong for doing so.

Despite your arbitrary decision that a society with borders is immoral

What I said was immoral was "the notion that someone born in one part of the world would not be free to work for, sell to, live with, move freely about, or otherwise associate with any other person on earth wherever they choose." If that is arbitrary it is no more so than calling immoral the notion that someone born Jewish would not be free to work for, sell to, live with, move freely about, or otherwise associate... etc. Yes, at some level all the axioms of a moral philosophy could be considered arbitrary; yet they are not all equal.

[T]he fact remains that practical concerns can indeed trump morality. Sad but true. Is it moral that we let a dictator in North Korea allow/force his citizens to starve to death for his phenomenomally ignorant economic policies? I say no. But he has nukes. Apparently anyway. If in the process of taking him out for the sake of millions of people, he unleashes his nukes, the good is clearly outweighed by the harm.

The first sentence makes no sense with the rest of the paragraph. The potential annihilation of millions by North Korean nuclear retaliation is most assuredly a moral issue; we are simply weighing competing moral concerns. Considering the suffering of innocent civilians in a war, however justified the goal may be, is always a moral concern, not a pragmatic one, or so I should hope. So I'll reiterate that the pragmatic does not trump the moral. I don't recall who I am paraphrasing, so my apologies, but: "We don't despise slavery because it was an inefficient economic system - we despise it because it was immoral."

At last, you still have not explained how your argument is any different from those who argued against abolition simply because of the great upheaval it was likely to cause in the society of the day. Someone might well have said "I do however long for a day when we live in a country without slaves. However simple logistics make it unfeasible for now in my opinion." Or substitute "Jim Crow laws" for slaves and again, almost identical to arguments of the day. They were wrong then, why should I take them seriously now?

thoreau | January 18, 2006, 7:30am | #

Given that immigrants are more likely than those born here to work multiple jobs and/or start their own businesses, I'm not sure that immigrants would be a huge redistributionist voting bloc.

Dave W. | January 18, 2006, 8:34am | #

Fining the employers won't hurt community relations so long as the fining is closely targetted at the employers rather than the employees.

So number (3), fining the employers is a good approach (the best, really). It will have the employers militating for legal immigration, which is what they should be doing anyway. The employers don't hang in the barrio! C'mon, Brian: your employers won't hurt you if you admit that. Will they?

MikeP | January 18, 2006, 9:29am | #

So number (3), fining the employers is a good approach (the best, really). It will have the employers militating for legal immigration, which is what they should be doing anyway.

Not all employers are created equal. "Fining the employers" will result in marginal employers closing up shop while well-established employers -- i.e., big business -- accept the higher costs of yet another labor law. Since the former can afford neither the money nor the distraction from their core competency to "militate" in Washington, the new immigration rules will stick around.

In fact, since fining the employer shuts down an avenue for competition against the well-established company, once they got used to it big business would be lobbying for its continuation: exactly the opposite of what you imagine.

Dave W. | January 18, 2006, 9:48am | #

Not all employers are created equal. "Fining the employers" will result in marginal employers closing up shop while well-established employers -- i.e., big business -- accept the higher costs of yet another labor law. Since the former can afford neither the money nor the distraction from their core competency to "militate" in Washington, the new immigration rules will stick around.

good, then write the laws of crime and punishment so that the big players get the most frequent and severest punishments. That puts us right back on track with approach (3). Thanks for the assist, MikeP!

MikeP | January 18, 2006, 10:16am | #

good, then write the laws of crime and punishment so that the big players get the most frequent and severest punishments.

I apparently wasn't clear.

It's not a matter of proportional punishment. The big players won't hire illegal immigrants _at all_. And once they accept and incorporate such restrictions into their business practices, they will do everything in their power to make sure that such regulations and punishments are ossified into the laws that all business must follow.

Or perhaps your goal is not to overturn the immoral immigration regime that currently exists and that Brian so well described.

JC | January 18, 2006, 11:35am | #

"It would be a bad idea to eliminate pre-natal care for the obvious reason that the baby will be a citizen, so it is in our interest for it to be born as healthy as possible."

Gotta love that living constitution.

Dave W. | January 18, 2006, 11:37am | #

Oh, different concern. If big players are subverting competition (as you seem to think they are), then that is an antitrust problem and should be dealt with using that law and those remedies. This (predicted) problem in your latest post has bad ramifications that go beyond immigration enforcement distortions.

MikeP | January 18, 2006, 12:08pm | #

If big players are subverting competition (as you seem to think they are), then that is an antitrust problem and should be dealt with using that law and those remedies.

Almost all business regulation and labor law is "big players subverting competition." Regardless of the noble or progressive intentions of the first actors to push government to interfere with otherwise voluntary relationships, the legislation and administrative regulation that develop are pretty much devised by and for the big players.

As a minimum competitive benefit of government interference, the big players naturally stomach the costs of more regulation better than the small players. But they also (1) can afford to lobby to see that the rules are to their liking, (2) form the archetype to which the rule is written, and (3) can whine that regulations that overly burden them will disemploy a lot of people.

Antitrust law does not address these behaviors at all. In fact, antitrust law follows exactly the pattern I describe. It is a big stick that the big players who play ball with the government (the "good trusts") can use against their competitors (the "bad trusts").

Dave W. | January 18, 2006, 12:36pm | #

Antitrust law does not address these behaviors at all. In fact, antitrust law follows exactly the pattern I describe. It is a big stick that the big players who play ball with the government (the "good trusts") can use against their competitors (the "bad trusts").

Intriguing take. Linkee?

theOneState | January 18, 2006, 1:00pm | #

I don't get this talk about "morality". Since when is state soverignty immoral?

What would be immoral, e.g., about the U.S. passing a law requiring that no new immigration be allowed, period. Don't they (we) have the moral right to do that?

Similarly, I don't see how it could be immoral for states to prohibit illegal immigrants or unregistered workers from receiving state benefits.

It might be wrong, but to say it's immoral is to say that government, citizenship, sovereignty are all immoral. (And only the most radical libertarians tend to think so.)

MikeP | January 18, 2006, 1:17pm | #

Intriguing take. Linkee?

The canonical argument is found in Gabriel Kolko's The Triumph of Conservatism.

I found a shorter article with the basics at answers.com.

happyjuggler0 | January 18, 2006, 1:45pm | #

Brian Courts,

Needless (?) to say I am not happy you are choosing to compare an unwillingness to have unlimited legal immigration with slavery. You used different paragraphs to do so of course, but the effect was the same.

Ahuman being who is owned by another has no rights whatsoever, let alone the notion that someone born in [into slavery] would not be free to work for, sell to, live with, move freely about, or otherwise associate with any other person on earth wherever they choose. But the words I substituted when I added into slavery are basically saying that.

Anyone who is a citizen of a more or less free country (including the US), unlike Cuba or North Korea for example, is indeed mostly free to work for, sell to, live with, move freely about, or otherwise associate with any other person on earth, albeit not wherever they choose. To be sure they'd likely be more free to do so from the US than elsewhere, but to say that denying them that asserted right is hardly dooming them to slavery.

You stated that we are simply weighing competing moral concerns when we don't choose to depose the dictator of North Korea to save "his" people because he has nukes, although since that was my argument I suspect you may (probably?) would argue the same about the chances for non-nuclear war as well. Fine. I am stating that slavery is a zillion (nice and precise aren't I?) times more immoral than choosing to not let a billion immigrants flood into the US. Same goes for persecution of Jews vs not allowing a billion immigrants in.

I am still not at all convinced refusing to let a billion immigrants into our country is immoral, let alone more immoral than "forcing" them to make their own countries a freer place to live. I am happy though to take in anyone and everyone from a despotic place like North Korea or Cuba that claims asylum.

It is not irrational or xenophobic to think that there is a number of immigrants in a given period of time that is detrimental to the US. Reasonable people can argue over just how high that limit is.

Once again, as I have stated more than once in this thread, I am in favor of a much larger amount of legal immigration. But since we can't (my opinion of course) take everyone we want, we (the US) should be the ones deciding who we take. And towards that end I think that building an "ugly" wall, a real wall as outlined in my Jan 17 5:12pm post and 5:35pm addendum, and for those same four reasons.

MikeP | January 18, 2006, 2:29pm | #

What would be immoral, e.g., about the U.S. passing a law requiring that no new immigration be allowed, period. Don't they (we) have the moral right to do that?

The morality of claiming sovereignty over a region or a people is debatable, but it not the issue here. The issue here is whether it is moral for a state to legislate discrimination against a class of people based on a mostly irrelevant condition of their birth.

I could rattle off half a dozen conditions of birth that you would think should not be permitted grounds for discrimination, much less _required_ grounds. Why is place of birth or citizenship any different?

It might be wrong, but to say it's immoral is to say that government, citizenship, sovereignty are all immoral.

Nope. It's only saying that laws against the freedoms of migration and employment are immoral.

Captain Awesome | January 18, 2006, 3:58pm | #

For another take on anti-competitive regulation just run a google search for Baptists and Bootleggers. And how is the suggestion to fine employers of immigrants not limiting the rights of american to contract freely with others? How does state soveriegnty limit the rights of this employer?

MikeP | January 18, 2006, 5:06pm | #

happyjuggler0,

I am pretty sure everyone can follow the logic of having more dollars in the hands of our southern neighbor as opposed to India for example, where those dollars are less likely to be spent on US goods and services.

I just now looked back to your 5:12pm post and found this deserving of comment. The fact that you misunderstand the economics of international trade may go some way to explain your opposition to free immigration.

Those dollars that end up in India pretty much by definition must come back to the United States in some way, either through direct purchase, direct investment, or purchase or investment after they have been used elsewhere in the world. Unless you are looking to engineer some particular pattern of consumption or investment -- which I would hope you are not -- it is immaterial to the economy whether those dollars first go to Guadalajara or to Bangalore.

Perhaps you are as confused about the economics of immigration and the benefits which would accrue to the US by allowing free migration and employment.

happyjuggler0 | January 18, 2006, 5:48pm | #

My post about preferring unskilled Mexican immigrants vs others, such as from India, is probably a bit too murky. I am quite aware it is irrelevant where the currency of US dollars go. The dllars ultimate path back to the US is arbitraged by markets in a totally unpredictable way. What is relevant is where the wealth represented by that currency goes.

I think the US would benefit more from a wealthier Mexico than from a wealthier country halfway around the world. I am not up to date on the import/export figures, but the latest I was aware of (correctly or incorrectly) is that Mexico is either the number one or number two importer of US goods, and Canada the other. Same for exports to the US.

We benefit when someone somewhere buys our goods and services due to international trade. We also benefit more when someone somewhere in the US buys something cheaper (or better) than they otherwise would have due to international trade. The money they save they get to spend elsewhere, thus creating "free" wealth.

So a wealthier Mexico with more to buy and sell with the US is more in our interests than a wealthier India with more to buy and sell with the US. They simply buy and sell a smaller proportion of their international trade with the US than Mexico. This is why I believe where the wealth (not currency) of remittances to family goes is relevant.

The issue is not trade balance, it is (unforced) trade volume in either direction totalled together. I did mention in my previous post that this was a "selfish" goal, but I still believe it.

By the way, I chose India as the counter example not only because it is halfway around the world, but the skin color is relatively similar to Mexico, so race can't be read into my statement(s).

None of this has any bearing on skilled immigrant workers, such as university graduates in the math/science/technology fields. whatever amount of such skiller workers enter our contry should be determined by their skills and our desire for those skills, not country of origin. Unskilled workers by definition are interchangable. :(

It also has no bearing on the overall number of legal immigrants, just the country of origin ratio.

I realize now that this thought probably should not have been included on the same post as my list of reasons for why I think a wall makes sense. The two are unrelated, unless you think that we should simply let anyone in who wants to enter, in which case the point of this post is irrelevant. But so long as we have a ceiling on immigrants, why not do more to make it n our best interests?