A Right to Migrate?

TCS Daily ^ | 04.06.06 | Nathan Smith

[Coleus]

At the heart of the current immigration debate is an ethical question: Is it wrong for a poor but able-bodied Mexican without the requisite documents to cross the Rio Grande to look for work in El Norte?  Certainly, it is illegal. On the other hand, no one is harmed by it in the strictest sense. No one's person is violated. No one's property is stolen or damaged.  It's true, of course, that illegal immigrants may bid down the wages of low-skilled native-born workers. But this is relevant neither to law nor morality. If I become a dentist, I may marginally reduce the wages of other dentists. That does not make my dentistry illegal or immoral.

Or is it wrong to break the law, per se? But hardly anyone believes that consistently. Most of us approve of one or more of history's famous lawbreakers. Take your pick: Sam Adams and the Boston Tea Party boys; Thomas Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration of Independence ; Pastor Bonhoeffer; Mahatma Gandhi; Martin Luther King; Robin Hood; the Prophet Daniel; the early Christian martyrs. Even the usual argument for obeying laws you disagree with -- that we're all part of a social contract, and owe obedience to the state in return for the benefits we get from it -- doesn't apply to foreigners, who aren't part of the US social contract, at least not before they get here.  I am sympathetic to the idea that a Mexican who comes to the United States to work and share our material prosperity thereby tacitly consents to be ruled by the laws laid down by Washington. With one exception: It is absurd to say that, by immigrating illegally, he signals his consent to the law which he is breaking.

In short, an undocumented Mexican who enters the US is doing something illegal, but it is not clear that he is doing anything immoral. Certainly, in terms of the minimalist morality of not harming others and fulfilling one's obligations, he is not.  Is the law that prohibits an undocumented Mexican from entering the country, then, an unjust law? Or can such laws be defended? Different defenses of these laws come from the right or the left.

"Defending our borders"

Critics of immigration from the right like to say they support "defending our borders." This is a clever phrase, because it erases the distinction between peaceful workers and invading armies. Every state must defend its borders against invading armies, to protect its citizens' lives and property. But states have generally permitted the entry of peaceful traders, who do not threaten the lives or property of citizens. In any case, they know the difference between the two. By pretending not to understand it, right-wing opponents of immigration may score rhetorical points, but they fail to make the case for the widely-disobeyed laws.  That said; the case for restricting immigration in order to "defend our borders" is more legitimate in the wake of 9/11. America is in no danger of armed invasion from Mexico or Canada, of course -- the idea that Mexican immigrants pose an irredentist threat to the Southwest is sheer fantasy -- but we are threatened by jihadi terrorists, who could potentially filter in across our southern border. If counter-terrorism were the good-faith motivation for our tight border controls, the case for US citizens to cooperate with them would be strong.

But a counter-terror borders policy would look totally different from what we now have. For a start, we would probably permit the unrestricted entry of passport-carrying nationals of Mexico, which is not a terrorist source, and then cooperate with the Mexican government to prevent fraud, and thus prevent a flood of job-seeking migrants from camouflaging terrorist infiltrators. At present, there is not even a pretense that counter-terror is the major motivation for our border controls. The main challenge for applicants for US visas is to prove, not that they have no ties to terror, but that they don't intend to stay and work.  The argument that we need to defend our borders is perfectly valid, especially after 9/11. It just isn't a defense of anything like the regime of border controls that currently exists.

A conundrum for paternalists

A critique of immigration from the political left was recently published in the Denver Post by Paul Krugman. Krugman calls himself "instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration," but he thinks that "we'll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants," because he is concerned about the effect of immigration on the social safety net:  "[M]odern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should - and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.  "Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more."

Krugman's argument amounts to a paternalist case for border controls: he doesn't want to let in immigrants whom we'll be unable, or unwilling, to treat "humanely" by "providing [them] with essential health care, education for their children, and more," even if they still want to come without those guarantees. This restriction is in the interests neither of current citizens, nor of potential migrants, but only of Krugman, and others who feel a psychological need to live in a welfare state.  There are many hundreds of millions of people in the world who lack "essential health care, education for their children, and more." Does "basic decency," in Krugman's opinion, require that we provide for them, too? Presumably not, but then why do we suddenly acquire this obligation "once they're here?" We can't provide a social safety net for the whole world. We may be able to provide one for everyone physically located in the US, but only by restricting who gets in, and why should we do that?

The reaction of a leftist like Krugman to immigration represents a change in, or possibly an unmasking of, the motivation behind the welfare state. A generous view of the welfare state is that it is meant to serve the ends of mercy -- a desire to alleviate the suffering of others -- and/or social justice -- a belief that poverty is (in part) a result of misfortune or exploitation, and therefore that we make life fairer if we tax the well-off to help the poor. But there is nothing just about guaranteeing a decent life to all who live north of the Rio Grande by closing the door of opportunity to those born further south. Nor is there anything merciful about denying a destitute Mexican the chance, however uncertain, of improving his lot in the United States. Krugman entitles his article "We've got a moral duty," but in fact he has detached the welfare state from its notional moral content, and the "basic decency" he mentions is really a form of squeamishness: We know there is poverty in the world, we can't alleviate it; we just don't want to see it here.

This is a cowardly point of view, but Krugman is free to cast his vote for legislators who will pass laws designed to keep poor people abroad where Krugman doesn't have to see them. Krugman has not, however, made the case that any aspiring Mexican or liberal-minded American citizen should obey such laws.

Civil disobedience

Many actions prohibited by law -- murder, robbery, perjury in court -- are also morally wrong. Other actions -- most private lies, adultery, skipping church (according to some people) -- are immoral, but not prohibited by law. A third class of actions is prohibited by law but is not morally wrong, and these are problematic.  When policy and conscience clash, the stage is set for what Henry David Thoreau, in his classic 1849 essay, called "Civil Disobedience." Thoreau's premise is the primacy of the individual conscience against democratic majoritarianism.  "[A] government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then?... It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

Based on this premise, Thoreau argues that the right response to an unjust law is deliberately to break it, and then take the consequences:

"Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?... If [the law] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I saw, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine..."

Thoreau seems to have a lot of disciples lately. An estimated 15 to 20 million people are breaking the law, residing in the United States without legal permission. Millions more are hiring them, leasing them accommodations, and otherwise doing business with them and aiding them. So far, though, this lawbreaking generally does not qualify as civil disobedience in Thoreau's sense, because most illegal immigrants and their employers would rather deceive the state to avoid punishment, than defy the law openly and go to prison as living testimonies against injustice. But that is why the recent pro-immigration demonstrations are so interesting: defiance of immigration laws is becoming more self-conscious, more public, more proud. Illegal immigration may be evolving from a black-economy phenomenon into true mass civil disobedience.  Victor Davis Hanson, among others, predicts that the demonstrations are likely to provoke a backlash. Okay, but what are the backlashers going to do about it? Civil disobedience challenges the powers that be to decide how much violence they are willing to do in defense of (allegedly) unjust laws.

Thoreau wrote that "a minority is powerless when it conforms to the majority... but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight... if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men... ay, if one HONEST man... were actually to be locked up in the county jail [for anti-slavery civil disobedience], it would be the end of slavery in America." Um, not quite: Thoreau proved himself wrong by going to jail for not paying his taxes, without ending slavery.  But Thoreau is right that civil disobedience can vastly empower a minority that is willing to take risks and make sacrifices for a just cause, in the context of a liberal state which is not willing to commit atrocities against non-violent people. Mahatma Gandhi led a successful movement for Indian independence by means of satyagraha, an Indian version of civil disobedience. He succeeded because the British were not willing to kill on a large scale to maintain their rule of India, and because Gandhi and others in his movement were too brave to be diverted from their purpose by lesser punishments, like imprisonment.

It's a safe bet that the American people would not countenance the massive coercion and violence -- the Berlin Wall at the border, the long trains full of deportees, the raids of peaceful suburbs, the tearing apart of families, the repression of peaceful protesters, the jeers of "ethnic cleansing" from around the world -- that would be necessary to block or reverse the natural process by which migrants are drawn from poor, low-opportunity countries to the thriving economy of the United States. The question, then, is whether illegal immigrants and their sympathizers have the courage and conviction to organize civil disobedience until they force lasting change.

The right to migrate

I, for one, hope they do. And I hope they bring about a world in which the right to migrate is accepted as an essential pillar of freedom. That's the long-run vision. How to get there is harder. But we can afford to let in anyone who is not a threat to national security, if we manage the economic impact of immigration so as to ease the way.  Low-skilled workers in the US today enjoy higher wages because border controls reduce the competition. Lift the border controls, and wages would fall. From one point of view, that's fine, because US-born low-skilled workers earn a lot more than (most) low-skilled foreign workers earn abroad. Why not narrow the gap? On the other hand, low-skilled workers are used to, and expect, a relatively high (by worldwide or historical standards) level of disposable income. A principle of good policy is to avoid causing unpleasant surprises, when possible.  So if immigration redistributes wage income from (some) US workers to newcomers, why not offset this by using the built-in redistributive effects of our tax-and-transfer system?

Every worker in the United States today pays a payroll tax to pay unsustainable hand-outs to the generation born in the 1930s or earlier. There's nothing fair about this, but we're used to it, and we lump it together with the general obligation to pay taxes. And 12.4% is a burden, but it won't ruin your life, the way being deported from or barred entry to a country might. So, as a start, we can create a guest worker program, available to all non-terrorists, and require participants to pay their 12.4% payroll tax, while barring them from collecting benefits in the future. This would be fairly easy to arrange, and it would help to shore up the finances of the Social Security system, making the retirements of working-class Americans more secure. (To avoid causing unpleasant surprises to anyone, these policy changes would not affect current legal immigrants.)  A more direct way to compensate the US-born working poor for the effect of immigration on wages is through the Earned Income Tax Credit, a negative tax on labor income established in 1975 and rapidly expanded in the 1990s. Currently, most Green Card-holding immigrants are eligible for the EITC. If we allowed in guest workers while not making them eligible for the EITC, this would allow US-born low-skilled workers to be competitive with guest workers in the labor market, while still enjoying a higher standard of living. And more prosperous guest workers' income taxes would help to finance the EITC.

Guest-worker programs are appealing, in part, as a market-friendly form of foreign aid. Instead of brain-draining poor countries, the theory goes, guest workers will enrich their home countries by bringing back savings and skills. But once they're in America, guest workers tend to want to stay. Solution: give them a monetary incentive to return, by creating a mandatory guest-worker savings account (say, 20% of all earned income), which they can withdraw only when they get home. Or if they want to stay, they have to accumulate a certain amount (say, $50,000) in their savings accounts, after which they can apply for citizenship, but in that case, they forfeit the money.  Every year, the federal government would split the proceeds from these forfeited savings accounts 300 million ways, and send everybody a check, as a tangible reminder of the benefits of immigration. (It's not a lot. If 1.5 million guest workers became citizens, we'd each get $250. A poor family of four would get $1,000 -- no fortune, but not pocket change either.)

Finally, if we're still reluctant to see desperate people on our streets, we can require guest workers to pre-imburse the US government for the cost of deporting them. After that, if they end up in desperate need, they have a right to be sent home by the US government, on demand. If they return home on their own, they can get this money back.  The details are immaterial: the point is that open borders can benefit all Americans . I'm all in favor of bribing the median voter during a transition period, though I would hope that these policies would be phased out over time. Regardless of how they're treated by our tax-and-transfer system once they arrive, potential migrants are always better off having the option of coming, than not having it. And it is less unjust to let in guest workers and tax them, than to deny millions of people the chance to come to the greatest country in history, just because of the accident of where they were born. In the meantime, if illegal immigrants are ready to resort to protests and civil disobedience to get the American people to do the right thing, more power to them.

Nathan Smith is a writer living in Washington, D.C. You can e-mail him here. Read more of his ideas about immigration here, here and here.

[stands2reason]

You have a poor grasp of logic. Morality is not determined by judicial fiat.

[jordan8]

Cloud cuckoo land libertarianism that can't tell the difference between a nation and a state (or an empire, for that matter) and pretends that people are interchangeable economic units that have no effect on society other than economic.

[dr_who_2]

I don't believe in trespassing on private property. I believe it is the duty of a government to keep certain undesireables out of U.S. territory, public or private. But I think it's unrealistic to paint with a broad brush and try to keep a majority of "in-bound aliens" out, because as long as territories south of the border are less hospitable/inviting than the US, there will be lots of foreigners trying to get in one way or another. I also think that property owners who live next to a border need to realize that the final responsibility for the defense of their property falls to them even though they are bound by laws. It's normally going to be easier where U.S. territory literally stops at the water's edge. Should the U.S. demand vigilance on the part of their neighbors so that the U.S. can properly enforce its laws? Certainly, but it's nuts to demand more than our own government can deliver in order to fully comply with its own laws, if that. If changing our position forces Mexico to change its "behavior" in a generally positive way, good. But don't expect miracles. On the other hand, if you want total isolation, imagine what the situation would be like if Mexico was like Cuba.

Should "a" wall be built that ensures people intending to enter or leave the U.S. be filtered through official U.S. checkpoints? To the extent that the U.S. government could provide enough of these checkpoints, yes. Border traffic is far more than just illegals trying to get in. You can't pen people in in a free society. Border property owners will have to make allowances to the U.S. for it to work, and the U.S. will have to do a good job of maintaining and fortifying a big structure that will have to be more than a typical cement wall or fence to stop people from crossing it. The money will inevitably come from the same place highway, entitlement, pork money comes from, but there are limits to the amount you can collect before it ceases to work. A wall is like any levee, especially in this case. If the mood of the electorate or their elected officials moves back in favor of something else, then the wall will become less and less effective with time, although the property owners I speak of should be allowed to step in, as their interests are directly protected by a wall. To those who have boundless faith in some self-taxing system of border/citizenship enforcement, look at public schools, etc. Many of us here would like to extricate schools from federal, state, and local governments altogether for some reason or another. People here can turn a blind eye to waste, fraud, and abuse in a pentagon-run national defense because the 1789 model wouldn't work in this day and age. Amtrak, like the USPS, is increasingly worthless but just won't go away.

I would caution anyone against thinking that a wall wouldn't adversely affect our relations with Mexico, and that poorer relations with our neighbor Mexico is something of no consequence. If you think every criminal act along the border amounts to another battle in an on-going border war, then we're at war anyway and always will be. But don't complain if it gets worse, much less spirals out of control as a result of tit-for-tat behavior. Mexicans are not any more helpless than Americans would be in the same situation, or else we would have won the drug war by now. To the hot heads here who would say, "What's the matter with having another war with Mexico?", I'd say that a genuine ongoing war with a neighboring country is the number one national security threat, and worse the war, the worse the threat. And if you think that rogue states and stateless terrorist groups don't pose a real threat, then you have an unhealthy obsession with Mexico. There's nothing like a war close to home to keep the U.S. pinned down. If you think I'm being paranoid here, stop and reexamine your own rhetoric. It's better to influence a neighbor than to make a permanent (dare I say useful) enemy out of him.

To an extent, good fences make good neighbors, as long as both neighbors mend the fence, even an "invisible" one. So it's far more than a question of who starts laying the bricks first. I don't think the situation with Mexico or any other foreign nationals is as bad as the other side claims, but we could easily and unnecessarily make it worse. People here (including me) have written off France, but I think it's fair to say that our track record will remain better than theirs now and in the future, even though there's hope for that country as well. More than what the headlines suggest.

[Myrddin]

The ranchers who tried to protect their land, but ran afoul of the law by "pistol whipping" a couple illegals, lost their ranch entirely. link. This entire incident would never have occurred if illegals were not crossing our border, trespassing on private property and committing acts of robbery, burglary and vandalism along the way.

The illegal alien invaders are now the owners of the ranch they invaded...compliments of Morris Dees.

[dr_who_2]

People here speak ill of Fox and will probably say the same thing about his successors, but I wonder what's stopping them from communicating to him to see what happens. It's been done before with the POTUS. Why not Mexico?

[dr_who_2]

But once they're in America, guest workers tend to want to stay.

Got any statistics on that point?

[dr_who_2]

Does Mexico have more of a right to be worried about destabilizing forces on its southern borders than the US does? Think back to events of ten years ago before you answer.

[MarkL]

Why is it that nobody askes the question, "Why doesn't Mexico allow "illegal aliens" to take the jobs Mexicans won't do? Why do they have their military patrolling their own southern border for just that reason?

Mark

[dr_who_2]

Sounds like a classic case of stupidity piled on stupidity. Do ranchers further north get into this sort of problem? If not, then perhaps it's better to move up north and worry more about your livestock than getting your pound of (human) flesh.

[dr_who_2]

Enlighten us.

[John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?]

I would say that any nation has the right to protect its borders under the equal right of souvernty.

[TigersEye]

and pretends that people are interchangeable economic units that have no effect on society other than economic.

From the White House website...

Investing in Our People

Work through the Partnership for Prosperity and the Canada-Mexico Partnership to strengthen our cooperation in the development of human capital in North America, including by expanding partnerships in higher education, science, and technology.

I thought our federal gov. was supposed to protect the people so we could invest in ourselves?!

[dr_who_2]

What is that supposed to mean? What is it supposed to mean if one nation infringes on another nation's "rights" to begin with? The victimized nation has the right to retaliate against them in some way? Is there some sort of higher power that's supposed to arbitrate and hold both nations to its judgement?

[John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?]

What that means is that each nation on this earth has the right to defend themselves from any infringement on their souvernty. Meaning the US has the right to defend its borders from any invasion of people in the name of national security.

Just as Mexico, Israel, or BFE has the same right to protect their borders from any and all unwanted peoples. If Mexico or Israel feel that it is best to blow their butts away as they cross their borders we should be able to use the same force to protect our borders too.

That is the one problem I have with US policy we can go into another nation in the name of national security and take out their leader IE S.H. yet Israel could not go into P.T. and take out their leader. We tell them no no don’t do that if we were being shot at and had homicide bombers coming in from Mexico or Canada daily hitting our border cities I can guarantee you we would not hesitate to go in and wipe them out and set up another leader that would see eye to eye with us.

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

Better yet, let's all migrate to this idiot's neighborhood.

[TheLion]

Hey, lets just let all the worlds 8 billion in and then sort it out. How many is enough....100 million, 200 million? When will it be a problem to you?

[Myrddin]

Sounds like a classic case of stupidity piled on stupidity. Do ranchers further north get into this sort of problem? If not, then perhaps it's better to move up north and worry more about your livestock than getting your pound of (human) flesh.

Somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 illegals cross the border each night. The ranchers next to the border are caught in a continuous stream of illegal aliens. The federal government is responsible for controlling the border, but they do a damn poor job of it.

I moved from San Diego to Pocatello, Idaho. I'm very familiar with the transition that occurred as I lived in San Diego from 1961 to 2001. I had intended to retire in the house that I owned in Mira Mesa from 1983 to 2001. I changed my mind as the lightly used Mira Mesa Blvd turned to gridlock from 6 AM to 9 AM and again from 4 PM to 7:30 PM Monday through Friday. Graffitti appeared. Drive by shootings started. A Mexican woman rented the house next door to mine and turned it into a daycare center from 5:30 AM to 6:30 PM M-F. It was decorated like a hovel in the outskirts of Tijuana. My evening walks had to be stopped as a group of gang bangers set up shop on my regular path.

My new location is about 5% hispanic. Mostly farm workers. There are a few gang bangers, but most of them try to hide out on the local Shoshone/Bannock reservation where the "wannabe" gang bangers idolize a genuine transplant from the Los Angeles gangs. The Mexican drug runners are well established in Ogden, Utah (about 150 miles south). They are the principal suppliers to the local drug dealers...most of whom are hispanic. Relocation only changed the percentage of the population, but not their behavior. Our local police department arrests lots of drug dealers. Most of them are illegal aliens from Mexico.

Moving 905 miles north just put me in a house 3x the size and escaped the endless drone of anti-gun bills. My cost of living is lower. I still have to wait for a seat at a decent restaurant if I go at 6 PM. We need more restaurants. The main road through town, Yellowstone Avenue, looks much like Mira Mesa Blvd from 5 to 7 PM. We've outgrown our street capacity. At least it isn't over my back fence.

[CowboyJay]

"Got any statistics on that point?"

About 20 million of them... and counting.

[CowboyJay]

"Sounds like a classic case of stupidity piled on stupidity. Do ranchers further north get into this sort of problem? If not, then perhaps it's better to move up north and worry more about your livestock than getting your pound of (human) flesh."

Purely yours, piled on top of a big fat heap of '60's liberalism and wrapped in a Libertarian tortilla.

Do you understand the concept of private property? The constitutional principle of providing for a common defense? Rule of law? Sovereignty?

[backhoe]

I have been psuedo-blogging, for years, a couple of the elements in WWIV ( III being the Cold War ), in which we find ourselves engaged.

The first element?

-Islam, a Religion of Peace®? Some links...--

The other, somewhat interlocking element is this one:

-Thunder on the Border-- (Minuteman Project)--

---

Not yet, but within an hour, I will update these collections of links with further links connecting these two seemingly disparate groups. Stay tuned.