Regarding immigration of both legalities
Posted in faith, labor, public policy on March 27th, 2006Much fuss has been made on the AM radio band as well as in congress about immigration. The objection is predicated on a belief that we have too many illegal immigrants. An article by Thomas Sowell, a Conservative economist, captures the essence of the anti-immigration viewpoint:
Citizen-of-the-world types are resistant to the idea of tightening our borders, and especially resistant to the idea of making a distinction between people from different countries. But the real problem is not their self-righteous fetishes but the fact that they have intimidated so many other people into silence.
He goes on to cite examples of troublesome groups, such as Russians and Nigerians, as worthy of special exclusion from entering the United States. It almost has the ring of truth and sense until you consider that any group-based discrimination denies the rights of individuals. I find the wording of the Manifesto for the Abolition of International Apartheid, authored in 1997, to be helpful in identifying the crux of the issue:
Since the end of interracial apartheid in South Africa, no longer any state in the world openly practices discrimination between humans based on the arbitrary criterion of skin colour. Today, however, another equally arbitrary criterion is still accepted and applied by virtually every state in the world. For a human individual to have been born in some a particular place, from parents of some particular nationality, and thus to possess emself some particular nationality, is a matter of chance, and cannot be taken as a non-arbitrary criterion of discrimination.
Ultimately the raging debate may be a lot of fury over nothing, as Arnold Kling, an economist, deflates the hype in pointing out that “illegal immigrants bring relatively little economic benefit and cause relatively little economic harm.” Advocates for tighter border control aren’t xenophobes and proponents for the status quo aren’t laying a welcome mat for n’er do goods. That doesn’t sound worth fighting over, but I can’t blame 500,000 people for protesting legislation that would criminalize providing services to illegals.
It’s un-Christian and I don’t think Senator Hillary Clinton was far off the mark when she said that House Resolution 4437 would criminalize the Good Samaritan. We should foster, not criminalize, our compassion and it should transcend borders.
