Posts
I think this issue is an important one. Here’s an edited version of my response:
First, he called me on referring to it as “immigration. As he rightly pointed out the controversy was over illegal immigration, not immigration per se. Big difference.
But he was also under the misapprehension that McCain was for amnesty. He is not.
From the YouTube Republican debate:
“Q: Will you pledge to veto any immigration bill that involves amnesty?
McCain: Yes, of course, and we never proposed amnesty.”
McCain’s plan includes “fines, would require back in the line, would require deportation for some.” That’s no amnesty, by normal definition. It is just not as tough on illegal immigrants as most others in the GOP want to be.
But I think, with McCain, that more than this is inhumane, bad for the US economy, and plain unrealistic. It’s no small thing to deport 12 million people. That would involve one of the bigger refugee problems in history.
And, as I noted, any liberal in the true Clear Grit sense (as opposed to what passes as "liberal" in North America today) should favour immigration. Allowing immigration is a matter of fundamental human freedoms--freedom of movement and the right to work.
If you say—as we all are accustomed these days to do—that only Americans have a right to move to and to work in the US, we are making a distinction between American rights and human rights. But do only American citizens have the right to work? If so, either this is no human right, or you do not hold Mexicans to be human.
We are all brothers and sisters; we are all God’s children. Yes, those who commit a crime waive rights. But in moral principle, the border should be completely open. To close it is already sinful. And, at least in conventional Catholic morality, a poor man has the absolute right to do what he must do, even including theft, in order to sustain himself.
My friend is under the misapprehension that “illegals” (sic) “have depressed wages” and are “preventing US citizens from making a living wage.”
I don’t buy that. I sincerely doubt there are many employed American citizens earning less than a “living wage”—i.e., not enough to physically survive. Less than they’d like to, perhaps. I hope I’m not being callous here, but with due respect, a whole lot of people in the Third World manage to live on less than even welfare pays in the US. Why, indeed, would a Mexican want to come all the way to the US to work, if the money he made was not enough to live on? Surely it is, for him.
But let’s also not suppose that nativists on this score are really acting in the best interests of American workers, as opposed to specific vested interests. Realistically, if foreign workers will do the same job as Americans for less money, you have two choices: 1. allow the workers into the US, or 2. watch the factories move out of the US. The former is far better for the US economy and for the US working man. It will produce more jobs, and better-paying jobs, for everyone.
It is, indeed, exactly how the US grew to this point. It is the American way.
All of this applies equally well, of course, to Canada.
2 comments:
Roney,
Your logic is correct only if you look at the world - and the nation-state system recognized since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia - through a very narrow moral window.
I submit that it is the duty, right, and responsibility of every nation to care for its own citizens first and foremost. In general, events that threaten the welfare and/or continued survival of the state should not be allowed to pass, especially when the harm to the state threatens the welfare of many more people than the event in question would help.
You write that "Allowing immigration is a matter of fundamental human freedoms--freedom of movement and the right to work." Please, with all sincerity, correct me if I am wrong. However, I know of no recognized right to unrestricted freedom of movement or freedom of work. Generally, one may move freely about any country of which one is a citizen. To move to or within other countries, however, usually requires formal permission, such as a visa. This is right and as it should be, as countries have vested interests in knowing details of the citizens who travel within its borders.
To work requires an economy with a need that one has the skills to meet. Without those two factors, there is no right to work. So I believe that your assertion that these rights exist is false. Accordingly, I make no disctinction between American rights and human rights for the purposes of this discussion.
Those people who are free to move about and work in America are, rightly, limited to Americans and those others whom Americans choose to allow the right. Ideally, this will from time to time include those who are allowed to do so for humanitarian purposes.
Immigration, properly managed, is a plus for both immigrant and citizen. Illegal immigration - defined as any immigration in violation of the laws of the country emigrated to - is something that every country has the right to prosecute and prohibit.
Frankly, I am on-board with allowing those currently in the US illegally without significant criminal records a reasonable path to citizenship as a matter of recognizing the US's complicity in bringing them here. But that is a bow to practicality and acknowledgement of our role, not a recognition of any right.
No human right is unrestricted. Freedom of speech, for example, is limited by laws against copyright and libel. Freedom of movement is similar in this regard. But the specific issue is whether it is legitimate to limit freedom of movement at national boundaries. To make it legitimate, the limitation must protect some other human right—as do copyright and libel.
Originally, this was not thought to be the case. As defined in Magna Carta, freedom of movement has no such limitation:
It shall be lawful to any person, for the future, to go out of our kingdom, and to return, safely and securely, by land or by water, saving his allegiance to us, unless it be in time of war, for some short space, for the common good of the kingdom: excepting prisoners and outlaws, according to the laws of the land, and of the people of the nation at war against us, and Merchants who shall be treated as it is said above.
The passage does not address immigration directly, but in effect, so long as someone swore allegiance to the English monarch, and was not of the people of a nation at war with England, he was free to come and go and ply his trade as he did. This was standard practice throughout Europe until recently.
Immigration used, indeed, to be considered only a good thing. What country would not want more people? Canada used to advertise aggressively for immigrants. Only with socialized programs did it become possible that a new immigrant might be a liability. What happens if he needs health care or retirement benefits or disability benefits before he has contributed enough to the system to cover them?
McCain’s proposal solves this problem neatly by allowing indefinite “guest worker” status which does not include eligibility for social benefits.
“Right to work” is really a euphemism, and I probably should not have used the term. The actual human right involved, on which “right to work” legislation is founded, is the right of association. This implies that an employer has a right to hire whomever he sees fit to help him accomplish his task; and a worker has a parallel right to work for or not work for whomever he sees fit. Of course, this right is massively violated by all “affirmative action” programs. But we knew that, didn’t we? The existence of a real human right is unaffected by the likelihood of governments recognizing it. If this were not so, rights would be a gift from governments, instead of being self-evident and endowed by the Creator. That would imply that governments own us.
Stopping freedom of movement at national borders implies the same.
Remember, too, that there is no place for distinctions of race for those of us who are Christian. Our true neighbour is not our fellow Jew, but the good Samaritan. There is no Jew nor Greek in Christ.
Post a Comment