Why “It’s the Legality, Stupid” Immigration Argument Falls Flat

[Bill the Cat]

Source: http://barticles.blogs.timesdispatch.com/2014/07/22/legality-stupid-immigration-argument-falls-flat/

Why “It’s the Legality, Stupid” Immigration Argument Falls Flat


My Sunday column on immigration provoked a fair amount of feedback, as pretty much anything anyone says about immigration will do. The principal rebuttal (at least numerically) took issue with how I characterized immigration hawks. It was not accurate, some readers said, to suggest immigration hawks oppose immigration. What they object to is illegal immigration.

Really? As Walter Williams would say, “let’s look at it.”

First, some immigration hawks do object to (at least some) legal immigration. One salient example is Dave Brat, the Cantor Killer, who has argued that the U.S. shouldn’t even take high-skilled and Ph.D. immigrants, let alone unskilled workers. More broadly, there are groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies, which want to reduce legal immigration as well as the illegal kind.

Second, the claim that immigration hawks are worked up about legal technicalities, not immigration itself, needs to be challenged. If what they say is true, then one obvious answer would be to return the U.S. to the open-borders policy it had until the early 1920s. If the immigration hawks are sincere, then they will not mind doing this, since it resolves the legal question — and at a far lower cost to the taxpayers than massive border-control efforts.

On the other hand, if the hawks blanche at the idea of greatly increasing legal entry to the U.S., then their objection really is all about immigration per se, and the legality question is simply a fig leaf to cover it up.

Posted by A. Barton Hinkle
– editor and columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and contributor to Reason magazine.

© Copyright Original Source

Thoughts?

[Darth Executor]

Add him to the list of people who should be lawfully executed for treason.

[Jesse]

Add him to the list of people who should be lawfully executed for treason.

I can't tell if this is an on going joke or...

[Bill the Cat]

I'd really like some meaningful commentary here, and not one line hyperbole.

[Meta Knight]

Letting in millions of poor and unskilled immigrants is not, even a little bit, a lower cost to the taxpayers than border control efforts. That line of argumentation is a complete nonstarter.

[Epoetker]

I'd really like some meaningful commentary here, and not one line hyperbole.

Nah, the hyperbole simply needs to be honed a bit. "Behead those who debase America's people" sounds a little better.

[KingsGambit]

I agree with the editorial.

[Bill the Cat]

I agree with the editorial.

The editorial lies about Brat's stance on legal immigrants, and blatantly so.

[Epoetker]

I agree with the editorial.

I agree with the editorial in the sense that the legality or illegality of the illiterate Chiapas drywaller you fly in for your own purposes is generally immaterial to the choice of whether or not to deport him, and that focusing exclusively on the words 'legal' or 'illegal' is a fool's game. In general, whether you let a whole bunch of people into your country should be determined by your country's needs, not the needs of the people immigrating (news flash: the United States needs practically NO ONE to populate our wildernesses anymore, we can handle that on our own, and most studies show that the majority of immigrants concentrate in cities in any case, driving up land prices and crowding out the natives.)

"Absolute moratorium until unemployment reaches less than 1%" or "America is full" sounds like a much better slogan to me. Most of the law needs to be made much more restrictive than it already is, let your slogans reflect that reality rather than a timid cringe toward the status quo favored by your enemies.