…well, first the usual caveats. You don’t have to agree with me. I don’t necesarily preach this from the pulpit. I want to be friends with everyone and lead Bible studies and teach outside of the tiny group of right-wing nuts who are just like me. This is just an opinion, somewhat tentative and yet somewhat strong….
Don’t hurt me.
Please.
But I really think illegal immigration is a good thing.
First of all, we have a bunch of jobs that satisfied or lazy Americans won’t do for the market price. Thank God for migrant farm workers. They make money and we get to eat.
Oh, they don’t make enough. No they don’t. But putting them on a welfare reservation isn’t going to help. And preventing them from coming over here is not going to put food in their mouths.
Also, thanks to illegal immigration, we might become a genuinely bilingual country. That has got to mean our children are going to develop about ten more IQ points than otherwise. Look, you’ve heard the joke:
What to you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What to you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What about someone who speaks one language? Monolingual.
Nope. You call him an American.
Well, that might finally cease to be the case. I think there are great things about American exceptionalism, but in this case it would be better if we were more like Europeans and virtually everyone else in the world.
Also, people are the source of all wealth. Declining population is a recipe for economic disaster. Illegal immigration isn’t the best solution to what abortion-on-demand has left us with, but it still helps. We need to keep growing.
People talk about immigration laws as if they were holy and sancrosanct. OK, we should all obey our authorities. But does that mean we can’t point to lawbreaking as a sign that a law is stupid? Do we really condemn the people who didn’t abide by prohibition as much as we condemn people who break laws against stealing, counterfeiting, or violating other government monopolies?
What about fleeing from communist countries. I remember some movie about how people made a balloon to escape from East Germany? This was utterly illegal. But they did it because they wanted economic freedom and prosperity. Americans typically called these people heroes? So why are immigrants to our country not heroes? They are doing exactly the same thing.
And in what sense is a Mexican looking for a better life bound by the laws of the US? The whole situation looks gray to me.
So what does the Bible say? I’m not going to insult anyone’s intelligence by pointing out all the many times we are commanded to welcome immigrants. I’ll just take this one: ““If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you” (Leviticus 25.35). So there you go. When your own countrymen are destitute you are to treat him as well as you would a foreigner who is destitute. The passage assume that the Israelites are going to actually support the immigrants.
Oh, but those weren’t illegal immigrants.
Right, the Bible would consider laws against immgration to be illegal.
Oh, but they are so rude and obnoxious. Oh puh-leeze. Like we don’t see that all the time among native-borns. Crime increases because we don’t deal with it like we should. We won’t punish criminals so we invent controlled-substance laws to do away with the alleged cause of criminal behavior. The police can’t enforce noise ordinances and public lewdness statutes so we decide we need a massive police state and reams of barbed wire so you don’t have to be upset by rude behavior. Truly, conservatives are always two steps behind liberals. If you don’t like barbaric behavior than find ways to deal with it for both natives and aliens. Or, perhaps, consider becoming tolerant of other people.
What about all our welfare benefits? I’d be happy if immigrants were not granted access to those. I’d be even happier if natives were also not granted access to those. But if illegal immigration means government services are going to become impossible sooner than otherwise, that would be a real bonus, as far as I’m concerned.
The bottom line is that people should be free to seek their fortunes without a police state getting in the way. They are not enemies for wanting to work here. And if they want welfare benefits, well, we are the ones who were stupid enough to offer them.
This doesn’t mean, by the way, I think border guards should be consigned to torture for doing their jobs so Bush can look good to “liberals.”
That’s how I feel about all this, for what it is worth.
Why don’t your arguments apply to legal immigration? My wife’s family are good hard working people. Yet, they have to get on a 20 year waiting list in order to be even considered for coming here. Is that fair? Should we just tell them to go to Mexico and come in?
My arguments do apply to them. They shouldn’t have to wait. Sorry I didn’t mention that. And that is what makes “amnesty” really hurtful. They should at least declare amnesty for everyone on any waiting list, shouldn’t they?
That’s an interesting idea. Fairness is my main gripe in all this talk about the illegals. The liberals just want more votes to get more power. The conservatives just want cheap labor. Both sides are really not concerned that much about the well fair of the people.
Immigration laws need to be completely redone. We have looked into many ways to try and get some of my wifes nephews here. We looked at sponsoring one as an aupair. But family members cannot sponsor aonther family member. Same with exchange students. Two of them could possibly come as nurses but you have to pass a fairly stringent English exam and that is keeping them out.
I really get a bit angry when I hear people talk of supporting the illegals and they don’t mention anything about our existing immigration laws. If we need more people in this country (for the reasons which you mention) we should rethink the immigration laws, not just let anyone in because they can easily walk over the border in an adjacent country.
Again, please forgive me for leaving that out.
I wonder if we have an effective form of middle class labor protectionism in immigration laws. People with degrees and productive lives could be much more productive in the US (and would contribute greatly). But, they are also much more likely to follow the rules. Thus, immigration barriers mean we are deciding to only get the more desperate people into our country.
And you are absolutely right about voting. The rise of mass democracy was concurrent with the rise of immigration restrictions. One man = one vote means that the most peaceful immigrant is a potential invader since he can get part of the franchise and change laws.
That would be another reason that I personally am suspicious of amnesty (despite how I sound above). Why not let illegal residents stay illegal residents? They want to be here. They’re making a living. So what is the point of naturalizing them?
Personally, I wish that all the southeast states would stop deporting illegals. They should give them a hundred bucks and a charter bus ride to Boston. Give New England a taste of the issues (like the federal mandate that hospitals treat them) and Democrats will sing a new tune. As it is, they don’t mind making the Southwest suffer because they won’t hear about it locally and they get democratic voters at the national level.
BTW, since we’re talking about gripes. Hospitals and doctors offices already have an incentive for getting English speakers. The government has no need testing anyone. It isn’t like there is some national level of English competence necessary for all medical jobs in the entire 50 states. Employers should be making that decision.
Besides that, nurses are probably competent to hold some other job while they learn English by immersion. It is just more interference to make them pass a test to immigrate.
I think you’re right on with the Bible principles. Too bad it’s so darn complicated in socio-economic and bureaucratic reality.
I think this makes a lot of sense. I posted recently on my blog about how disappointed I was to hear that Tom Tancredo is a member of the EPC. I hate when people talk as if immigration intrinsically threatens American culture.