New at Reason

David Weigel | April 25, 2006

Cathy Young rediscovers her roots when thinking about immigration.

Comments

|4.25.06 @ 9:07AM|#

Excellent article!

|4.25.06 @ 10:10AM|#

I've got a question that no ones seems to be able to answer (I've asked around and usually get blank stares).

I read this many years ago...once. It stuck with me and I've never heard it mentioned since.

Is this true?
The current immigration laws/limits have their roots in the US eugenics movement of the 1920-30s.

thanks,

|4.25.06 @ 10:13AM|#

Very good piece. I question one point: murder is illegal by definition. True, but killing isn't.

|4.25.06 @ 10:14AM|#

Law is always "more a technicality than justice." Indeed, many if not most laws have only a tenuous connection to justice in the first place. The point is whether the law, necessarily general, appropriately serves a just purpose and is just in its general application.

It is one thing to note how ridiculous it is to compare illegal immigration to mala in se crimes such as murder (would the comparison have been so dumb if the commenter had said "illegal homicide"?), quite another to suggest that illegal immigration somehow isn't really illegal.

Frankly, anyone at age 20 who was eligible for citizenship but failed to bother applying should be considered deportable on grounds of being dumb in a no-dumb zone. And how exactly is being married to an American supposed to entitle one to a pass on following the rules?

Even though I generally favor amnesty and, for that matter, would prefer (security issues aside) open immigration, we shouldn't be persuaded by mere appeals to emotion because (1) officious bureaucrats act in an officious, bureaucratic manner, or (2) the application of current law may occasionally lead to individual results we dislike.

|4.25.06 @ 10:15AM|#

Lee"

Take a look at this
site:

http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay9text.html

|4.25.06 @ 10:17AM|#

And how exactly is being married to an American supposed to entitle one to a pass on following the rules?

What exactly is the state's compelling interest in breaking up happy marriages because one spouse didn't properly fill out some unnecessarily convoluted forms?

|4.25.06 @ 10:33AM|#

What exactly is the state's compelling interest in breaking up happy marriages because one spouse didn't properly fill out some unnecessarily convoluted forms?

Well, speaking simply of law and not libertarian principles, the state doesn't need a compelling reason to insist that its laws be followed.

Look, I don't disagree that immigration law is a mare's nest of red tape. However, the law in fact already accords such non-citizens legal advantages. My point was only that Ms Young's example of a non-U.S. citizen married to an American failing to follow the proper procedure is an appeal to emotion. By all means let's reform the law. But whatever the reformed law might be, such people should be no more exempt from its procedures than any other non-citizen.

|4.25.06 @ 10:40AM|#

Well, speaking simply of law and not libertarian principles, the state doesn't need a compelling reason to insist that its laws be followed.

And yet if people regularly get into the habit of insisting that laws be followed for their own sake, not because they are necessary, that opens the doors to totalitarianism. It's like school "zero tolerance for drugs" policies: We worry about student safety, so we say they can't have drugs in school. Then the definition of drugs is expanded to include things like asthma medication, and finally we see students denied their life-saving asthma medication in the name of strict adherence to rules that were originally supposed to be about keeping students healthy and safe.

Yes, we need immigration laws to--I dunno, keep America safe and stable--and to bring about this safety and stability we'll break up families?

I don't think the example of families being torn apart is an appeal to emotion so much as it a straightforward explanation of the damage these asinine laws are causing. Just like when other staff members writing against the War on Drugs discuss SWAT teams breaking into the wrong homes and killing innocent people--is that an appeal to emotion, or a flat-out description of what evils are being done in the name of these laws?

|4.25.06 @ 10:42AM|#

I think Cathy sums up my feelings on this issue pretty well. Yes these people are breaking the law, but THE LAW IS AN ASS!!! Didn't Thomas Jefferson say that we have a civic duty to break laws that are unjust? (I'm breaking the law every time I smoke weed - as I should!) Now that our political process has become so ineffective that we can't get stupid laws changed or taken off the books, I'm happy to undermine those stupid laws every chance I get.

A guy from England I know (who lives here on a green card) has told me stories about the immigration process here, and it makes even my local D.O.T. look like a well-oiled machine of efficiency. Every time I hear about the ridiculous, bureaucratic process people have to go through to come here legally, it irritates the crap out of me. Mainly because our stupid federal government is so busy wasting resources on crap programs like Social Security and sucky government schools that it can't even decently manage its few legitimate functions. It makes me want to cheer for the illegals who come here (and who are more likely to hold a job than our own home-grown welfare parasites) and sidestep all that useless bureaucracy. It's like the free market at work, or something.

|4.25.06 @ 11:05AM|#

[sigh...]

I certainly am not insisting that laws be followed for their own sake, let alone opening "the doors to totalitarianism." (See my comment, "...appropriately serves a just purpose and is just in its general application.") Sheesh!

Here is what Ms Young wrote: People adjudged by immigration agents to be attempting to enter the country illegally, often because of a glitch in the paperwork, have been barred from reapplying to enter this country for the next five years - even if they are married to an American.

Even she didn't resort to the, ahem, emotive phrase "families being torn apart." What next? "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria"? Yikes!

Finally, the reductio ad absurdum about SWAT teams and zero tolerance policies is just silly. At some point, and you have crossed it here at least twice, a difference in degree becomes a difference in nature. Are you really arguing that denying entry to the spouse of a U.S. citizen in accordance with applicable law is qualitatively the same sort of injustice as causing a student's death by denying required medicine or shooting innocent people in their homes?

|4.25.06 @ 11:08AM|#

Are you really arguing that denying entry to the spouse of a U.S. citizen in accordance with applicable law is qualitatively the same sort of injustice as causing a student's death by denying required medicine or shooting innocent people in their homes?

I'd say it's a difference of degree, not kind--either way, innocent people are suffering due to enforcement of a law that is supposed to be making the country better in some way.


Even she didn't resort to the, ahem, emotive phrase "families being torn apart."

No, she merely referred to spouses being forcibly separated for a minimum of five years, and then you said she was making an appeal to emotion.

|4.25.06 @ 12:02PM|#

There was nothing in the article about the natural color of Cathy Young's hair!?!

|4.25.06 @ 6:27PM|#

Uri ben Tzvi

thank you thank you thank you!

|4.26.06 @ 1:52AM|#

I liked Cathy's article. But I have to add a "but".

Contrary to local popular opinion, opening our border to Mexicans is not an unqualified good. But building The Great Wall of North America is the kind of assinine thing that only American politicians could think of.

[okay, so I flatter our politicians unjustly]

The cost of building such a wall, and then maintaining and gaurding it, would almost certainly exceed the benefits of having it in the first place.

But there is still a difference between Mexico and the rest of the world. The opportunity cost of a Mexican to come here is orders of magnitude less than anyone coming from Eurasia or Africa. We probably can't stop the Mexican influx even if we want to. So I propose:

1) Make it easy for Mexicans to come here legally. As long as they aren't criminals, they automatically get to come for as long as they want. At the same time, make the penalties quite harsh for not coming in legally. Very harsh, to offset the fact that we probably won't catch all the illegals.

Rationale for at least watching who comes and goes: do we really want all the mother rapers, murders, and other criminal elements in Mexico coming here? No. At least run some kind of check on the immigrants. Also watch for incoming (non-Mexican) terrorists.

There's the rationale for having a border watch at all, and for harsh penalties to those who don't come legally.

2) Make all Mexicans on US soil subject to all US laws, even the stupid ones (just like the rest of us). This is not currently the case.

3) Make all Mexicans who come here and work, pay all the same taxes that all the rest of us pay. As a grad student I know that international students got stipends (i.e. US tax dollars) and their tuition paid, but they didn't have to pay S.S. and income taxes like the rest of us. It made a nearly $700 a month difference in net income between me and them -- and that was 15 years ago. I still contend that's patently unfair.

4) Of course they don't get to vote unless they become citizens, and they don't get to become citizens unless (gasp) they actually demonstrate some minimal capacity to speak English.


We can either build a wall, or we can give up and admit that it's a revolving door and always will be. We might as well make the best of the revolving door.