Gerson's Immigration Insanity
Carrying on with my patriotic duty, today’s latest installment comes courtesy of Joe Knippenberg, who rather likes Gerson but can’t swallow this gristle:
But a young woman who dies in the desert during a perilous crossing for the dream of living in America is not the moral equivalent of a drug dealer. Millions of hardworking, religious, family-oriented neighbors make unlikely “criminals.” And treating them as such alienates an even larger group of Hispanic citizens.
I agree completely with Knippenberg that “Compassion for people who want a better life should lead us to creating a rigorous and generous immigration program, not to turning a blind eye to a porous border,” but, to put the cherry on top, I invite readers to contemplate how Gerson’s argument is weakened by:
- his blatant use of gendered argument to try to subject the logic of border control to moral subterfuge;
- his theft of the term ‘unlikely “criminal”’ from the bank-robbing grannies who heretofore exclusively defined it;
- his failure to understand that ‘Hispanic’ citizens are indeed likely to be alienated by a policy that gives their ‘co-ethnics’ access to the goods of citizenship without requiring them to be citizens.
For every ounce of blood dripping from Gerson’s sleeve there is a normal person’s response to the moral anxiety that is his stock in trade. If you don’t want young women — or, indeed, middle-aged men — dying in the desert, seal the border so they can’t get there. Too heartless? What about posting, along with a Border Guard tower, a Citizenship Booth every twenty-five miles? If you don’t want good people to remain criminals simply because they broke the law, either deport them or go for amnesty — but let me tell you about the number of Mexican criminals in the representative Echo Park neighborhood of LA, and get back with me on the number of those guys who were citizens. And finally, if you don’t want to ‘alienate Hispanics’, consider treating them as real people instead of as a patched-up ethnic group in which Cuban-Americans, for example, are assumed to place race solidarity above the solidarity of citizenship.
The big problem with Gerson’s ‘moral internationalism’ is not that it has a big heart or a goofy smile. The big problem is that it’s inimical to citizenship. Gerson and his ilk long for the day that Americans don’t get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans. The moral outrage aimed at people against amnesty would, I guarantee you, magically rematerialize if amnesty were granted and the border sealed. All those excluded people! Moral internationalism, at Gersonian levels, is dedicated to the notion that politics is, at best, an imperfect means to a perfect end, and, at worst, an impediment. But, ironically, in believing that citizenship is only good insofar as it secures access to moral goods, moral internationalists fail to understand that exclusive citizenship is a moral good in and of itself. Because, among other reasons, when citizenship becomes meaningless, political rule still somehow thrives, and commodious living grows perilously contingent when political liberty dies.
“Gerson and his ilk long for the day that Americans don’t get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans.”
Just to be clear, you think Americans ought to get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans?
— Will Wilkinson · Feb 8, 04:10 PM · #
A couple of things—
First, as I’m sure you’re aware, illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than the general population. The general rejoinder to that is to say that this is a function of fear of being deported. My response is to say, so what? That’s an argument for illegal immigration, not against. I’m sure Steve Sailer would point out that their children commit crimes at higher rates than the general population. But if they’re born in the United States, they are citizens, and only the most jingoistic out there favors stripping the Constitution of the “citizenship through birth” mechanism.
Second of all, I’m unconvinced that “‘Hispanic’ citizens are indeed likely to be alienated by a policy that gives their ‘co-ethnics’ access to the goods of citizenship without requiring them to be citizens.” That doesn’t seem to have translated into the polls yet, where Hispanics consistently poll in support of comprehensive reform and against enforcement only/mass deportation efforts. (This would be a great question for a poll, by the way— are Hispanic citizens less likely to support a candidate who is seen as sympathetic to illegal immigration, or similar. Someone call Pew.)
— Freddie · Feb 8, 05:04 PM · #
Freddie-
“Jingoist” and “nativist” are two very different things. They might both be equally unsavory, depending on who you’re talking to, but conflating the two is a mistake.
— Matt Frost · Feb 8, 07:31 PM · #
You’re right. I apologize, I wasn’t thinking. That was a stupid error on my part.
— Freddie · Feb 8, 08:27 PM · #
If you don’t want young women — or, indeed, middle-aged men — dying in the desert, seal the border so they can’t get there.
Good plan!
I propose we take a thousand-mile long pony, and lay it on its side on the bank of the Rio Grande. Then no one will cross the border at all.
— DivGuy · Feb 8, 11:10 PM · #
Just to be clear, you think Americans ought to get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans?
My assumption of James’ point was more generous. Whether you subscribe to the notion that America’s prosperity and stability are undeserved accidents of a less-than-honorable history, or, alternatively, happy results of the Constitution and better than average leadership — or, in fact, if you believe neither or a combination of these — do other peoples, less fortunate in their circumstances, have legitimate moral claims on us for access to them? If you take as a given that America is, comparatively speaking, a really good place to live, work, and raise a family — which I think is obviously a true statement — then the question is not whether Americans should get a better shake in life; they do get a better shake in life by virtue of being citizens in a “really good place to live, work and raise a family.” The question isn’t even one of just deserts. The question is, what moral claims can non-citizens make on American citizens given the fact of American prosperity and stability?
James, if I read him correctly, is saying this failure to distinguish between who in the world can make claims on a society is fundamentally inimical to citizenship: American citizenship is worth something only insofar as its privileges and obligations are delimited. And, given that citizenship as an identity is the operative centripetal force of a functioning republic, we undermine it at our peril.
— JA · Feb 9, 01:44 AM · #
After thinking about it, I have one more thing to add.
To grant access to our society is not obligation, but charity.
An obligation, among Men, arises only by contract, social or otherwise (See Hobbes: “For where no covenant hath preceded, there hath no right been transferred…”), whereas charity is, in the words of Francis Bacon, a “corrective spice.”
We do ourselves a great disservice to conflate the two.
— JA · Feb 9, 05:21 AM · #
JA provides an almost spot-on nutshell.
Will, just to be clear, the point is that Americans are beside the point if they’re not American citizens. I’m an amnesty hound. I want to legalize all the noncriminal illegals in the country. But I don’t want to that until the border’s sealed. And I think this can be done while simultaneously putting in gateway entrances for a MUCH larger number of legal immigrants then we currently quota.
The point is that the goods of American citizenship are, and ought to be, exclusive. If you want them, become an American citizen. We should increase our quotas to accept larger numbers of people who want that. It’s a win-win. But we should — in my judgment — stand foursquare against guest worker programs, which erode and destroy the most basic principle of sovereignty (at least in democracies): that citizens get things noncitizens don’t, BECAUSE they are citizens. I’m against Americanism; I’m for American citizenship.
The bottom line is that the conservative position is pro-citizenship and the libertarian position, as I understand it, is anti-citizenship. That’s a legitimate argument to have, and I understand all the reasons to push for mobility rights. But I ardently disagree. Yet I do agree very much that ‘Americanism’ as a natalist idea that brackets the whole question of citizenship and political liberty is a wretched and stillborn concept.
So perhaps we can agree on amnesty and work toward an understanding that open borders wreck sovereignty? But I fear libertarians were never about sovereignty, quite openly and consistently, but nonetheless sadly.
— James · Feb 9, 05:53 AM · #