“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she told him. “The only thing I’ve done is that I am Eritrean.”
—-Illegal Eritrean immigrant Rahel Negassito to her son, in the latest “Feel badly for illegal immigrants who finally get what they deserve” feature by the New York Times.
Rahel looks smug and defiant in the photo, as indeed she is. She did nothing wrong, but the (revoltingly) sympathetic story of her problems relocating to Canada from the U.S., where she has been residing illegally for 20 years, reports that she got into the country by
- “…paying a smuggler who eventually got her to Britain, where she bought a fake British passport” to get her into the U.S.
- …getting caught by ICE when the passport was recognized as fake
- …being released after her application as a refugee was rejected, as a “paroled undocumented migrant.”
- ….living with her citizen sister for 20 years, counting on America’s slack and, for most of the period, law-ignoring immigration process to protect her.
Then as the story tells us, cruel Donald Trump was elected and set out to fulfill his campaign promise to clear as many illegal immigrants out of the U.S. as possible. A gift link is here.
I’m not going to go into detail with this one like I did with the previous “Good Illegal Immigrant” propaganda piece from the Times. I was cheered to see that Fox News this morning focused on that one, almost as if they had read my essay, which scooped them. (My critique was better, naturally.) What struck me about Rahel’s tale is that these people really don’t think breaking laws is “wrong,” and neither do an increasing number of progressives and Democrats.
I don’t believe that still I have to write this, but that attitude is a threat to civilization and an invitation to anarchy. Nonetheless, it is being advocated increasingly by self-righteous Christians, cynical progressives, and unscrupulous Democrats. As I have written here far more frequently than I should have to, it is not a defensible or ethical position. Really, really, really wanting something is not an ethical argument for just taking it in defiance of a nation’s laws.
I’m trying to recall if anyone has ever offered on this site or anywhere else a reason based, non-emotional, factual argument for why illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay here. Has there been one? (The Pope hasn’t made a convincing argument, though he keeps blathering on as if he has.) About all I have read that is not via Rome is that the current system is “broken,” but that is not a justification for breaking the laws we have. I have heard activists claim a “right” for anyone in the world to migrate wherever they want and take the benefits of the nation they come to, but that is utopianism gone bats, in the same category as saying that there is right to get a “living wage” even if you contribute nothing to society and, in the immortal words of AOC’s Green New Deal, “choose not to work.”
And yet the Axis news media is aggressively promoting illegal immigration and its advocates. I don’t get it. I really don’t.
As a tangential matter, I note that this year’s ethics companion to “It’s a Wonderful Life” is lagging in views and comments, presumably because Ethics Alarms’ five commenters have read it in past years and assume it is all familiar territory.
I must say, it really isn’t. I wrote it after all, and have read every edition carefully since its first publication in 2011. Nevertheless, I was still surprised at many sections, and paused particularly when I read this:
“Cultures do rot, which is why, for example, the fantasy that America can just round up all its illegal aliens and march them out of the country at gunpoint and without their children back to where they came from is dangerous, and so is the reverse dream that ignoring laws when people break them for good reasons will do anything but undermine civilization.A nation that would do either has turned the corner towards Pottersville. We must always be vigilant about spotting and avoiding cultural tipping points that will erode our basic ethical values.”
It had long been my position is that rounding up and deporting millions of people no matter how much they deserve to be deported was too ugly and divisive for the United States to undertake. Democrats certainly have counted on that. The comparisons being made now with “the Gestapo” and the Holocaust, despicable and unfair as they are, were predictable and predicted. Now that a President has the guts to do it, I wonder if my position was correct. I am certainly not as certain of it as I once was.
If people who are convinced they do nothing wrong when they break laws continue to be tolerated here, indeed, encouraged (which was the Biden Administration policy) I don’t see how chaos can be avoided.
Ethics Alarms 
I’m saving the Wonderful Life post till the weekend when I’ll have time to read it at leisure. I’m looking forward to it.I just had a similar discussion with a couple of friends. It was predictable ‘they just want a better life’ etc. I asked them if they’d followed all the procedures for their spouse visas, and then to get Permanent Residence and Zairyu Card here. ‘Of course’, they both said. When I asked why, then, do they think it’s ok for people coming into the US to not do so. I also asked them to name me one other country that has an open border. They couldn’t answer either question, of course. It’s always the same. Any ex-pat or immigrant I’ve ever talked to says the same thing. Of course they followed the law, Japan is tough on illegal immigration, and believe it or not, they see that as a good thing. It baffles me. They willingly jump through all the hoops here, but resent the US from enforcing very similar immigration laws.
It’s the inherent contradiction of progressive immigration policy – the U.S. has no exceptionalism except to the people who want a better life here.
I can list a few countries that have gone open borders too. France and the UK are leading examples.
Completely unrelated… I’m traveling next week to France for work. My employer’s travel security group emailed me yesterday and notifying that I should not visit Christmas markets due to the terrorism risk.
I wrote that sloppily, I apologize. It’s a bit of a busy week for me. By ‘open borders’ I meant little to no border immigration enforcement. ICE shouldn’t be enforcing the law, Trump is Hitler etc., the typical Democrat talking points. France and the UK require some kind of visa, I thought. They no longer do? I haven’t been to Europe in decades.
“Japan is tough on illegal immigration, and believe it or not, they see that as a good thing.”
You don’t want to get caught entering MEXICO ILLEGALLY
PWS
Unless you’re planning on going to the US and they’ll expedite your travel north.
“Unless you’re planning on going to the US and they’ll expedite your travel north.”
That approach seems to have…um…EVOLVED in recent years.
PWS
The ugliness of deporting millions of illegal immigrants seems to be parallel to any utilitarian argument. I would argue if you got in during to Biden, as we did catch and release – we know who you are, and if you claimed asylum and don’t show up for your court appointment due process is finished, immediate deportation, even 15 years from now. If you got in prior to Trump’s first term, you get grandfathered in with legitimate work authorization but no chance for a green card or citizenship if your asylum claim is denied. From here on, our immigration is enforced as strictly as Canada’s. It would be much more productive to simply move forward.
Interviews with lawyers and nongovernmental organizations suggest that since President Trump took office in January, Canadian border agents have been coming up with new, unwritten protocols to prevent asylum seekers in the United States from entering the country. Harsher questioning is more common, and agents are quickly — sometimes in just hours — handing asylum seekers back to ICE, giving lawyers and family members little time to react.
Oh my, or may be “Oh Canada!” Trump is making the nice Canadians mean? I thought Canada was wonderful in every way, eh? Trump is directing Canadian immigration policy? Canada doesn’t have open borders, eh? What’s up with that?
Cue Kevin Klien…
With your fondness for labeling certain situations with cultural identifiers, particularly movie references, you might consider calling the “but I just wanted _X_” the Rocket Racoon argument, from the scene where the other Guardians of the Galaxy try (unsuccessfully) to explain to Rocket why taking something that doesn’t belong to him is wrong, even when he thinks wanting it, especially wanting it more than someone else, justifies his theft.
I can’t be the only person here who reads Steve Sailer.
He has discussed, tongue in cheek, the Zeroth Amendment, which well-meaning people think gives the entire world the right to come to the USA.
One version is this:
“The President shall enforce no law respecting an establishment of borders, or prohibiting the free crossing thereof.”
Jason Richwine has a nice review of Sailer’s book _Crossing_.
Sailer has referred to his Zeroth Amendment observation more than a dozen times. It may have started in 2016. He writes a lot, so sometimes he mentions something repeatedly and then says “Done” as his curious mind moves elsewhere.
https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/38/2/yes-i-read-steve-sailer
charles w abbott
rochester NY
Somewhere I found a comprehensive list of “expulsion of illegal aliens” and similar expulsions, world wide, with a starting date of perhaps the end of World War II. I don’t recall where I read it. It was someone who was very politically incorrect. The sort of person who writes serious material but couldn’t get tenure and perhaps was cancelled from his university.
The list probably started immediately after WWII and covered both lawful expulsions and essentially arbitrary and lawless ones, such as the expulsions of Jews from the Arab world and of persons of German heritage from Eastern Europe.
It was comprehensive enough to cover mutual expulsions between Ghana and Nigeria in the late 1970s / early 1980s.
charles w abbott
rochester NY