From Principle to Policy: Navigating the Moral Terrain of Immigration Reform | Capital Commentary

From Principle to Policy: Navigating the Moral Terrain of Immigration Reform | Capital Commentary by Paul Brink.  MGB: It is troubling that the rhetoric on this issue is less than Christian, however that is the case with most discourse nowadays. It would be good to enter into a debate that humanizes immigrants, where enforcement resources, including local ones, were dedicated to finding the victims of human trafficking and directing them to federal help, including special visas for such victims, rather than simply trying to deport as many as possible. I fear that instead local law enforcement calludes with traffickers by looking the other way when economic interests are served by cheap labor and only enforcing the law when workers begin to make trouble by demanding their rights to fair wages and decent working conditions.


The problem is not our borders. People have a right to enter, they just don't have a right to stay. If right-to-work and immigration laws were repealed, there would be no jobs for workers in the shadows, so people would not overstay their welcomes in a manner that disrupts the domestic workforce. Given the choice between hiring a unionized immigrant and a unionized citizen, most employers would likely prefer the citizen. This will force home countries to deal with their own problems rather than send them here. Unnatural immigration limits are not needed - and are in fact dehumanizing because they turn people into numbers and create a shadow workforce.

Border law cannot be a state responsibility. Enforcement is only necessary because illegality pays, making this largely a problem between Republican business owners who are honest and want more legal workers, those who benefit from illegality and those who are truly xenophobic - although the second group stokes the passions of the third to keep their profit margins low. Eventually, the immigrants will find a home in the Democratic Party and no one will care about GOP intercene warfare. This will allow adequate funding of immigration services, eliminating the backlogs that help keep people in the shadows. My German ancestors came, signed papers and became Americans. There is no reason that Latino immigrants need any more process than that.