Category: Immigration

“If we allow open immigration we will be overrun. The new immigrants will swamp our schools and our welfare system. We can’t allow it to happen.”

This is the most common argument against the right to migrate. The big fallacy is that it presumes that the State has obligations and that the migrant has none. However in a world where we are reducing the power of the state over people by allowing them to leave one country and join another they also have obligations. The first is that they cannot be an unreasonable economic burden on the current residents. Second they must assimilate as rapidly as possible to the existing culture. It is the new culture that attracted them in the first place so they need to acculturate. This means learn the language and the traditions of the new culture. In Israel new immigrants are required to attend ulpan which is combination of language and culture immersion classes.
One way to meet the cost of new immigrants is to bring them into the system so they pay taxes. People who have to operate in the cash economy are not paying taxes or subject to other regulations. Another way is to require that all new immigrants have a sponsor who will post a bond such that if the immigrant goes on welfare in their first 5 years in the USA they will cover the cost. Immigrants who went on welfare would be subject to deportation.
The right to migrate is a right, like freedom of speech, that transcends national boundries. Nations that hide behind economic arguements to restrict migration are wrong ethically and economically.

For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com

Government’s policies are in general a reflection of the best interest of the people who run the government. In democracies where the rulers have to get reelected the policy advocated by the elected officials is therefore something of a reflection of the hopes and fears of the voting population. People who vote don’t like change and they don’t like strangers. These two “don’t like” statements are the cause xenophobic anti-immigrant laws.

Historically there was a good reason for sovereign states to restrict migration. Ethics are not as absolute over time as we are often led to believe. Societies create and adjust their ethics to maximize the survival of the group. The old rules were written to maximize the number of new members that survived childhood since this was the critical issue in the groups survival. During times of shortage, which includes most of recorded history, not letting new people into the group was one of the ways to maximize the probability of children surviving. Less people to share with meant more for the people in the group and a probability of healthier offspring. This explains the historic rational root of xenophobia.

Fortunately this old reality is changing. We are, although it is sometimes hard to see, entering a period of worldwide surplus caused by decreasing birthrates and improved technologies and we are adjusting our ethics to this new reality. Test this thesis by applying it to women’s rights, gays and societies changing rules regarding birth control and reproductive rights. For instance two hundred years ago it was illegal to sell birth control of any type in most countries now condoms are handed out as government policy in much of the world. Even though many religions still oppose their use. This change happened because people wanted a better life and they saw that less babies was one path to that better life. They changed their ethics about birth control.
Societies that survive and thrive in the future will be those that attract and welcome immigrants. New immigrants create growth they bring new ideas and introduce variety into everything from food to architecture. But in the same way that groups have resisted changing the other ethics mentioned above they resist immigration. Many people in our society are stuck with the old shortage mentality. The mentality that says that more people in our group means less for each of us. It is our task to help change this out dated mindset so that the good life we live can be shared by all of the world’s people.

For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com

In the United States today we accept that we have the right to live wherever we want to. This was not always the case. Consider that San Marino, California had deed restrictions against Jews or Blacks owning property that lasted into the 1960’s. The Supreme Court finally ruled in 1935 that California could not restrict the migration of “Okies”. Why is it wrong to restrict where someone lives within our country but all right to restrict where they choose to live in the world. It is not. People should have the right to live wherever they choose in the world as long as they don’t become a burden on the people already living there.

It is wrong that the luck of your place of birth should be the major determinant of how your life turns out. Consider two children born on the same day ten miles apart one in Brownville, Texas and the other in Matamoras, Mexico. Because of the luck of what Warren Buffet called the “Uterine Lottery” the probability of a happy and prosperous life is much higher for the girl born in Brownville. And the worst thing is that the parents of the child born in Matamoras can legally do very little about it. This is a great injustice that must be corrected.

It is wrong to say that if someone is born in a certain set of circumstances they are doomed to live their live under those circumstances. People have the right to change those circumstances. Governments that restrict that right are performing an illegal act.

It was wrong that the Berlin Wall was built to keep East Germans from exercising their right to migrate. How then can any wall that keeps people from migrating be legal?

There are no “Illegal Immigrants” anywhere in the world. The right to migrate is a basic human right and cannot legally be taken away by a government or any other entity.

In future article we will deal with the practical implications of this radical idea whose time has come.

For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com

This is a picture of the wall along the Tijuana/San Diego Border. Not a very nice way to treat your neighbors or to improve the neighborhood.

For more information on the Right to Migrate visit radicalmigration.com

Scene One           “It is the Right of the State”

In this scene it is 1730 in central Europe.  There are two families huddled on the village green.  A man in an official looking uniform is speaking to them “I’m sorry” he says “the King has ruled that you will not be allowed to settle in the kingdom.  You will have to leave.”

Should be clearly wrong, ugly but not violent.

Scene Two

            “The SS St Louis Story”

The SS St Louis left Nazi Germany with 1000 passengers mostly Jewish women and children.  It was bound for Cuba but was denied entry there and then in the USA and other nations.  Finally it was forced to return to Europe where hundreds of the passengers died at the hands of the Nazis. 

There is a independent film about this story.  Get one of the survivors to speak.

Scene Three

            “Free to Live”

It is Detroit and a black family is being kept from living in an all white suburb. 

There is an important movie and or book about this story.

Scene Four

          “Dying at Borders”

Black Africa.  This scene shows the misery of the camps on the Rwanda border.  Perhaps with voice over from an aid worker talking about how people were turned back to their deaths.

Scene Five

            “Dying in the Desert”

Perhaps a series of interviews with survivors of the US/Mexico crossing saying how risky the crossing was is and why they attempted it.  Show video and stills of the death

Scene Six

              “A Call to Action”

Oppose vigilanties (show Minuteman videos)

The underground railroad analogy?

Civil Disobedience.  Stop the Wall!