Moral Obligation and Immigration Policy — A Bipartisan Path Forward

38 min readMay 6, 2019

Joshua Wexler, 2019

Abstract

In a world of political brands and wholesale ideologies, partisanship reigns supreme. We find our personal identities deeply intertwined with partisan agendas, handcuffing our efforts to enact meaningful change. Lost is compromise and the contest of ideas. The result is bad policy. In this case, its outright unethical.

So, let’s get serious about immigration reform. We’re going to start from the beginning, and see where we end up. There is only one agenda; make this country a better place for everyone.

Leave behind your preconceived notions, and you’ll be surprised what you learn.

Over the course of this piece, we will find that ethical reform lies in identifying and balancing our many competing moral obligations; finding common ground between ‘the natural right to migrate and the state’s legitimate interest in controlling its borders for the sake of the common good’.

We will begin by navigating a series of thought experiments designed to determine the extent of our moral obligation to others. Next, we will examine the role and responsibility of a state to its citizenry, as well as the human right of the individual to move across borders. We will then survey the state of our most vulnerable at home, and finally dive into the impacts of legal and illegal immigration on both sides of the border. From this exploration, we will establish a framework for maximizing our many competing ethical duties.

In doing so, we will reach a simple yet inescapable conclusion — while emphasizing the importance of how we arrive there.

We are obligated to maximize legal immigration in its most productive form, and disincentivize and limit illegal immigration to the best of our ability.

Reflected as policy, this is more complicated — but we will establish a general premise. Any policy that either ostensibly caps migration at a rate too low, or incentivizes or enables illegal immigration, constitutes an immoral harm.

No reform exists in a vacuum, and every change has a consequence — every action has a reaction. Reform must be approached comprehensively and holistically. Our current policy problems outlined:

The legal immigration system is broken; it is far too restrictive and inaccessible, and the quotas are static.
Our current asylum laws have effectively created an open border, perversely incentivizing a dangerous journey and the trafficking of children.
The asylum system is backlogged and overburdened.
The border is not secure.
Children are paying for choices they did not make.

Ultimately, I will show that in order to achieve moral and sustainable immigration reform, each of these problems must be solved. I will propose a framework for restructuring our immigration laws that both sides of the aisle can stand proudly behind, and argue that anything less is disingenuous political maneuvering, immoral, and overall just bad policy.

Let’s start at the beginning. What is our moral obligation to others?

Part 1: Moral Obligation

Peter Singer in his ‘The Singer Solution to World Poverty’[2] poses a thought experiment to the reader:

‘Bob is close to retirement. He has invested most of his savings in a very rare and valuable old car, a Bugatti, which he has not been able to insure. The Bugatti is his pride and joy. In addition to the pleasure he gets from driving and caring for his car, Bob knows that its rising market value means that he will always be able to sell it and live comfortably after retirement. One day when Bob is out for a drive, he parks the Bugatti near the end of a railway siding and goes for a walk up the track. As he does so, he sees that a runaway train, with no one aboard, is running down the railway track. Looking farther down the track, he sees the small figure of a child very likely to be killed by the runaway train. He can’t stop the train and the child is too far away to warn of the danger, but he can throw a switch that will divert the train down the siding where his Bugatti is parked. Then nobody will be killed — but the train will destroy his Bugatti. Thinking of his joy in owning the car and the financial security it represents, Bob decides not to throw the switch. The child is killed. For many years to come, Bob enjoys owning his Bugatti and the financial security it represents.’

Most of us find Bob’s lack of action morally reprehensible. However, you and I have the same opportunity to save the lives of children from easily preventable disease and malnourishment every day. ‘Nearly 11 million deaths in 2002 were among children under five years of age, and 98% of them were in low- and middle-income countries.[3] ‘Diarrhea kills 2,195 children every day — more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Diarrheal diseases account for 1 in 9 child deaths worldwide, making diarrhea the second leading cause of death among children under the age of 5.’[4] ‘Most diarrheal deaths are preventable using simple, low-cost interventions.’ [5] Singer continues:

We can give to organizations like UNICEF or Oxfam America. How much would we have to give one of these organizations to have a high probability of saving the life of a child threatened by easily preventable diseases? Unger called up some experts and used the information they provided to offer some plausible estimates that include the cost of raising money, administrative expenses and the cost of delivering aid where it is most needed. By his calculation, $200 in donations would help a sickly 2-year-old transform into a healthy 6-year-old — offering safe passage through childhood’s most dangerous years.

Everyone reading this piece now has the information required to save a child’s life. Are you a monster if you do not? If you believe Bob is morally obligated to give up the entirety of his life savings and future financial security to save the life of that child, then who are you to live well with any sort of excess, armed with the knowledge that your $200 is the difference between life and death? A weekend at Coachella costs the lives of 5 children. Your trendy new wardrobe cost 3 children their lives. A month of coffee at Starbucks costs a life. If you live at all beyond just life’s bare necessities, you are no better than Bob. But what more do you owe?

Suppose you have become a true minimalist with no excess in your life, spending your days outside reading and exploring nature’s beauty. Who are you to not find a part-time job? For just 20 hours a week you could save a child’s life. For 40 hours you could save two. Suppose you go out and get this job, and it turns out to be one you enjoy. You work diligently, and it fills your life with meaning and purpose. Another company recognizes your newfound work ethic and offers you a position with them. The work is hard and uninteresting, but it pays more. You could save another child’s life every week. Who are you not to accept the job? Who are you to not work overtime?

Suppose the train in Bob’s example would not have killed the boy, but only taken his legs. Most would agree that Bob is still obligated to save the child from great suffering. Does that mean that we also owe the excess product of our labor to those who’s lives are not in danger, but who’s circumstances are vastly more unfortunate than our own? How do we determine what kinds of suffering place this moral requirement upon us?

If we follow Singer’s argument down the rabbit-hole to its logical end — that in order to live a morally decent life, we owe anything beyond the essentials to avert the preventable death and suffering of others — we find that we end up as slaves to this obligation. Not only do we owe our money, labor, and time, but in many instances, we owe our autonomy. But this is wrong. It is unethical to enslave some to the circumstances of others; so, our obligation to those in desperate need must be something other than a moral absolute.

Instead, our obligation to others is a Kantian imperfect duty, stemming from the rational nature of our human existence. We are inherently dependent on others: as babies we must be fed and protected; when we are ill, we require the attention of doctors; when we are elderly, we need the support of the community, etc. Thus, as we require the assistance of others in our own lives, we are morally obligated to provide aid when we can — a universal reflection of our own needs.

There’s a famous joke about a bear — as told by Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game:

“There are two people in a wood, and they run into a bear. The first person gets down on his knees to pray; the second person starts lacing up his boots. The first person asks the second person, “My dear friend, what are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear.” To which the second person responds, “I don’t have to. I only have to outrun you.”

The political conversation surrounding the morality of immigration policy is just this, ignoring the bear to outrun the other. No matter the cost, so long as your vision admits more immigrants than mine, you claim the moral high ground. But in reality, you have no idea what you’re doing up there. We could play this game to infinity. It relies on the false premise that our moral obligation to others is absolute. If you still truly believe that it is, refer above; you know what to do. And I don’t expect to see you in Starbucks anytime soon. Moral decency however lies somewhere in the balance, so we’re going to turn around together and tackle the bear. When it comes to immigration policy, we are imperfectly executing our imperfect duty. So, let’s have an honest conversation about our moral obligation as a country when it comes immigration reform.

But first, what other obligations do we have as a country?

Part 2: The Role of Government

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith proposes the three legitimate functions of government: providing for the national defense, the administration of justice, and the provision of certain public goods. The first two of these functions are self-evident: we must be able to protect ourselves from foreign foes, and there must exist a mechanism to provide the safety of law and order. However, the ‘provision of public goods’ requires a deeper dive:

The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth, is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual, or small number of individuals; and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual, or small number of individuals, should erect or maintain. The performance of this duty requires, too, very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society. (WN, book V, chap. 1, part 3)

Government serves as the solution to problems of collective action. As Smith would agree, investments in infrastructure and education provide massive public benefit that could not be accomplished without a centralization of capital and purpose. ‘A more expansive concept of government as provider [of public goods] is the social welfare state: government can cushion the inability of citizens to provide for themselves, particularly in the vulnerable conditions of youth, old age, sickness, disability and unemployment due to economic forces beyond their control (Slaughter, 2017).’[6]

The extent to which a government provides which public goods and services is not on trial here. What is important is that a country has certain moral obligations to its citizenry.

We will construct a basic framework for these obligations through the ‘common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations’ — The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

For the sake of simplicity, we will consider the provision of the above four human rights to be the moral obligation of government: providing for the safety of its citizenry, economic security though the protection of opportunity, an adequate quality of life, and reasonable access to the education necessary to become a contributing and competitive member of society.

However, the government is merely a reflection of the will of its people. Therefore, the way in which we choose to manifest these rights for ourselves must be protected as well. This too is provided in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 21: (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Consider the following: Denmark is a country of 5.8 million people. It is the second happiest country in the world, enjoying ‘free’ healthcare and education as well as progressive social policies. Now suppose 3 million immigrants from a war-torn country living in extreme poverty decide to seek a better life in Denmark. They become honest, hard-working members of Danish society, obeying its laws and providing a net economic benefit to the country. Denmark’s progressive healthcare and educational systems adapt well and are not overburdened. Overall quality of life and standards of living are on the rise. However, these new migrants bring with them a deep aversion to progressive LGBTQ rights. Years down the road after becoming naturalized citizens, they attempt to influence Danish politics in a regressive direction. What is Denmark’s obligation to these stricken people?

Diversity is strength and there is much to be gained from our differences. But a government also has an obligation to protect the will of its people, their shared cultural and social goals, and its core political foundations. This is why, ‘under the current regime of states, that fundamental right [Article 21] includes control over borders as well as determining who is to be a citizen as distinguished from a resident or an alien (Benhabib, 2019).’[7]

In so far as immigration influences a government’s ability to carry out its moral obligation to its citizenry — providing safety, economic security, ensuring quality of life, education, preserving social and cultural values, and ensuring core political foundations — there exists a moral obligation to control its borders.

But migration and freedom of movement are also guaranteed by Articles 13 & 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14. (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

We have competing moral obligations as a country that cannot easily be reconciled. As it says on the base of the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This we must strive for. It is the foundation of our country. We should not punish children for being born on the wrong side of a line. But we must also not forget our own. Moral decency requires us to work towards a common goal: maximizing both our obligations to our citizenry, and to those in need of refuge. Morality lies only in the search for this balance.

Part 3: A Problem at Home

To solve the problem, we must understand the problem.

Let’s examine what we’ve established so far:

(1) We are morally obligated to provide aid when we can, but it is not an absolute.
(2) A government has certain recognized moral obligations to its citizenry and the right to control its borders.
(3) Everyone has the right to seek better circumstances in other countries.

We’ve reached a moral crossroads where two competing obligations must be reconciled, as neither stands as an absolute; but there are only a finite number of resources to do so. What does the moral allocation of these resources look like?

Let’s survey the state of affairs at home.

In 2017, there were approximately 554,000 homeless people sleeping on the streets in the United States on any given night; 58,000 were veterans.[8] In 2009, one out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in the United States of America were homeless.[9] In 2014, that number increased to 2.5 million.[10] In 2017, 4.2 million children experienced homelessness in the United States.[11]

1.5 million American households, including 2.8 million children, live in extreme poverty on less than $2 a day before any benefits. 43 million live in poverty, and closer to 100-million live in “near-poverty” — nearly a third of the U.S. population. ‘In 2011, child poverty reached record high levels, with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels. A 2013 UNICEF report ranked the U.S. as having the second highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world. According to a 2016 study by the Urban Institute, teenagers in low income communities are often forced to join gangs, save school lunches, sell drugs or exchange sexual favors because they cannot afford food (Poverty in the United States, n.d. para. 6)’ [12] In 2017, the United Nations found that over five million people live “in ‘Third World’ conditions” in the United States.[13]

Our classrooms are overcrowded — curricula and resources outdated. There is a massive socio-economic achievement gap fueling a cycle of inequity. Higher education is often unattainable without a lifetime of crippling debt. In 2017, there was a national shortage of more than 7.2 million affordable rental homes for low income households.[14] Flint, Michigan is still replacing old pipes. Social Security is expected to run dry in 2035.[15] Quality health insurance is unaffordable and drug prices are three times higher than other developed nations.[16] A 2009 study by Harvard Medical School found “nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance”[17]

I could go on.

But we aren’t here to debate the state of the social safety net or the specific legislative agenda required to protect our most vulnerable. We arrive simply at this conclusion: we have problems we are morally obligated to try and solve.

Can immigration help us solve these problems? The short answer, yes.

Part 4: The Benefits of Immigration

‘Immigration to the United States is based upon the following principles: the reunification of families, admitting immigrants with skills that are valuable to the U.S. economy, protecting refugees, and promoting diversity (American Immigration Council, 2016).’[18]

‘Research suggests that immigration to the United States is beneficial to the U.S. economy. With few exceptions, the evidence suggests that on average, immigration has positive economic effects on the native population…Studies also show that immigrants have lower crime rates than natives in the United States. Research shows that the United States excels at assimilating first- and second-generation immigrants relative to many other Western countries (Immigration to the United States, n.d.)’.[19]

So, let’s take a dive into some of the numbers, in the context of the established moral obligations we have to our citizenry.

On Security: Immigrants are far less likely to break the law than native-born citizens, and high rates of immigration are often associated with lowered rates of violent offenses and property crime. ‘[M]any studies at both the individual and aggregate level identify an inverse relationship between immigration and crime (Pendergast, 2018)’.[20] According to the New America foundation, ‘of the individuals credibly involved in radical Islamist-inspired activity in the United States since 9/11, the large majority were US born citizens, not immigrants.[21] A 2018 paper found no statistically significant evidence that refugee settlements in the United States are linked to terrorism events[22] (Immigration and Crime, n.d.).’[23]

On the Economy: Immigration is vital to our continued economic success as we move into the future. In the words of Matthew Kahn, “That immigrants keep showing up here is a testament to our freedom and economic opportunity.”

The consensus of leading economists is that high-skilled immigration makes the average American better off and provides a net benefit to the US economy.[24] Immigrants are far more likely to be entrepreneurial than native-born workers. Though only accounting for roughly 13% of the population, in 2016 almost 30% of entrepreneurs were immigrants. In fact, “Immigrants have founded 51 percent of the country’s startup companies worth $1 billion or more as of Jan. 1, 2015, a study conducted in 2016 found. Each of these companies employed an average of 760 people (Kosten, 2018).”[25] “Immigrants own 16.1 percent (860,000) of the country’s five million businesses with paid employees in 2015. These immigrant-owned businesses generated $65.5 billion in income. In 2016, 40.2 percent of firms listed in the Fortune 500 had at least one founder who was either an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. These companies employed nearly 19 million people in 2014 and generated $4.8 trillion in revenue — or one out of every seven dollars generated by U.S. businesses (Kosten, 2018).” Between 1901 and 2005, more than 30% of American Nobel Prize winners in Medicine and Physiology were born outside the US.[26] These statistics are unsurprising; when you risk it all, you make it count.

Low-skilled labor is a crucial driver of the American economy as well. There are jobs, particularly agricultural in nature, that native workers are unwilling to do. Hard-working immigrants fill key gaps in our labor market and increase productivity, while driving down the costs of goods and services. When they are removed from these markets, its costs states billions. In smaller cities and heartland rural areas, the labor force is declining and desperately needs immigrant labor. Growth requires growth. It is worth noting that when these labor markets are flooded, it lowers the wages for native-born low skilled labors and has a slight negative impact on income inequality.

There are hundreds of studies arriving at this same conclusion — I’ll give you a chance to go read them now if you’d like. Whether it’s high-skilled workers, low-skilled labor, or refugees, immigration brings a necessary diversity of thought and culture to this country. It has sprawling economic and social impacts that benefit us as a whole, increasing quality of life for everyone. Simply put for our purposes, responsible immigration policy increases our ability to solve problems at home.

But now we must make an important distinction because this is where the semantic games are played. There are important differences between legal and illegal immigration.

Part 5: Illegal Immigration

There is a humanitarian crisis at the border. The system is on fire.

According to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, our immigration system has reached a breaking point. ‘The country is now unable to provide either the necessary humanitarian relief for desperate migrants or even basic controls on the number and nature of who is entering the United States (Shear, 2019).’[27] ‘More than 76,000 immigrants illegally crossed the border in February and about half came with families, a 10-fold increase over the past two years. Border apprehensions in March probably exceeded 100,000, the highest monthly total in a decade. At the current rate, border apprehensions will exceed one million this year.’[28] ‘So crowded are border facilities that some of the nearly 3,500 migrants in custody in El Paso were herded earlier this month under a bridge, behind razor wire (WSJ, 2019)’. For context, there are only 300 cities in America with populations over 100,000.

A 2007 review by the Congressional Budget Office found that “unauthorized immigrants have an adverse impact on the budgets of state and local governments.”[29] They concluded:

- “State and local governments incur costs for providing services to unauthorized immigrants and have limited options for avoiding or minimizing those costs”;
- “The amount that state and local governments spend on services for unauthorized immigrants represents a small percentage of the total amount spent by those governments to provide such services to residents in their jurisdictions”;
- “The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants”; and
- “Federal aid programs offer resources to state and local governments that provide services to unauthorized immigrants, but those funds do not fully cover the costs incurred by those governments.”

In 2013, conservative estimates place the net costs of services provided to illegal immigrants at $54 billion dollars.[30] Estimates are as high as $135 billion.[31] The problem has only compounded since.

Illegal immigrants do play a crucial role in the economy by providing cheap, low-skilled labor that keeps the price of many goods and services low. We benefit from their hard work — but provide them with few benefits. They accept poor pay and have almost no access to our social safety nets. Any argument in favor of the economic merits of illegal immigration relies on taking advantage of their labor and work ethic — looking the other way while someone toils for hours just so our salad is a little bit cheaper. Yet any argument that seeks to provide them with these benefits is a grave moral injustice — we are already unable to take care of the most vulnerable within our own society; refer above. No matter how you flip this coin, it lands unethically. It goes deeper.

Many who find themselves dissatisfied with the outcome of the last election point fingers at the electoral college. While it is a stabilizing force in our democracy and core to our system of Federalism — our states predate our union — they voice concern that the winner placed second in the popular vote. Critics call for ‘one-man one vote’ and what they believe is fair, direct representation.

In that case, they must stand firmly against illegal immigration as well.

The allocation of Congressional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and thereby the number of electoral college votes each state receives, is a direct reflection of its population — illegal immigrants included.

This ‘[U]ndermines the fundamental principle of American representative democracy that every voter has an equal voice. Through the census-based process of apportionment, states with large numbers of undocumented aliens will unconstitutionally gain members in the U.S. House of Representatives, thus robbing the citizen-voters in other states of their rightful representation (Longley, 2019)”.[32]

In “[N]ine states that lost seats due to non-citizens, four were the result of illegals…Indiana, Michigan, and Mississippi each lost one seat in the House and Montana failed to gain a seat it otherwise would have gained because of illegal aliens in other states (Camarota, 2005).”[33] [34] Three seats were gained by California.
“The large number of non-citizens would seem to create real tension with the principle of “one man one vote” because it now takes so few votes to win a congressional seat in many high immigration states. As already indicated, it takes about 100,000 voters to win the typical congressional race in the states that lost a seat due to the non-citizens. In contrast, it took less than 33,000 votes to win the 34th district in California and only 34,000 to win the 31st district in 2002…enormous numbers of immigrants has created a situation in which the votes of American citizens living in low-immigration states and districts count much less than that the votes of citizens living in high immigration districts (Camarota, 2005)”. [35]

There are 435 congressional districts, each representing approximately 747,000 people. Districts with lax immigration enforcement, and a high number of illegal aliens, will unjustly carry more political power than their neighbors. They receive more federal aid. Their votes count more.

This is taxation without representation. But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The journey here is dangerous.

‘The dangers increased as they drew closer to Veracruz. At certain stations, gangs boarded the trains and demanded a ‘toll.’ “The rate was $100 per station,” Johnny told me and my colleagues at Amnesty International. “They threatened us. They said they would hold us until we could call a relative to arrange to pay. If you couldn’t pay, they would throw you off the roof.” (Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General)’

According to Amnesty International, almost 20,000 migrants are kidnapped and trafficked every year. ‘One third of the people annually trafficked into the United States are from Latin America, and the vast majority of these people enter the United States through the Mexico-United States border (Human Trafficking in Mexico, n.d.)’.[36]

[I]t has become increasingly commonplace for coyotes to coerce migrants into exploitative labor arrangements upon reaching their destination in the U.S (frequently a different one from that which they paid to be smuggled to). These labor agreements frequently involve forced agricultural labor and/or sex work, conditions that migrants would never have consented to had they been previously aware of them (Chacon, 2006)[37]
Smugglers sometimes pretend to offer reduced fees to women and child migrants and then sexually assault or rape them as a form of substitute “payment”. Human traffickers masquerading as coyotes often use false promises of guaranteed jobs to lure migrants and will sometimes kidnap women and children along the journey, either for ransom from their families, or to be sold in the U.S. into servitude or prostitution. Many unaccompanied children also make the crossing from Mexico to the U.S. Unaccompanied minors are sometimes sold into prostitution by the trafficker, and their families are falsely led to believe that they died during transit. (Ugarte, 2004)[38] (Human Trafficking in Mexico, n.d.

Six in ten migrant women and girls are raped on the journey.[39] “Because of the increase in violence, at ICE when we have families with children, we have to give every girl a pregnancy test over 10. This is not a safe journey (Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen).” In 2017, Doctors Without Borders found that ’68 percent of the migrant and refugee populations as a whole reported being victims of violence.’[40] It’s not just the cartels and gangs they have to fear; abuse and extortion are rampant among police and immigration officials as well. The risk of grave illness or infectious disease is high — “The majority of our agents get sick. Infectious disease is everywhere (Cabrera).”[41] 294 migrants died making the journey in 2017.[42]

The journey here is dangerous. Yet we are incentivizing it.

Part 6: The Immorality of our Current Immigration Policy

As we begin to dive into the morality of our current immigration policies, let’s establish our framework.

- We are morally obligated to provide aid when we can (an obligation we must seek to maximize), but it is not an absolute.
— Our government has certain recognized moral obligations to its citizenry — and so long as there are homeless and hungry children and veterans (among a myriad of domestic socio-economic problems), we are failing in those obligations on many levels.
— Everyone has the right to seek asylum from persecution, but not the right to choose where they go.
— Immigration is economically, socially, and culturally beneficial to our country.
— Illegal immigration is costly, detracts from our representative democracy, is dangerous for those making the journey, and forces an unethical choice: either look the other way when it comes to the treatment of people whose labor benefits us, or further divert resources away from our most vulnerable.

The resulting moral calculation is simple yet inescapable.

We must maximize legal immigration in its most productive form, and disincentivize and limit illegal immigration to the best of our ability. Only in doing so can we satisfy our many competing moral obligations.

But this reflected as policy is a little more complicated. No reform exists in a vacuum, and every change has a consequence — every action has a reaction. The scales must be balanced, and the solution approached holistically.

So let’s identify the problems and determine what moral policy reform looks like.

The legal immigration system is broken; it is far too restrictive and inaccessible, and the quotas are static.
Our current asylum laws have effectively created an open border, incentivizing a dangerous journey and the trafficking of children.
The asylum system is backlogged and overburdened
The border is not secure
Children are paying for choices they did not make.

(1) The legal immigration system is broken and far too restrictive. Not only does this negatively impact us socially and economically, it has necessitated interaction with human smugglers for those with no other recourse.

“Under our present system, large numbers of men and women of good will, seeking security and livelihood that are gravely lacking in their own countries, have recourse to a legal immigration process that admits only a tiny fraction of them and, for most, constitutes a practical impossibility (McGraw, 2017).”[43]

“In 2016, the United States admitted 1.18 million legal immigrants. 20% were family-sponsored, 47% were the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, 12% were employment-based preferences, 4% were part of the Diversity Immigrant Visa program, and 13% were refugees and/or asylum seekers (Immigration to the United States, n.d.).”[44] These are rookie numbers. Let’s bump those numbers up.

Immigrants wait in line for decades. Those applying for their green cards now will ‘die before they reach the front of the line.’ [45] The current rate of immigration is historically low — but demand is high. The ratio of workers to recipients of Social Security is decreasing. The declining work force in many inner-cities would benefit from a labor influx, and ‘a program of “heartland visas,” in which skilled immigrants could obtain work visas to the United States on the condition they live in one of the counties facing demographic decline (Irwin, 2019)’ would stimulate rural areas.[46]

Our quotas are stagnant and unreflective of economic growth. They are often based on micromanaged demographics — no one country can receive more that 7% of the total green cards within any immigration category. This leaves highly skilled labor, particularly from countries like India, waiting for years to fill positions in the United States. In one such category, the EB-1 green card for immigrants of extraordinary ability, there is a backlog of over 58,000 people. They range from Nobel laureates to accomplished business leaders. There is not a real category for entrepreneurs. It is very hard to apply for and receive permanent residency once you are here. Spouses and children of new immigrants count against quotas.[47]

Every proposed change to our immigration system would take another paper to detail — but I’ll leave the in-depth solutions to the experts. In the meantime, we can come to some general conclusions. Quotas must be increased, wait times decreased; we need a shift towards an employment-based immigration system; we must enforce visa overstays; and a conversation needs to be had about diversity visas and how family reunification green cards are allocated.

But there is one more crucial change.

‘Unless policymakers design a system of legal immigration that reflects the economic advantages of illegal labor, such programs will not significantly reduce illegal immigration (Hansen, 2007).’[48] As we talked about earlier, illegal labor fills a crucial gap in our economy and workforce — many industries that we rely on wouldn’t survive without it. If the number of foreign-born workers in the dairy industry were reduced by 50 percent, “more than 3,500 dairy farms would close, leading to a big drop in milk production and a spike in prices of about 30 percent. Total elimination of immigrant labor would increase milk prices by 90 percent (Dudley, 2019).”[49] Currently, only 5000 green cards are granted to workers without college degrees. Temporary workers don’t have the flexibility that permanent labor does. Immigration reform that does not deal with the economic incentive is no reform at all. If we do not attempt to fill these gaps through an accessible legal apparatus, we will continue to incentivize the exploitation of their labor and the treacherous journey to the border.

(2/3) The asylum system is broken, and our laws have an immoral consequence — they have effectively created an open border, incentivizing a dangerous journey and the trafficking of children.

“[A] genuine crisis is building at the southern border as the perverse incentives of U.S. asylum law invite a surge of migrants that is overwhelming border security.” A broken asylum system all but guarantees entry if you bring children.’ “More than 76,000 immigrants illegally crossed the border in February and about half came with families, a 10-fold increase over the past two years. Border apprehensions in March probably exceeded 100,000, the highest monthly total in a decade (WSJ Editorial Board, 2019).” [50]

How are asylum laws supposed to work?

‘First, an asylum applicant must establish that he or she fears persecution in their home country. Second, the applicant must prove that he or she would be persecuted on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or particular social group (Asylum in the United States, n.d.).’[51] Fear of gang violence, economic hardship, or just wanting a better job doesn’t qualify. This is in accordance with international law. ‘Migrants who aren’t being persecuted aren’t eligible for asylum.’ When an immigrant arrives at the border, they make their case to a Customs and Border Protection official. There is an attempt to establish credible and reasonable fear of persecution through the immigration courts, and an asylum decision will ultimately be made.[52]

But the system is broken.

If an immigrant arrives at the border, and an CBP official decides they have reasonably established credible fear, they are referred to the immigration courts for asylum hearings.

If an immigrant arrives at the border, and an CBP official decides they have not reasonably established credible fear, they can appeal the negative decision and are still referred to the immigration courts for asylum hearings.

“[F]ederal Judge Emmet Sullivan last year blocked the Administration from imposing asylum conditions. Last month the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals extended habeas corpus to asylum claimants, which means even those who fail the initial screening will have recourse in federal court. Almost anyone who claims asylum will now be able to avoid immediate deportation (WSJ Editorial Board, 2019).” [53]

But the courts reached capacity a long time ago.

“Because of this huge court backlog, more than 809,000 immigrants are waiting for their asylum claims to be heard in immigration court. That’s enough people to create the 18th largest city in the U.S. (Girdusky, 2019)”[54]

But what happens while they wait?

“Due to a shortage of detention beds, they are usually released and allowed to work in the U.S. while awaiting another hearing to determine if they qualify for asylum. The average hearing wait time is two years. Many disappear and don’t report for their hearing (WSJ Editorial Board, 2019).” [55]

What you’re left with is an essentially open border — and a perverse incentive to make a deadly journey.

But it’s so much worse than that. Sometimes you do have to wait in a detention center until your hearing date. The solution — bring a child.

“These days, thousands of people a day simply walk up to the border and surrender…The smugglers have told them they will be quickly released, as long as they bring a child, and that they will be allowed to remain in the United States for years while they pursue their asylum cases (Shear, NYT, 2019).”[56]

“[B]ecause laws and court rulings aimed at protecting children prohibit jailing young people for more than 20 days, families are often simply released. They are dropped off at downtown bus stations in places like Brownsville, Tex., where dozens last week sat on gray metal benches, most without money or even laces on their shoes, heading for destinations across the United States. (Shear, NYT, 2019).”[57].

Remember the family separations at the border?

A 1997 court ruling known as the ‘Flores settlement’ prohibits the U.S. government from detaining migrant children for longer than 20 days.

“This ruling means the government effectively has two choices when a family crosses the border: detain the parents and release the children to foster homes or distant relatives, thus splitting up families; or release the entire family together, knowing that many won’t show up for their court hearings (Girdusky, 2019)”[58].

“As many as 27,000 children are expected to cross the border and enter the immigration enforcement system in April alone. (Shear, NYT, 2019).”[59].

We have incentivized the use of children as pawns for entry into the United States, and there are consequences. As reported by the WSJ, “U.S. Border agents have identified 2,400 “false families” over the last year as smugglers pair adults with unrelated children.”[60] These are only the one’s we’ve caught.

Should we be separating families? No. Should we be incentivizing human trafficking and the use of children as golden tickets into the United States? No.

Should we have laws on the books that force this choice? No. Inaction is not an option.

We have lost control at the border. Concessions must be made. We have a moral responsibility to overhaul our asylum system.

We must seek to limit asylum eligibility to safer legal ports of entry, but only if we invest in the humanitarian infrastructure necessary to support those waiting, and in a system with the capacity to process these claims within a reasonable timeframe. Flores must be revisited, and Mexico must become a partner in ensuring the safety of those making the journey and waiting for their asylum claims to be processed. They have responsibilities to their citizens as well and must be held accountable.

Asylum is to protect those persecuted on account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or affiliation with a particular social group — not poverty. In the same timeframe that the murder rate dropped in Honduras and El Salvador by 50% — to a rate lower than Baltimore — the asylum requests from those countries increased by 900%. There was an inverse correlation between violence and requests for asylum. Ultimately, 80% of these requests were denied. But as you now understand, all you need is a request to get in the door.[61]

This is a hard truth, but the exact reason we took a deep dive into the nature of our moral obligation to others. Destitute circumstance doesn’t inherently qualify one for asylum. We must do our best — but there is violence and economic hardship on both sides of the border — and as we attempt to resolve our competing moral obligations, we must endeavor to reserve asylum first for those being persecuted.

(4) The border is not secure.

Let’s say we’ve been successful.

We have maximized legal immigration in its most productive form. We’ve modernized and increased our immigration quotas, streamlined the process, and created a legal apparatus for low-skilled permanent labor to access our economy.

We’ve disincentived and limited illegal immigration to the best of our ability. We’ve closed asylum loopholes, disincentivized the use of children as pawns to move across the border, and built the necessary legal and humanitarian infrastructure to process the remaining requests in a reasonable time frame.

In doing so, we have satisfied our many competing moral obligations — to those in need on both sides of our border. We are maximizing the use of our finite resources to achieve the best outcome for the greatest number of people; fulfilling our ethical responsibilities to our citizenry and our duty to those in need of our help. We have extinguished the perverse incentives of our asylum laws, lifted a great burden on our representative democracy, and have begun protecting the people who’s labor our economy relies on.

Now we must secure the border.

As we are now executing our ‘Kantian imperfect duty’ perfectly, any further illegal immigration, or any policy incentivizing it, is inherently harmful — for all of the reasons detailed above. We have struck a moral balance, and must do everything we can to avoid again tipping the scales.

But we have an ethical obligation to stem the flow of drugs across the border as well.

“The main suppliers of heroin to the U.S. have been Mexican transnational criminal organizations. From 2005–2009, Mexican heroin production increased by over 600%, from an estimated 8 metric tons in 2005 to 50 metric tons in 2009. Between 2010 and 2014, the amount seized at the border more than doubled. According to the DEA, smugglers and distributors “profit primarily by putting drugs on the street and have become crucial to the Mexican cartels (Opioid Epidemic in the United States, n.d.).”[62]
“Illicit fentanyl is commonly made in Mexico and trafficked by cartels. North America’s dominant trafficking group is Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, which has been linked to 80 percent of the fentanyl seized in New York (Opioid Epidemic in the United States, n.d.).”[63]

Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin — fatal overdoses have increased by over 500 percent since 2015.[64]

“In 2016, around 64,000 Americans died from overdoses, 21 percent more than the approximately 53,000 in 2015. By comparison, the figure was 16,000 in 2010, and 4,000 in 1999.” There were “72,000 drug overdose deaths overall in the US in 2017.” “[P]ublic health experts estimated that nationwide over 500,000 people could die from the epidemic over the next 10 years.” “The epidemic cost the United States an estimated $504 billion in 2015.” (Opioid Epidemic in the United States, n.d.)[65]

Most of the drugs come through legal ports of entry, and we must continue to bolster our ability to detect them. Of a sample of 120 border drug seizures in 2018, only 24 came outside of ports of entry.[66] But when 72,000 Americans are dying, and hundreds of thousands more suffering from addiction, 24 is too many. The opioid epidemic is complex in nature. But having less drugs would help.

We will leave it to the experts at the border, those on the front lines of the crisis every day, to best decide how to combat it. We must entrust them with the resources they tell us are needed to secure our southern border, even if in some places, it requires a wall.

Piling stones has been the best way to protect one’s property and interests since we first discovered how to pile stones; I think you would be hard pressed to argue for the inherent immorality of a wall. The only relevant question is, does the wall serve a moral purpose?

In this case it does, where necessary. We have spent this entire paper establishing that a holistic approach to moral and comprehensive immigration reform requires us to secure our borders — especially if we are going to offer a pathway to citizenship for some of those already here.

(5) Children are paying for choices they did not make.

I begin by reiterating this point one more time. None of these reforms can stand on their own and succeed — policy changes must be comprehensive and holistic.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) participants should be given a one-time path to citizenship, but ONLY after there remains no incentive for illegal immigration and every measure has been taken to stop it. Immigration quotas must be increased, amnesty loopholes closed, the laws restructured, our borders secured, and cities must cooperate with the law enforcement tasked to enforce immigration law. Otherwise, all of our problems continue, and nothing is solved.

Attempts to create a pathway to citizenship without these other reforms are disingenuous, and do not take the immigration crisis seriously. A refusal to look at this issue in its entirety is just a political game. Moral decency demands a genuine and comprehensive approach to policy change.

That being said.

Children are paying for choices they did not make. In the words of President Obama:

They were brought to this country by their parents, sometimes even as infants. They may not know a country besides ours. They may not even know a language besides English. They often have no idea they’re undocumented until they apply for a job, or college, or a driver’s license … Whatever concerns or complaints Americans may have about immigration in general, we shouldn’t threaten the future of this group of young people who are here through no fault of their own, who pose no threat, who are not taking away anything from the rest of us … Kicking them out won’t lower the unemployment rate, or lighten anyone’s taxes, or raise anybody’s wages.

There were concerns surrounding the unilateral executive action taken with DACA — consensus must come from Congress, but that is not on trial here. These are children who were brought into this country by no fault of their own — it is often all they know. Eligibility requirements are strict.

“To be eligible [for DACA], recipients must be present in the United States unlawfully after being brought in as children before their 16th birthday and prior to June 2007, be currently in school, a high school graduate or be honorably discharged from the military, be under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, and not have been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor or three other misdemeanors, or otherwise pose a threat to national security (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).”[67]

They broke the law, but they are also victims of it. Intent matters. They are your friends, classmates, co-workers, and neighbors. They have become part of the fabric of our society — yet we tell them they do not belong. This is an issue of dignity.

They are hard-working, law-abiding members of our communities.[68] They regularly pursue higher education and are net positive contributors to our economy; ’91 percent of DACA registrants are employed, and 5 percent have launched their own businesses, compared to 3.1 percent of all Americans’.[69]

“The Immigrant Legal Resource Center estimated that deporting DACA-eligible individuals would reduce Social Security and Medicare tax revenue by $24.6 billion over a decade. U.S. public school system has already invested in educating these individuals, and they are at the point at which they can start contributing to the U.S. economy and public coffers; deporting them or increasing the likelihood that they be deported is economically counterproductive. A 2017 study by the Center for American Progress estimated that the loss of all DACA-eligible workers would reduce U.S. GDP by $433 billion over the next 10 years (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).”[70]

They are proud Americans, and will contribute more than they receive. Continuing DACA protections — allowing them to work and pursue degrees without fear of deportation — is a basic obligation to those who have given so much and done no wrong.

We have a Kantian imperfect duty to provide aid to those when we can. Here we can. But we can do better than DACA. We can provide them with a path to citizenship. The details must be debated, and a bipartisan path forward agreed upon. It cannot be a rolling protection and must only apply to those already here. But the conclusion is simple. We must welcome them home.

Part 7: Conclusion

Moral immigration policy reform can only arise from a comprehensive understanding of our ethical obligations, and the truth of our circumstances. The political arena must be a contest of ideas, where we use the best information to come to the most valuable conclusions. I hope that’s what I’ve done here today.

Let’s take a final moment to review.

The resulting moral calculation is simple.

We are maximizing the use of our finite resources to achieve the best outcome for the greatest number of people; fulfilling our ethical responsibilities to our citizenry and our duty to those in need of our help. We will have extinguished the perverse and dangerous incentives of our asylum laws, lifted a great burden on our representative democracy, and have begun protecting the people whose labor our economy relies on.

The path forward to reflect this obligation in our policy is clear.

We must modernize and increase our immigration quotas, streamline the process, and created a legal apparatus for low-skilled permanent labor to access our economy.
We must close asylum loopholes, rewrite the laws, disincentivized the use of children as pawns to move across the border, and built the necessary legal and humanitarian infrastructure to process the remaining requests in a reasonable time frame.
We must secure the border.
When we’ve overhauled our immigration system, we must provide a path to citizenship for DACA participants.

The reform is all or nothing. Anything less is disingenuous political maneuvering, immoral, and as I’ve hopefully shown, just bad policy.

###

[1] https://www.getprinciples.com/illegal-immigration-a-legal-and-moral-analysis/

[2] https://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htm

[3] https://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310.pdf

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/diarrhea-burden.html

[5] https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/diarrhea-burden.html

[6] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/government-responsibility-to-citizens-anne-marie-slaughter/

[7] https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/stone-immigration/

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States

[9] “Facts and Figures: The Homeless”. PBS. June 26, 2009.

[10] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/one-30-american-children-homeless-report-says-n250136

[11] https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/11/15/564370605/new-study-finds-that-4-2-million-kids-experience-homelessness-each-year

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

[13] Alston, Philp (December 15, 2017). “Statement on Visit to the USA, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights”. OHCHR.

[14] https://nlihc.org/news/us-has-national-shortage-more-72-million-affordable-available-rental-homes-families-most-need

[15] https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/social-security-trust-fund-to-run-dry

[16] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-u-s-pays-3-times-more-for-drugs/

[17] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/

[18] https://americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/how-united-states-immigration-system-works

[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Trump_policies

[20] Pendergast, Philip M.; Wadsworth, Tim; LePree, Joshua (2018–06–22), “Immigration, Crime, and Victimization in the US Context”, The Handbook of Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 65–85

[21] “Analysis | President Trump’s claim that foreigners are responsible for ‘the vast majority’ of terrorism convictions since 9/11”. Washington Pos

[22] https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/11612/refugee-admissions-and-public-safety-are-refugee-settlement-areas-more-prone-to-crime

[23] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime#United_States

[24] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/high-skilled-immigrants

[25] https://immigrationforum.org/article/immigrants-as-economic-contributors-immigrant-entrepreneurs/

[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Economic

[27] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/immigration-border-mexico.html

[28] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-border-asylum-crisis-11554062066?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

[29] “The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments”. The Congress of the United States — Congressional Budget Office. December 2007.

[30]https://www.heritage.org/immigration/report/the-fiscal-cost-unlawful-immigrants-and-amnesty-the-us-taxpayer

[31] https://www.apnews.com/1e597a4896884da08bef0a8f8134c6be

[32] https://www.thoughtco.com/should-us-census-count-illegal-immigrants-3320973

[33] https://cis.org/Impact-NonCitizens-Congressional-Apportionment

[34] These results are the same as those obtained by Marta Tienda in her 2002 article in Demography entitled “Demography and the Social Contract,” pages 587–616.

[35] https://cis.org/Impact-NonCitizens-Congressional-Apportionment

[36]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Mexico#Trafficking_across_the_border_with_the_United_States

[37] Chacon, Jennifer. “Misery and Myopia: Understanding the Failures of U.S. Efforts to Stop Human Trafficking.” Fordham Law Review 74, no. 6 (2006):

[38] Ugarte, Marisa B.; Zarate, Laura; Farley, Melissa (January 2004). “Prostitution and trafficking of women and children from Mexico to the United States”

[39] https://www.amnestyusa.org/most-dangerous-journey-what-central-american-migrants-face-when-they-try-to-cross-the-border/

[40] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nielsen-ice-gives-pregnancy-tests-to-migrant-girls-as-young-as-10-after-dangerous-journey-to-border

[41] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/immigration-border-mexico.html

[42] US Border Patrol statistics

[43] https://www.getprinciples.com/illegal-immigration-a-legal-and-moral-analysis/

[44] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Economic

[45] https://www.cato.org/blog/why-legal-immigration-system-broken-short-list-problems

[46] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/upshot/trump-america-full-or-emptying.html

[47] https://www.cato.org/blog/why-legal-immigration-system-broken-short-list-problems

[48] https://www.cfr.org/report/economic-logic-illegal-immigration

[49] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-immigrants-us-jobs-economy-farm-workers-taxes/

[50] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-border-asylum-crisis-11554062066?ns=prod/accounts-wsj