Just when I thought everything was going in the right direction. Trump's presidency falling apart and the nation seeing the light, I read this article. Ultra-liberals putting their foot in their mouths again.
This is the one thing you CAN'T do.
Self-righteous soapboxes.
Insulting and shaming the majority of America!
Please, please, please don't do this liberal America. We are almost there. Stay the course, left of center.
Don't snatch defeat from the hands of victory. Don't help him win again! Please.
28
Michelle Alexander is a lawyer but does not use reason or intellect.
Every society\country has the opportunity to grow, develop & build a vibrant economic, legal & social union which then become countries.
Over human history humans have spread throughout the world but most have not been able to build a vibrant economic, legal & social union which then become countries.
Why ??
The US & Europe have built wealthy developed nations, Japan & the Asian tigers copied the model.
For those in other regions that have failed to prosper...they are 100% responsible and the Developed world is not obligated & can not afford to absorb the BILLIONS of people that want the education, medical care & social benefits that the Developed nations provide to their citizens.
Our ancestors who came to America or the European families that built their societies\nations worked hard to prosper and Michelle Alexander needs to recognize the efforts in the developed world & the failings in the non developed nations.
25
Reading this opinion piece and these comments fortifies my belief that 1. humans are incurably mentally and behaviorally disordered 2. humans add zero value to this beautiful planet.
So, go ahead people -- keep overpopulating, keep fighting wars for sociopathic overlords, keep believing in an authoritarian father-in-the-sky who commands women to have lots of babies, keep polluting the air and soil and water and food, keep up your mindless consumption of natural resources, keep looking at your iPhone -- while you're at it, don't bother with borders or laws -- let anarchy and corruption reign supreme...
Humans deserve their fate.
16
I won't restate what the excellent top reader picks comments have already addressed. I will only add that this kind of reckless stance on immigration from people like Ms. Alexander and my fellow Left-leaners (Democrats, progressives, social democrats, liberals, etc) is the one issue that will lose my vote in state and national elections. I will not vote for any politician who supports near-open or open borders. I will not vote for any politician who doesn't propose immigration reform and enforcement. No other nation in the world allows this -- and for VERY good reasons. It's unsustainable, it's reckless, and it defies sanity.
I can't understand why this fringe Left group of Democrats has an out-sized voice in the media and politics (with Nancy Pelosi leading the way). Their obstinate, defiant views on immigration do NOT represent the majority of Americans, nor do they represent the kind of rational, common sense critical thinking skills we need to address this issue.
This fringe group loves to attack anyone who wants rational immigration reform by calling them racist and xenophobic. The reasons the majority of people want immigration reform and enforcement have nothing to do with race or fear. It has everything to do with overpopulation, the economy, the ecology, and health and safety of a nation. We are NOT a nation if we don't have borders and policies that protect our Democracy.
36
This op-ed shows zero understanding of the environmental and economic impacts of over-population, even as it reflects the position of far too many Dems. Where is wise, honest, responsible leadership? We deplore the GOP's disregard for climate science, pollution and family planning. But on the Dem side there is irresponsible disregard for population biology and the growing economic impacts of globalism and technology. Leadership on both sides is dishonest, seeking votes in the present by promoting the delusion that we are a nation of unlimited space and resources, leaving the nation to be gobsmacked by inescapable and unforgiving realities of the future.
20
A very thoughtful essay that raises important points to consider. I'd like to add a few more.
The human right to live with dignity should be available anywhere in the world. If US Govt actions or those of US based corporations contributed to the conditions in many Central American countries then the govt and the corporations should be accountable for fixing their mess. This won't happen on US soil. It should rightly happen in those countries where the damage has been done.
Many people would rather stay in their home communities. Why do we not do more to help them. If the govt and corporations aren't helping enough then we the people should hold them accountable. Boycotts, campaigns of shame, protests have all changed the world and made it a more humane place. Why not now?
The people who benefit the most and suffer the least with the immigration caravans are the organizations who transport people. They are paid tens of thousands of dollars by the poorest of families desperate to find a better life. Why are we in the US not doing more to help people stay in their home countries.
A recent story in the NYTimes profiled a woman who left a good job at a Chiquita plant to become part of the caravan. Why isn't Chiquita doing more to ensure the safety of their employees so they can stay in their communities? That should by the focus of our efforts - whether criticizing Chiquita or supporting employers doing the right thing. Progress will be made when people dont have to leave.
6
Then why did white, American, pro-choice Jesus choose ME to be born in America?
ln fact, God gave me everthing! White skin. Heterosexual. Male.
Thank you, white, American, pro-choice Jesus for choosing to not make ME the child of "breeding animals"!
In Jesus name, we hate.
3
Hate speech based on race, gender, sexual orientation and religion - imagine if that speech was directed against blacks, women, homosexuals, or Muslims ....
7
Anytime I see the words from beneath the Statue of Liberty repeated once again, ad nauseam, I stop reading.
14
@EB
People seem to believe that the plaque's words are meant to be immigration policy.
18
Well said, Ms. Alexander. I am shocked by the large number of negative comments.
Much of the concern over the Southern border (never the Northern) is clearly racism. WE are the illegals who stole the land from the natives (and the previous invaders, the Spanish.)
I doubt 1 U.S. citizen in 1000 has heard of the Mexican American war & could tell you when it occurred.
5
Does anyone deserve citizenship? Check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics studies on volunteerism to learn more about who is best qualified to be a citizen.
3
Many Americans are weary of egregious overpopulation.
The US should not be compelled to destroy themselves because other nations refuse to embrace family planning.
20
Surprise! We’re a sovereign nation with defined borders and immigration laws. No...foreign citizens are NOT entitled to US citizenship just because they managed to illegally trespass into our country. Neither should their offspring be entitled to citizenship just because they managed to give birth here...our 14th amendment was not intended for the benefit of illegal foreign nationals brazenly exploiting our porous borders.
Want to see Trump win again in 2020? Keep advocating ‘open borders’ and you’ll get your wish...
19
Did you read the op-ed?
2
“Answering these questions may be easy legally, but they’re more difficult morally. After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves”?
We owe the intruders nothing. Those of us in my family born here were from legal residency in my case. It does not matter what an eight month pregnant girl wants as an illegal immigrant. These people bring little in skills if any. If she was educated, I might feel differently if her skill was mutable to paying her way. Just being pregnant and illiterate does not cut it.
7
how do you know she has no skills and is illiterate?
4
As I understand, border walls are just a little bit inside the US side of the boundary. (to ensure against violating Mexican sovereignty)
So was it necessary for her to climb over the wall to give birth in the US? A lot easier, and open to every woman about to give birth.
1
The anti-immigration hysterics exaggerate the hyperbole. There should be a legal process to admit people so they can live and work legally. Citizenship is not automatic and is a separate issue. The comparison to the wave of immigrants who came in during the early 1900s as exemplifying “legal” immigration is false: there weren’t the same obstacles then. In fact, the criteria that were used would be fairer if applied today. Trump’s policy is pure racism and bigotry. Instead of $5 billion (or more like $25 billion) to build an “edifice to racism and narcissism” that will be useless to actually addressing the immigration problem, and committing the wholly illegal human rights violations that are bringing nothing but shame and hostility to our nation, spend a fraction on that on hiring immigration judges to evaluate applications, social workers to place people, have an actual application process. Think about the absurdity of someone falling in love with a person who was born in another country, not being able to be together, especially if the other country exerts the same kind of barriers as the US. Think of families where some children are born in the US and others not, what if they were also rejected? There is a rational, humane way of dealing with immigration, rather than the cruel, racist, illegal methods Trump is using and the crisis he and his administration have created.
2
We have privatized the benefits of immigration and socialized the costs. For every policy there are winners and losers. In the case of immigration, the traditional right/left dichotomy does not align with the costs and benefits of the current policies
8
I can only imagine the utter bemusement of my adopted Lakhota Sioux family as they read this column and these comments.
As Vine Deloria, Jr., once famously quipped:
When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white men came, an Indian said simply, "Ours."
Unless you can convincingly demonstrate the presence of pre-Columbian ancestors on this continent, you have no right to be here at all.
8
Teller's Law:
Never trust an argument that advocates major change if it begins with a poignant tale of one individual.
18
“The deeper question raised isn’t whether our borders should be open or closed (generally a false dichotomy) but rather how we ought to manage immigration in a manner that honors the dignity, humanity and legitimate interests of all concerned”.
This view is way too liberal to be acceptable to me and most Americans. We definitely need immigration (on our terms only) due to our low native birthrate. That would the only acceptable mandate.
4
@DENOTE MORDANT
Nonsequitor alert!
We need to limit immigration because our birthrate is so LOW?
I could understand the statement if the threat was that our 'native birthrate' was too high to accommodate the incoming.
How does your argument apply?
1
People who were born in the United States are right to be grateful for that fortunate privilege. But they have no right to be proud of it, since they took no action that entitles them to pride.
Immigrants who become citizens have a right to be both grateful and proud, since they took action, sometimes in the face of resistance, pain (mental, physical or both), or the threat of death to achieve that goal.
Many natural born citizens should also be grateful that they didn’t have to go through the naturalization process to gain their citizenship. How many would fail the written test of knowledge about American history and governance?
8
Amongst the comments here there seems to be frequent linkage of a right to citizenship and the payment of taxes. By that measure, Trump(s), and, I'd wager, much of the GOP 'leadership' do not deserve the right of citizenship.
7
It is a question of country equity. Regardless of judgment the population of the US was 10 times less 150 years ago and 10 times less 60 years before that.
Anyone could come here then because the land had no modern infrastructure, healthcare or economy and the death rate was commensurate whereas the countries from which the immigrants came sometimes had much higher standards of living.
Those people are welcome if they are productive and contribute... but in the age of AI and robotics the skills required by a modern country like the US are towards immigrants that are highly educated. Otherwise they compete for the meager wages of the lower class that already suffer from high unemployment and social ills.
The example of Japan, which decided to go full on technological and using robotics vs. importing workers, is a glaring contrast.
10
More silly emotional-laden puling disguised as profound thought. Statutes and law informs us who are citizens and who aren’t. These editorials simply embarrass us rational thinking Democrats.
31
Well said. There are millions of good Americans that earn their citizenship daily by doing good works and being responsible citizens.
8
Poorly reasoned and thought out. Asserting that because we are "exceptional" we do not get to point out the historical fact that every nation-state has been created through force is moronic at best. First, we are "exceptional" because we believe God bestowed a special status on us. For the non-Christians who believe we are exceptional, it is because we overthrew the greatest military and created a country that the individual was independent of the government. Government owed its power to the individual not vice versa. Second, the fact that every nation could have succeeded and failed to achieve what we have given the "abuses" is the equivalent of one running losing a race to another runner and saying well he should have given me his time. Nonsense! Third, other countries fail compared to us because they are lazier and driven more by socialism/communism. America was founded on individualism. It is the inherent recognition and motivation of the individual that would propel other countries to greater successes if they would adopt more pure form of Capitalism. Facts matter.
6
This would be an easy fix for the conundrum described by the author- all citizens must pass a high school level civics exam about the basics of USA constitution, and then be awarded a citizen's certificate and a passport . They pledge to vote in every election and work to contribute to the SS system they will be eligible for in retirement. No undocumented people will be eligible to receive SS benefits .
2
There are upwards of 55,000 desperate homeless people living on the streets of Los Angeles alone - the situation is no different in many other American cities. Many of our streets look little better than the streets of the cities and towns that illegal immigrants are fleeing from south of the border.
We do not have any obligation to take care of the world's poor - especially when we can't even take care of our own indigent.
What this writer is advocating for is akin to letting your own family starve while bringing soup to the just-arrived neighbors. There is nothing moral or compassionate about anything this writer is proposing.
22
@No Bandwagons I'm curious why you conclude we don't have an obligation to try to help anyone, even a little bit, instead of the other way around.
2
Ms. Alexander just needs to be more succinct. She needs to advocate for open borders, unfettered immigration and the end of nation-states and the implementation of a world order overseen by unelected intellectual elite. This is what she is essentially advocating. World citizenship for all and at the same time complete ignorance of the varied human behaviors, interests, allegiances, tribalisms, religions that make our world such a messy affair.
10
@Mike it's messy for sure. we shouldn't let that mess put a stop to our compassion for other human beings. whatever laws we put together should respect human dignity.
1
Sometimes I just can't figure out where the wealthy privileged folks get their notions.
7
Ms. Alexander,
Maybe YOU do not deserve YOUR citizenship, but I deserve mine by virtue of having served in the Armed Forces of the United States, by paying my taxes to build this country and voting regularly to help insure the survival of our US Constitution that I took an oath to protect and defend when I enter the US Air force lo these many decades ago.
17
Michelle Alexander wrote: "But for slavery, genocide and colonization, we would not be the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world."
Timeline of Top 3 Most Powerful Economies based on GDP:
1820: 1.) China 2.) India 3.) Russian Empire
1870: 1.) China 2.) India 3.) United Kingdom
1890: 1.) United Kingdom 2.) United States 3.) China
1913: 1.) United States 2.) China 3.) German Empire
1973: 1.) United States 2.) Soviet Union 3.) Japan
2030: 1.) China 2.) United States 3.) India
2050: 1.) China 2.) India 3.) Brazil
Blink of an eye, isn't it?
4
Both this article and the antagonistic responses are ignoring the long, horrifying, criminal history of US intervention in central & south America and West Asia. The world's poor have a political and moral "right" to reclaim what the US has taken away from them -- peace, economic independence, democracy. Go look up the histories of Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Haiti, Operation Condor. The effects of the last century of American foreign policy have been as devastating and persistent as the effects of slavery and Manifest Destiny in the US, and the effects of colonialism in Europe.
The 70s weren't just about disco. In the 1980s, a vigorous anti-fascist student movement protested Reagan administration foreign policy and the bloody history of the Nixon era. Students were radicalized by books like Eduardo Galeano's *Open Veins of Latin America.* That knowledge seems to have disappeared altogether. The masses on our border are helpless and desperate because we made them so.
3
The immigration laws we have in this country were voted on and signed into law by representatives elected by CITIZENS...therefore, this country does INDEED have the RIGHT to determine who enters this country, and who does not, and who is allowed to remain here legally and who does not...it really is as simple as that...WE, the CITIZENS, have the right to determine immigration laws...any immigrant who comes here legally, and becomes a CITIZEN can participate in this process to determine these laws...
The rest of the planet does not have a RIGHT to become US citizens.
The fact that an 8-month pregnant woman can scale a fence to give birth to a baby here is the probably the best advertisement for better border security I can think of...
...and please, stop pretending you don't want open borders, you do...just own it so we can converse candidly and openly.
10
@Ed sure, we can create laws. but our respect for human dignity shouldn't stop at whatever line in the sand we draw.
I recently found out my American cousins and I inherited Italian citizenship from my grandpa. only half of us, it turns out, because of Italy's old rules about bloodlines. how insane if citizenship status, trickling out around the globe, meant the difference between being treated like a human or being treated like an animal!
1
It’s Christmas time, What would Jesus do? He would open the door to those coming for shelter. He would care for the needy and down trodden.
The source of our immigrant problem is in thinking we have no responsibility for the problems created by governments like that in Honduras. We have spent our history propping up proxy governments which do not represent their people and are brutally repressive. We created the humanitarian disaster in Honduras by installing a government that is repressive.
Open our doors to the poor and down trodden. Give them our love and understanding and then turn to those who were left behind in the home countries and support them to rise up and take back the control of government from the grips of global capitalist.
1
@Andrew B, actually, if Jesus saw people entering the Temple for the purpose of making money because they couldn't make it in the amount they wanted elsewhere, or to take advantage of the free meat of the sacrifices, he'd throw them out after the moneychangers. However, if they had converted to Judaism out of conviction and not fiscal convenience, learned Hebrew, and proven themselves as members of their Jewish communities,he'd have welcomed them. Merry Christmas!
7
"On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
We can't. Unfortunately, this simple moral equation cannot be meaningfully applied to the complex sociopolitical and economic world we live in. Immigration can be informed, even guided, by moral considerations, but it is bound to the rule of law and the notion of sovereignty. Inequity and unfairness do not begin at the border any more than they begin at the front door of the columnist's house. We work to make a better world, which requires more, obviously, than swinging around facile moral cudgels whose only purpose is to point the blame at others.
10
Yes, immigrants certainly deserve citizenship as much as any of we natural-born citizens do, but I'd have picked a different, less dangerous headline for the idea. Let's not forget that Trump has already expressed a desire to revoke the citizenship of children born to illegal immigrants, and I wouldn't put it past him for a second to try to revoke the citizenship of his political enemies if he could. He's trying to chip away at the old norms a bit at a time until he attains dictatorship. Let's not give add oxygen to the mix by validating the possibility that anyone may not deserve citizenship.
2
There is no heroism in being nineteen and having babies in a very poor country. I feel no impulse - moral, legal or sympathy - to encourage that behavior. If we want to help give others opportunities, how about foreign aid in the form of money for education, economic development and free birth control. But only after first giving same to our own poor.
6
I agree completely. We do need open but controlled borders. Let anyone come who wants to, give them a tax ID and let them work. They can apply for citizenship, which should require two years national service from everyone, including those born here.
2
What is the ideal American population? Is there a point where we put up a no vacancy sign? Our population has expanded in the past 30 years, (from immigration and natural birth) by roughly 74 million. For perspective, that is the equivalent of every human living in France today. The open borders crowd and unrestrained immigration crowd also tend to embrace the green movement. How do you reconcile your environmental concerns with the possibility of the US population hitting 500 million by 2050? What impact does this have on our environment? As a California resident, the answers seem obvious. And very few of those are positive. But the current immigration debates are hardly about justice or tradition are they?
7
Why not take this in another direction? Unilaterally declare every person on the planet is a citizen of the USW, United States of the World? They would be required to stay in their country of origin. The wealth of their state would be divided equally amongst the people of their state. Let them prosper where they are. Every state would create a constitutional democracy and elect representatives and senators to Washington DC. Perhaps it would not work, but perhaps it would.
5
I can only wonder, just reading the headline, how many Trumph voters this article created today...
13
Thank you! You just gave me an incredible "in" to teaching the novel Refugee to 8th graders.
1
If we are to be a sovereign nation we must have the right to control our currency, control our borders, have a military and determine our form of government.
There are many examples of countries losing to overwhelming immigration.
Native Americans would like a "do over". So would the Palestinians, I'll bet Mexico would like to re-think letting all those Americans into Texas.
Have you forgotten the Sudetenland?
More recently, would The Ukraine wish that had fewer Russians in Crimea?
11
This column is absurd.
Yes, we should now govern based on our knee-jerk emotions. Why design laws at all, that take into consideration multiple issues and variables? Why care about consequences, unintended or not?
Let’s just do what feels good right away for our tortured consciences and let others deal with the results.
20
Any nation that chooses to eliminate its borders and be overrun by chaos would deserve the eventual dissolution it would face.
Christ came into the world to change our hearts, not to propose the abolition of law.
9
Citizenship becomes meaningless when those who struggle decades to come here legally are equated with those who cheat.
They bring the mindset of corruption with them that likely ruined their home country in the first place.
13
I don't find it difficult to morally answer any of these questions. How can there even be a question about the legitimate citizenship of a baby born here hours after the mother broke into our country? Send them all back. How is it in America's interest to have a 25 year old woman with a 6th grade education and 2 young children in our country? It's the same as if she broke into a grocery store to steal food and then claimed she had been starving. She breaks into our country and claims violence and poverty. No one said life was fair.
17
A whopping one third of natural born American's cannot pass the very lengthy citizenship test.
Clearly one of those who would most certainly fail is a man sitting in the White House right now, elected by a large number of "patriotic" Americans who'd fail the test as well. He looked surprised and lost when Nancy Pelosi explained to him during their infamous on-camera meeting in the Oval Office that Congress is a co-equal branch of government.
Not only does the man who sent troops to the Southern border to protect this nation from supposed gangs, rapists, drug smugglers, etc. thunder against birthright citizenship, he wants to end family "chain immigration" right after the parents of his wife - one who worked in the US illegally - receive their citizenship.
As to birthright citizenship, good luck changing The Constitution when this nation can't even get rid of the completely misinterpreted Second Amendment.
4
I have a pretty good idea who doesn't deserve to be a citizen. That would be any American who ignored their constitutional franchise for decade after decade. Any immigrant accepted to our country, by virtue of the test they take, knows far more about this than most "college educated" Americans.
Look at the voter rolls. Any one of us who's taken advantage of our country without participating in our governance should be booted out. That'd get rid of about half of our current population; now we have plenty of room to re-build America with new immigrants.
2
@David F
I vote. But the right to vote implies the liberty to not vote, just like freedom of religion guarantees my freedom from religion. You can't separate these things.
And do you really want people who do not want to vote forced into the polling booth? Yikes, just think of the results...
2
People who use the politics of fear, racism, and religious differences to disallow others from having access to asylum, citizenship and liberty here deserve US citizenship least of all.
4
This is exactly why we should stick to a Nation governed by the rule of law rather than some misty eyes moral posturing. The reason why this young mother thought she could find better opportunities for her baby in the USA than where she came from was exactly that the USA are goiverned by the Rule of LAw which empowers its citizens to create a country that generates wealth for pretty much all of its citizens. That is what gives the people living there the privilege that they snjoy. Sacrificing the Rule of Law for Moral Posturing will destroy all of it. Clearly, the young women aiming for anker babies wont come anymore but just because the USA has been turned into the same miserable place like the countries these young women came from.
12
@Frank
Yours is the best comment. The moralization of policy causes enough problems (eg, religious influence). But "emotionalizing" issues of policy and laws is a practice in insanity -- and it's why we have populism on one side and open-borders activists on the other. People are living in the extremes of human emotion -- either sociopathic or blind emotionality -- these days. Have humans lost their ability to think critically and reasonably about the world?
3
Why is it necessary to take an ridiculous unhinged position in order to argue for a reasonable and compassionate approach to any problem including immigration. Ms Alexander is here and she is able to speak and write because she is. As to moral grounds, my father fought for this country. He also worked for unions and fair wages. My mother was active, very active in the Democratic Party when it was the party of the people and in local politics for years. He and she gave me this gift. I think them for it.
Canada has a merit based immigration system. Why is that racist?
I even remember when Republicans weren’t anti social security! I can remember when they would have been up in arms over the excesses of ICE! Unfortunately, the Circus came to town. Trump didn’t start the rot but he’s brought it to a worrying crescendo and the GOP is happy stand aside. It’s appalling.
Can’t we argue for compassion without taking the position that we can only be compassionate if we self immolate? Let’s have a rational debate. It would do us all good.
7
Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow (2010), made a lot of sense but in this article she has gone off the rails and makes no sense.
Her argument that citizenship is no one's right, and confers no legitimate exclusivity to anyone demolishes the nation-state as it stands today.
Neoliberal capitalism may well have eroded the edges of the nation-state, but last time I checked the world order based on the nation-state still stands. The fact of this world order, like it or not, subsumes the principle of sovereignty.
The stance Alexander takes in her article altogether abrogates sovereignty and citizenship. It is a fact-free, purely emotional response to a thorny problem.
Such a finger-wagging, holier-than-thou posture is surprising to me since Alexander has shown solid scholarship before.
oz.
9
The United States is not simply a place, it is a concept. It is supposed to represent free thought and fair opportunity. Under Trump, it clearly does not. We must align or die, as far as Trump is concerned.
Not everyone wants to be here. Let's not pretend that people do. Right-wing pundits claim that immigration is the crisis of the modern world, that stats to do not bear this thesis. Immigrants seeking admission are in deep trouble more often than not.
The plight of Central America has a lot to do with the US in terms of drug abuse and international markets. Admitting people seeking asylum would not be a tragedy, but it would show the world that the US seeks to lead. But, that is highly unlikely under the nationalist/fascist, Trump. He does not seek to lead but seeks to isolate and destroy.
I recently read some libertarian garbage from the president of the independent Hillsdale College out of Michigan. He argued that nationalism was a saving force, unlike what President Macron recently preached. This was an amazingly horrible piece of revisionism from a college president. It is a well known historical doctrine that nationalism is a divisive force that serves to destroy humanity, just look at WWI.
1
I knew it. I knew I’d read the lines from ‘The New Colossus’ in this opinion piece. It’s always invoked in this type of screed.
Ms. Alexander, as a lawyer you must recognize that Emma Lazarus’ poem is just that- a poem. It is not statute law, it is not legal precedent, it is not policy, it is not an analysis of the facts of history nor the status of immigrants. It’s a 135-year-old poem. It’s a good poem, written in its time and appropriate to its place. That’s all it is. Stop insinuating as a founding document of our Republic. It isn’t. We are a nation of laws. We are not a nation of poems.
We regulate immigration through law and policy, not through our emotions. Through our legal system, not our limbic system.
There is a legal process to immigrate to the United States. Millions have come here through that process. The policies regulating the process have changed over time and will continue to change. We can debate those changes. There is no debate about whether those who violate our laws are illegal. Illegal aliens must be dealt with through our legal system, because we are a nation of laws.
11
This piece talks of the US ruining the original country of illegal immigrants to the US. It is the huge problem of inequality in their countries that are the cause of their troubles. The grinding poverty in so many countries around the world is a cause of much suffering. The result being the desire to leave for other countries, especially the USA. Is there nothing to be done in the original countries?
2
The best advice I can give to the Progressive heart is:
- Speak as compassionately about the forgotten poor already here when insisting we are not doing enough for the world.
- Hold your tongue about “breeders” if your contempt is aimed at the White religious whom you dismiss rather than the single Black mother with no means to care for her children whom you embrace.
- Consider adopting an orphaned or unwanted child. We have done so, twice; and it will rewire your inclination to point to others as the selfish.
I always look to the words of Christ for moral guidance. He is clear about loving my neighbor and acts of sacrifice and charity. He is equally clear that these are personal admonitions, not nested in a government or a neighbor. My charity is my responsibility, and I look as skeptically at the preachings of a Progressive as I do those of a moralistic and religious zealot.
The only morality from you I will truly respect is found in your personal acts, not your words.
In the meantime, I will endure the daily piety of those who claim the religious are hypocritical for not ceding their moral code to a state.
6
I think that the main point is that if we ruin a country, we are morally obliged to let its refugees into our country. That was the case in Honduras and other Central American countries.
2
@Larry Koenigsberg
We are responsible in part for the problems of Latin America. But in our guilt trip, we don't need to embrace all of it. Your main point neatly absolves the Spanish-American aristocracy and the Roman Catholic Church for 500 years of oppression and exploitation of indigenous peoples, for 500 years of de facto enslavement.
Much of the blame is shared, and the solution is not wholesale, open migration to the U.S..
4
A goodly number of commenters should reread Ms. Alexander's opinion piece, especially this part: " The deeper question raised isn’t whether our borders should be open or closed (generally a false dichotomy) but rather how we ought to manage immigration in a manner that honors the dignity, humanity and legitimate interests of all concerned."
4
The US needs immigrants. However, immigrants who choose to come illegally should not be given advantage over those who followed the rules. The problem we are facing, is the current administration is blurring the lines between legal in illegal immigrants, and making it more difficult for anyone who wishes to become an American. Corporations have been gaming the system for years to obtain low wage workers who can't leave or complain, and subsequently offshore the work. But without growth within the country, there will be a decreasing tax base to support retirees and what's left of pensions. It's a complicated issues, which is further complicated by those who are driven by fear and hatred
8
One attains citizenship of any country when one is born there or immigrates legally and is granted citizenship. Citizenship is a categorical fact that allows one to live in a country, enjoy the rights of citizenship, and travel abroad under the passport system. There is nothing moral about one's citizenship and who "deserves" being a citizen is a normative argument. Better questions IMHO are: who decides who deserves to be a citizen and what criteria are utilized to determine who is granted a path to citizenship.
I am not opposed to immigration and believe the US is strengthened by diversity. That said, perhaps Ms. Alexander will consider why most or nearly all nations oppose illegal immigration? Perhaps it is the economic, social, and political consequences of accepting anyone who wants to move to a country for the opportunities that abound.
6
Michelle Alexander raises many important questions for us to consider, but because she fails to answer the larger, underlying questions, her article devolves into more simplistic conclusions than the questions she poses deserve: See the myriad, conflicting comments the article provoked. If we agree with Ms. Alexander's supposition that as humans we all "deserve compassion and basic human rights", the looming questions seem to be:
What exactly are basic human rights, and how do we define them? Are these rights aspirational or legal? Are they inalienable, as we often profess? (Our very own criminal justice system operates as if they are not). Who or what is responsible for ensuring these basic rights? Do we have such responsibilities when someone in need reaches our borders? What about when they live in our cities, or are outside our doorstep?
Ms. Alexander notes that our nation was built on slavery, genocide and colonization? What about the homes we live in now, including Ms. Alexander's home. What are those built on, and who holds the responsibility for that? Is the notion of inalienable human rights more than a fetish we comfort ourselves with? Whether or not they are something more real, and are even attainable on a global scale, we have surely failed miserably at ensuring them.
1
I take no issue with the statement that our immigration system does not work and needs to be more humanistic in its approach. That said, I think the author misses a key point in who "deserves" or does not deserve citizenship. While birth is the legal tender, I would venture to say that first responders, military, and other public servants "deserve" citizenship much more than anyone else. Would you not agree that service to others lives up to American ideals much more than simply where someone is born?
I also believe the author needs to understand a little more about what "the border crossing us" really means. The inter New Spain immigration was almost non-existent except for members for the Spanish court and Catholic Church; the rest of the population stayed in the locals in which they lived. All those living in the contiguous US became citizens as territories were bought, conquered, annexed, or cajoled from Mexico, and has nothing to do with the plight of Central Americans trying to cross the Mexican border into the US; do you present the same argument against the Mexican immigration system? The use of that example in this article is a red-herring and adds nothing to the truly humanistic need for immigration reform in the US.
3
Alas, if only such an infinitely complex problem had such a simple, straightforward answer. Unfortunately, the world probably never has and probably never will work that way.
And while the thoughts expressed by the author are noble and well-intentioned, they can be most effectively utilized only in an environment that includes all points of view.
1
"On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?" This is a deep question. It reminds me of Hillary's famous truism: "It takes a village." We really cannot say we deserve anything. There are many Americans with homes with empty bedrooms. Why couldn't these rooms be offered by the government to immigrants? Once citizens have been relieved of their guns, the government inspectors could take room counts, make assignments and offer these spaces to newly-arrived families. Obama very profoundly made the point that businesses are not "made" by individuals and they cannot say they own them. The profits could be confiscated and distributed to desperate refugees. No doubt once placed in free housing and offered partial ownership of local businesses, the refugees could take their place as deserving citizens. This has been done in many thriving countries. One thinks immediately of Cuba and Venezuela. Why do retired couples and even single widows need large houses? There must be thousands of places in towns like Rye, Beverly Hills, Hinsdale and Palm Beach with empty rooms ready to be occupied. It could be a sort of good will Airbnb project but instead of coming as guests, refugees and other recently-arrived immigrants would be granted deeds confiscated from American citizens too selfish to offer them voluntarily. Then Hillary and Obama's philosophy of caring and sharing could be institutionalized.
6
We may all have a right to a home but the entire world does not have a right to a home here in the United States. That's a preposterous and unsustainable proposition.
51
“Deserves” .
9
Dictionaries have long accepted “none deserve.” Language, like politics and immigration policy, changes. Does it make any sense to stick to rules frozen at an arbitrary period in the past, or might we do better to let policy evolve to fit our developing needs?
1
@ Eric Leonidas
Adapting our immigration policy to fit changing needs is a rational course of action, a logical response to the world as it is today. The usage “No one deserves” is likewise perfectly logical, especially since the writer meant to emphasize that no “one” of us deserves citizenship more than any other “one” of us. Language does evolve, but in this case, the traditional usage is both correct and seemly.
1
When argument fails, let’s try shaming! That’s all this opinion piece does. I do not see in it any proposals for actually helping us formulate immigration policy or work with the situation on the ground. All it will do is either make people feel bad on an emotional level or make them angry.
68
Do seven billion people really have the right to American citizenship? Or citizenship in any other country? If you agree with this noble and ascendant statement, that’s nice, but you need to understand that this means the end of all sovereign states and governments. Only a single, global polity could exist in his case.
Ok, l’ll say aye. Now we just have to convince seven billion others.
31
We are a nation of immigrants, and as such we should have a rational, humane system of accepting immigrants - ideally there would be no bias in the country of origin, as has been our unfortunate history.
First, however, this sort of naive liberalism fails to recognize a serious problem that is confronting democracies in the West: large scale immigration - and even more so the *perception* of large scale immigration - has become seriously destabilizing. As robots start seriously displacing manufacturing workers, immigration will be politically explosive; look, for example, at the opioid epidemic in rural America - an America which is on the decline and will continue to be so. Such rural Americans often have little contact with immigrants, but are often hostile to immigration.
The U.S. is not a global poverty program. A child born today in Idaho has no moral obligation to a child born in Honduras. There is a reason immigrants want to come to America. The puzzling thing about that is that the author never considers why that might be? Honduras is not a failed state because of American policy; that is simply absurd. Certainly America did bad things there. Britain did horrible things in China, look where China is now.
Trying to guilt America into accepting immigrants is wrong, morally and politically. We should accept as many as we can because that is what has made us strong. Immigration is in our interest.
37
As a Canadian, I wonder how Republicans are able to win, then I read the NYTimes and I understand.
This article crystallizes why the Democrats, a party of the left, looses the working class vote.
102
@Tom
The democrats' fixation with stopping...a wall, of all things, tells you all you need to know about today's Democratic Party. Pelosi cannot give Trump what he wants because democrats' angry leftwing base will revolt and she might lose her leadership position.
8
With climate change the southern latitudes will increasingly become hostile to human habitation with civil society and government crumbling under the stress. The waves of migration will overwhelm our borders. We had better get used to it.
8
Oh, dear. We have run off the rails with this op-ed.
"...we ought to begin by acknowledging that none of us who were born here did anything to deserve our citizenship..."
CORRECT. But none of us did anything deserve arms, legs and working brains, did we?
This column, taken to its ultimate conclusion, would hold that none of us born here have any right to be here. We were just lucky, so, hey, get moving!
It is a vast mystery why some people, in seeking to be humane and considerate of others, want to convict those who have for having what they have. The same spirit probably applied when the term "native Americans" was adopted to describe the original settlers of north America, the peoples incorrectly called Indians. This unfortunate nomenclature sprang from academic circles in an attempt to be kind, more inclusive, but which, by logic, reduced other people born here to invader peoples. I am native American, it is my tribe that is not.
We have massive immigration to America right now. They are not border jumpers, they come on jet aircraft. Most people arrive on study and work visas and, over time, find a way to stay. In Montgomery County, Md., where I live, more than 1/3 of the residents are foreign born. How much more compassionate do you want to be?
A nation, any nation, can be seen as an agreement between those who live there to preserve their way of life, culture and, yes, economic well being. If it admits everyone, it will fail in those goals and turn toward chaos.
44
Trivia masquerading as deep thinking.
Citizenship is whatever a country wants it to be. A child born in Denmark to two resident German scholars can become a citizen after 9 years of residence.
But a child born to two Danes living in Germany can become a citizen if one of the parents had lived in Germany for eight years.
Which one of those children "earned" citizenship? Both? Neither?
38
OK! If writer Alexander suggests that everyone deserves citizenship and goes back to roots of the Emma Lazarus poem, we should ask exactly how many immigrants does she want. One million, ten million, a hundred million, a billion? Let her promise to fully support just ten. My grandparents from that era tell me of the requirements for admission (not full citizenship) to include a promise by an American resident to be responsible financially for the individuals they sponsored. Today, we know that such immigrants are provided with education, and medical care, and other benefits costing existing Americans of many billions of dollars each year, far in excess of the taxes that they may or may not pay.
Emma Lazarus referred to as a poet was better known in her times as a socialist who advocated many issues repugnant to Americans then and now. My grandparents deserved citizenship because they followed all the rules required for admission and citizenship.
The world is rife with poverty, cruelty, enslavement and war. The most recent notable caravan will only be a precursor to to the multi-millions who will follow if the policies advocated by Alexander and the cynical Democrats are followed. (The cynical Democrats, all of whom previously supported border control, wall and enforcement) as recently as Obama.
To all those who think everyone should be admitted, pitch in and guarantee financial support for ten or more Serrano Hernandezs.
25
None of us "deserve" citizenship but those of us who have citizenship are free to control who we think should be eligible to enter the country and gain citizenship. It's not complicated. You are over thinking it.
28
Readers who question Ms. Alexander's perspective or premises need to be intellectually honest with themselves when considering one great U.S. moral flaw: justification.
It lets us hide our real motives, which are often latently economic but on the surface based on morality--or the other way around. For example, it takes justification to defend a work requirement for SNAP that costs more than it could save, or explaining why the U.S. has decided saving rich people's money is more important than ensuring everybody has enough to eat.
People who extol "American exceptionalism" should realize there are two continents called America, with several dozen countries besides the U.S. If we claim the exceptionalism, we've got to be better, morally--which means realizing that we cannot impose a moral idea where none should exist.
Or that we are superior morally until we make sure that everybody here and within our reach gets enough to eat, a chance to learn, a shot to stay well.
Let's stop justifying. Whatever a 'cultural Marxist' is, why is it easier to call Ms. Alexander one than think hard about why we think there isn't room or opportunity for everyone.
7
I thought of the struggles of my ancestors when I read this piece, which treats our definition of citizenship so glibbly.
I think about those who arrived in Virginia in the 1700s where they tamed the wilderness to create farms which still exist today. I thought about the men, my great-great-great-great-great uncles and grandfathers, who fought in the Civil War on the Union side to defeat the evils of slavery and preserve the union. I thought of my grandfather, who worked in the forests of the NW and California, felling trees to build homes for millions of new immigrants. I remembered the stories my grandmother told me about the dust bowl in Oklahoma and the fear and terror of leaving their homes to come and try to create a new life in California, where she worked in an armament factory building weapons to help defeat the fascist Axis powers of WWII. All of these people and every other person I haven't described help build this nation. I work to make this nation a better, more equal nation today. WE, those from the past and present, are why we have citizenship today.
11
I guess, when it comes to being a black writer and espouse Cultural Marxism, one becomes a Opinion Kingdom protected species; nonetheless, for the four time today:
Give me a break. Marcuse from thesis to conclusion.
This is just another not so subtle attack on the nation-state--another means of working the Grand Collective that NYT and its DNC Politburo members push ad nauseam on the polis--the citizens.
There is no "moral quagmire" here but rather the choice of when to grant citizenship and who may cross the nation's borders, and the citizens make those choices as expressed through their Congress and their President.
And, by necessary connection, it's about sovereignty and who controls it, the citizens--once again, look to their Constitution, their Congress, and their President?
In short, no citizenship, no sovereignty, no nation under God, Constitution, or Bill of Rights: The sweet dream of every cultural Marxist in the world -- and, it seems, this writer, too.
36
So now we have a new politically correct jargon term -"Citizenship Shaming" as in " check your citizenship privilege."
Why does Steve Bannon come to mind, - “The Democrats,” he said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em.
48
@David Perfect!
2
Seeking asylum in the USA?! So illegally come the USA, seeking asylum, instantaneously give birth to a child, upon arrival to the USA.....WOW
So where can a black american male seek asylum from being killed by the police of any city, in any state of the USA?
Any answers?!!!
17
Online afternoon crew missed this, too. Unfortunately, it runs against NYT Opinion Kingdom cultural conditioning propaganda, but once again for NYT "free speech":
Give me a break. Marcuse from thesis to conclusion.
This is just another not so subtle attack on the nation-state--another means of working the Grand Collective that NYT and its DNC Politburo members push ad nauseam on the polis--the citizens.
There is no "moral quagmire" here but rather the choice of when to grant citizenship and who may cross the nation's borders, and the citizens make those choices as expressed through their Congress and their President.
And, by necessary connection, it's about sovereignty and who controls it, the citizens--once again, look to their Constitution, their Congress, and their President?
In short, no citizenship, no sovereignty, no nation under God, Constitution, or Bill of Rights: The dream of every cultural Marxist in the world -- and, it seems, this writer, too.
6
Online morning crew missed this one. Once again for NYT "free speech":
Give me a break. Marcuse from thesis to conclusion.
This is just another not so subtle attack on the nation-state--another means of working the Grand Collective that NYT and its DNC Politburo members push ad nauseam on the polis--the citizens.
There is no "moral quagmire" here but rather the choice of when to grant citizenship and who may cross the nation's borders, and the citizens make those choices as expressed through their Congress and their President.
And, by necessary connection, it's about sovereignty and who controls it, the citizens--once again, look to their Constitution, their Congress, and their President?
In short, no citizenship, no sovereignty, no nation under God, Constitution, or Bill of Rights: The dream of every cultural Marxist in the world -- and, it seems, this writer, too.
3
If this is the DNC platform in 2020.. We are doomed!
47
So much for the claim that the Left’s advocacy of open borders is ‘fake news’.
37
@Shenoa
Ask yourself, "Why oppose a barrier at the border?" It's a completely irrational position.
4
Nice to see that so many Republicans ready the NYT. I no longer feel lonely.
14
@Rose
On immigration, the NYT readership is not as far left as this paper.
5
What an absurd article, if you weren’t born here you do not deserve citizenship. If you arrive here legally you have an opportunity to earn citizenship.
33
Thank you for your though-provoking, powerful essay.
5
A heartfelt, eloquent, article that patiently dissects the moral dimensions of immigration policy.
To me, the crucial reasons these migrants have a "claim" on America is the points she makes about American policies that have created the unsafe conditions in Central America.
We are living in a global world. American policies which destabilize countries are no longer hidden from view. America refuses to acknowledge the reality of climate change and puts huge numbers of people all over the world at risk of displacement from their countries because of rising sea levels, massive droughts, flooding, etc.
Do we American citizens not bear a moral responsibility to the havoc our policies are creating on this Earth?
13
It's rather like some proponents of reincarnation say, "You can't explain morality from the perspective of one lifetime." We are our parents' children, and part of our parents' dream was that we would inherit the society they sacrificed to build. Citizenship is an inheritance.
There is no starting gun that goes off at birth, making each of us a separate competitor. There is a web of relationships of which we are but a strand. Don't we have the right to sustain that? Isn't that what families do?
OK, so maybe that's the other side of the story. It is also true that American citizens have been such fortunate heirs that the difference between our standard of living and that of the international poor has become scandalous. Why don't we share? How much do we really need?
Meanwhile, within every country, there is a similar gap between rich and poor. If the elites in other countries had shared with their poor, would people still be risking their lives to come to us?
As for our country, if our elites would settle for a comfortable life, rather than for astronomical wealth and power, couldn't their money develop America's vast unoccupied spaces and make room for so many?
So where do you point? Maybe pointing is pointless. But today is the solstice, during las novenas. Joseph and Mary are going door to door, wondering who will let them in. Who will open the door?
6
Immigration is a complex issue that I don't think we'll ever fully solve, and I believe it's much greater than just race and language. Keep in mind that Irish, Italians, and Jews were all reviled immigrant groups at one point, and were not originally considered "white" in this country, either.
As interesting as it is to ponder alternate courses of history, it's also futile. Trying to imagine an America without California (especially as far-back the 1840s) is impossible. The Civil War, for instance, likely would have taken an additional decade or three to come to fruition has the country not been forced to grapple with the conundrum of new potential slave states being added after the Mexican-American War, meaning slavery would have persisted for longer as well. We'll never know for sure what may have happened otherwise. What would have happened to the Mexicans who lived in those territories had there never been an American annexation is something we also can't estimate with any real authority.
Poll after poll has shown that Americans are not fans of foreign intervention, at least of the military sort. However, if our government is determined to remain involved in other countries, then perhaps we should consider what we can do to help Latin American countries improve the lives of their people so that we don't have to continue facing mass immigration concerns in the future.
7
My concern is only with the author's argument, which, I suspect, the author would reject if broadly applied. Let's suppose Mary living in a comfortable home with various nice amenities and three children. Now someone, Susan, breaks into the house and insists on living there with her own two children, perhaps offering to live in a spare room. She argues that, given the history of Mary's wealth (e.g., as a citizen of the US, as a person of privilege, as someone who inherited wealth), her children have no right to the exclusive use of her home, that through mere birth to Mary or even legal adoption by Mary her children have not earned any right to live in Mary's house, so that Susan's children have just as much right to live there as they.
The difficulty, of course, is finding a foundation for property rights. If Ms. Alexander claims that there is a significant difference between national property rights and individual property rights, she needs to state what it is. If she wants to deny property rights as lacking any foundation and hence being unwarranted, then let us hope she lives according to her values, admire her consistency, but be wary of adhering to them ourselves.
35
My cousins found out a little while ago that by a quirk of the law, our grandpa's Italian citizenship could be inherited by those of us born in America after he immigrated here. For a week or so, we all bemusedly discussed the possibility of dual citizenship. Would the men enroll in the military? Who could speak the language? What would our spouses and children think of the opportunity? Then, we discovered this old bureaucratic rule only applied to half of us - those descended from uncles born before a certain year.
In the blink of an eye, some of us were citizens and some of us weren't.
We could laugh at the arbitrariness of it. But we're not in peril of such paperwork confusion ruining our lives. To let legal status lead to inhumane treatment would be to let bureaucracy overrule our common sense and common decency.
8
I don't claim to have all of the answers for the terrible refugees situations occurring all over the world today, OR about how people who genuinely fear for their lives and request asylum compare with those who have gone through the lengthy and difficult (and usually expensive) process of becoming American citizens, OR about how THOSE people compare with the rest of us who just lucky and were born here.
But I do think that this constant complaining about and attacking all of these refugees who are on the move toward the richer countries of the world today is really pointless and unproductive. These people for the most part are NOT on the move seeking to plunder or deliberately destabilize rich countries. They're moving out of desperation. And while its also unproductive to blame all of the disruption that is pushing them on corporations and the super-rich, etc., the world IS being disrupted by rapid economic change that seems to lie beyond the control of politicians or anyone else.
What do we do? I think we (meaning all of the richer countries) need to organize and cooperate in some way that's similar to how the masses of displaced persons were treated after WWII. There isn't going to be any way to eliminate the suffering and other problems that come with this crisis, but it DOES call for extraordinary humanitarian measures and international cooperation. It won't solve the larger problems, but the immediate issue is helping those in desperate need with temporary relief.
5
I'd like to go further and say that we as an entire SPECIES needs to reconsider what it means to be apart of the world and what our role should be in it- humans seem to be utterly divorced from nature, we've lost our instinct for community, we before I, the idea of a communal greater good that we seemed to have abandoned the moment we "evolved" into whatever the hell it is that makes us human. Why do we treat the planet, which we utterly rely on, so badly? And in turn treat other so badly? Every living thing, humans included, deserves the right to food, shelter and freedom from violence- yet we've invented this anti-life system called CAPITALISM to decide who gets healthcare, who gets food, who gets shelter, who gets a job- why? Are we humans planet Earth's endgame?
7
Before I get to the gist of my comment, let me clearly state where I stand: 1. I am not in favor of open borders. 2. The US cannot, and should not, accept every immigrant who wishes to come here. 3. Being poor does not automatically grant anyone a claim to immigrate here.
With that out of the way, I read Ms. Alexander's column quite differently. I did not see this piece as advocating any immigration policy; rather, it was aimed at self-reflection. We demand (and rightly so) that immigrants meet certain criteria and standards before being admitted to this nation and be granted the most coveted prize: citizenship. But do we introspect to see if people born here, those who have been born with the proverbial 'silver spoon' of citizenship, meet those standards too? I think Ms. Alexander is simply using the case of immigrants to motivate native born citizenry to strive to achieve the highest ideals on which this nation was founded.
14
On the same authority that gives you the right to tell another not to come to your home, eat your food, sleep in your bed, etc. Welcome if invited but do not invite yourself to another's party. Earn the invitation. And that invitation is earned by many means, not simply by the desire for it.
30
So, here's a question for those who would say that Little Baby Born on Soil to Non-Citizen Parents shouldn't be given citizenship: what will become of Little Baby Born?
Say LBB's parents' country of origin doesn't exist anymore. Now what? You can't deport LBB. LBB has nowhere to go. Unless you pay another country to take LBB because you don't want LBB, which is a horrible thing.
Or what if LBB's parents' country of origin no longer recognizes them as citizens, as many refugees are no longer recognized by the country they've fled? LBB is stateless. Where would you deport LBB to?
Would you condemn LBB to live, stateless, undocumented, without family, for their entire life in your country?
What about people who come on a student visa to study in your country for years in bachelors, masters, or doctoral programs. Should they be expected to just abstain from child-bearing for the most fruitful years of their life? What if they have a baby and then don't complete their degree? Does LBB lose citizenship?
What about people waiting for refugee or residency claims to be settled? What about people who are making it through the permanent residency process? What if they have an LBB while they are waiting for their papers to go through? Those papers can take years. Should they just abstain from child-bearing for that long? Who will pay for the birth control?
You still need voluntary immigrants. You won't get them with those restrictions. The others don't have any choices.
2
@C So what do other countries do? To the best of my knowledge, the child gains citizenship when the parents do or follows their parents’ citizenship. If the parents are legal residents, the child can eventually become a citizen if they are raised there. Most other countries do not have birth right citizenship.
21
On what moral grounds can we deny other species the homes in which they are born and develop?
Every additional child is now an invasion of the natural world, and every American is using up far more of the planet's resources than he/she needs for life (or is "entitled" to).
110
@jabber
Citizen is a privilege not a right. We have a right to determine who enters America and how many do. This is not racist or inhumane it is the law. We are a nation of laws.
So let's remember these principles as we rationally disuss what our immigration should be.
14
@jabber
Citizenship is a privilege not a right. We have a right to determine who enters America and how many do. This is not racist or inhumane it is the law. We are a nation of laws.
So let's remember these principles as we rationally disuss what our immigration policy and obligations should be.
2
I deserve citizenship. I have a PhD, barely drink, and stay in elite athletic shape. I never need to see a doctor. I'm over 40 and have no kids, but would like one or two.
I would admit EVERYONE who meets the following criteria (regardless of creed, race, and nationality):
1) possessing a college degree
2) no children before age 35 and no more than two children total
3) non-smoking and non heavy drinking
4) in excellent athletic shape
6
Yes - I am like you - PhD, never smoked, rarely drink, keep very fit and have two children (when I was 30 and 33; may be that disqualifies me, but 35 is pretty late, especially for women, medically speaking).
Yet despite all that I never JUST felt my hard work (and I did work hard) meant I deserved something. I always realized I was also fortunate - to be born talented in math and physics, in good health, in a stable family who loved me and nurtured and encouraged me, in an age when people gifted in this way could flourish and succeed.
I’m also glad I was fortunate enough to have that level of self-awareness. Perhaps it saved me from being an arrogant narcissist - and allowed me to find a wife who was eager to have children with me.
5
I had a interesting conversation on this subject with my friend from LA.
She has family in Tijuana. Her family there is rather upset there are a bunch of Hondurans parked in their neighborhood. Essentially: The plumbing was already bad. Now this? Meanwhile, my friends family went through all the legwork to do thing legally. There's more than a little resentment.
I understand where she's coming from. If someone parked a village of refugees in my local park, I'd be more than a little upset. I think we can also agree cheating the system seems really unfair to the person who plays by the rules. I have to strange counter points though. Bare with me.
1) Are Ms. Serrano-Hernandez’s actions any different than Trump legally avoiding taxes he should otherwise pay? The law is the law. If you don't like it, go talk to Congress. On the way, you might ask WHY foreign immigrants are aloud to enter the United States while seeking asylum. You could start with Chiune Sugihara and go from there.
2) If we're going to talk about the right to citizenship, I'm reminded of "Super Troopers." This sounds hokey but it goes something likes this: Citizenship is not granted; a civilian becomes a citizen through public service. By this definition, our current president shouldn't even have the right to vote. Now ask yourself this: What have you done lately?
4
@Andy
"Now ask yourself this: What have you done lately?"
Nothing much. Worked my job, worked on my projects, donated some food to local food banks. Baked some holiday cookies today. Certainly not a great case for earned citizenship. We're mutts and not entirely sure where we come from, but one uncle traced one of our first ancestors to immigrating from Switzerland in the 1600s sometime. I guess i should be probably deported back to there. (Oddly enough, I'm perfectly ok with that.)
2
@Andy I believe you are actually referring to "Starship Troopers," and citizenship is gained specifically via MILITARY service. The society portrayed in the book is generally regarded as fascist; the version in the movie based on the book is generally regarded as a satire on fascism.
Or to put it another way, maybe not the best analogy to be making when discussing complex government policies.
1
An interesting issue since the demographics of the US shows birthrates under the replacement rate -- so without immigrants the US will age and shrink.
But then the whole question of what is citizenship and who should be entitled to it has many connotations. For example, far too few people vote -- that would seem to be an essential component of citizenship. And in the case of national emergency, how many would put themselves in harms way to serve the country -- like our parents and grandparents?
Some politicians seem to want to define the question a bit differently -- folks not part of a particular demographic should not be allowed to vote and have other privileges. Personally I feel this flies in the face of what the US is all about and what has made it so strong and prosperous over the years.
But perhaps the current insanity is a reason to re-examine this question.
3
But Michelle, would you have the US accept all of the 68.5 million people currently displaced internally and externally worldwide according to the UNHCR now? That would make the US a place where people would not willingly travel to to seek asylum real fast - don't you think? In short: there must be limits on its openness to new citizens from elsewhere.
Regarding those seeking asylum from southern North (or Central) America. As I see it the US historically is responsible for three great crimes. 1. Its disgusting treatment of its indigenous people. 2. Its repugnant importation of human beings to its shores to work as slaves. 3. Its failure to do everything in its power to make of all of the states of America (North and South) - ahem - "The United States of America", akin to another "European Union" of wealthy democratic nations.
To me that citizens of other American nations south of it flood to it to seek to enter it "illegally" seeking a better life, is a joke played on the US of almost cosmic significance. It's a result of a disturbing failure of leadership of your country through the generations and all of its administrations.
(Yes. My country has made similar mistakes too. But not nearly so "bigly". Cheers.)
62
@GRW Most present day Americans cannot relate to a historical America that had a population that was a fraction of today's population. Holding today's America accountable to an unrecognizable past is repugnant. None of its citizens are indictable for offenses of its historical strangers.
37
@GRW
I'd concentrate on your China invasion problem and your "free speech" in Muslim communities before trashing the Americans who kept the Japanese from doing to Australia what they did to China. Too much time watching state TV--it seems.
26
@GRW There is no "flood". Republicans have always depended on fear-mongering. Now that the Red Scare has been exposed, they turn to immigrants and use words like "flood". There is no danger. No "flood". Take a deep breath and try to remember your humanity.
5
Yet another annoying lecture beamed in from the far left corners of la-la land.
31
I do not agree with the concept of birthright citizenship for our country, but I also do not agree with the hardliners or Trump.
Anyone adult not fleeing legitimate prosecution who can speak the common language (that would be English as spoken in the United States) in a manner functional enough to live independently and work, who will swear a loyalty oath to this country and forsake their homeland should be welcomed here- period. But the anchor baby thing is nonsense- American citizenship should only be automatic for the child of at least one American citizen.
On the other side, our government should not charge an outrageous amount of money or make people go to extraordinary lengths to renounce American citizenship. Our Congress has significantly increased the fees for an American to renounce their citizenship. Someone who wishes to become the citizen of another country should be allowed to without a high financial fee or other punitive difficulty.
3
The author builds her argument on the supposition that none of us “deserve” to be here as though that’s both obvious and a call she gets to make. I disagree. I don’t disagree that our immigration system is broken.
7
After high school graduation in 1970 I worked at a factory in Holyoke, Massachusetts to earn some money before leaving for Umass in the fall. I worked with a black woman and a couple of Puerto Ricans. They were all nice, hard working people. One day I casually mentioned to the black woman that she and the Puerto Ricans, being minorities, had something in common. She set me straight. She was an American.
10
So are the Puerto Ricans my dude
7
Memo to Ms. Alexander: "On what moral grounds" can we justify allowing 8 million illegal aliens, according to Pew Research, to remain in their payroll jobs in construction, manufacturing and services while there are about 45 million working-age Americans who remain out of our workforce? By the way, the Center for Immigration Studies says the majority of these jobs are already being done by our citizens.
11
So, after saying that no one is actually talking about open borders, Ms Alexander makes the case that, in point of fact, we should have what amount to open borders.
26
@AJ She made the argument for self-reflection and to be thoughtful.
Which it is clear is beyond the ability of many.
3
My ancestors helped build this country. I don't know why the ancestors of other people built countries which are poor and dangerous and why these countries seem to be getting worse.
15
"After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship."
Wrong. But you need reading knowledge of the Constitution, its Amendments, and the Declaration of Independence. Those documents declare unequivocally that everyone born has the rights to Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. No other rights are unalienable, and no other rights are, actually, Rights.
Everyone born in US boundaries is, according to the 14th Amendment, an American citizen. This was enacted by Congress and approved by all the states of the Union as a result of the Civil War. Until Congress writes a new Amendment, that is still the Rule of Law in this land. Congress, according to the Constitution, also has in its purview the right to determine immigration and naturalization.
The author avoids these concrete facts, because the author has an agenda that is prevented by them.
No one "deserves a place they can call home". It must be earned. Somehow, before today, millions of Irish, Italian, Greek, German, Scandinavian, and other immigrants came ashore here - much to the ire of the entrenched White Anglo-Saxons who were here before them. The US government should require extensive background checks, medical and political and criminal, to determine whether someone can come into this country. But more important, the US should stop providing free services to the "needy". Including American "needy". This would remove the biggest obstacle. There was no safety net in the 1800s.
4
The persuasion tactic for open borders and free immigration is shame, for the most part. You don't deserve citizenship either, your ancestors were oppressors or colonizers, America is responsible for the dysfunction of other states, etc. I don't think that works, and I think it's counter-productive. Outside of the elites, people in this country are really struggling, and there is the perception that elites don't care. Perhaps the very well off can be effectively shamed, because they have more than they need and they have profited from globalization. But everyone else is likely to look as this sort of argument as an attempt to immiserate them even more. A better approach is to fight for shared prosperity, so that people feel less anxious, and then encourage them to share American with newcomers.
10
I think that we should be very careful as we question modifying birthright citizenship. Once that's done to exclude brown so-called anchor babies, who will draw the line as to which other groups can be excluded? What about those who practice crime? Gangs? Drug addicts? Women of “low repute”? Atheists? Communists? Socialists? Progressives? Democrats? As it now stands, natural born citizenship is inviolate, there's no need to argue about which groups of people who were born in the US should lose their citizenship, because it's impossible. Personally, I don't think we should open that door.
On the other hand, I think we should permit “de facto naturalization”. This would allow a judge to consider the cases of those who, regardless of formal immigration status, have lived, studied, and/or worked in the USA so long that they have become “Americanized”, in the sense that they consider themselves American, fit in very well as Americans in American cultural situations, and have no disqualifying history of serious crime, etc., as candidates for permanent residence and conventional naturalization. If they were brought in at an early age, there would be no criminal aspect to this; if they illegally crossed the border, then they would need to be tried for that crime (first offense is a misdemeanor); however, unless this is adjudged to be part of a pattern of criminality, it should not affect their immigration status any more than it would affect a natural born citizen's.
@Greg Shenaut
I agree with you that we should be careful about modifying birthright citizenship but for a different reason. If that aspect of the 14th Amendment is struck down, what happens to black Americans as the descendants of chattel slaves? Do we lose our citizenship and become property or people without a country similar to the Windrush generation in the UK? I am not sure of the current status of the Dred Scott decision - it was superseded but does it become the law of the land again if birthright citizenship is appealed? This reason and others are why I believe black people should not take up the fight for other groups and be very cautious of any efforts to resolve their plight.
@Lynn in DC, the absurdity of today's abuse of birthright citizenship is the dilution and destruction of the intent of the 14th Amendment. Namely, exactly as you've described. It was to guarantee citizenship to all of the newly freed slaves and all of their descendants. It was not intended for a globalized world and so-called "anchor-baby" tourism from China (as has been described in NYT this year); or from Russia (article in Bloomberg this week); or from Central America (woman described in this article).
I do not believe anyone is arguing to entirely end the 14th Amendment? That would betray 150 years of progress. Instead, Congress should legislatively clarify the original intent of the 14th Amendment, so as to end the abuses of birthright citizenship and restore it to its original meaning.
Incidentally, as you probably followed back in the 1990's, African-Americans like border-state Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara Jordan were strongly against illegal immigration. Ms. Jordan knew full well the negative impact of illegal immigration on her least vulnerable US citizens constituents. This is why she recommended chain migration reform; strong enforcement versus illegal immigration; and reduction of legal immigration itself from the then-average 750,000 per year to about 500,000 per year. It is disturbing that today's Democratic Party seems to have no room for someone like Barbara Jordan anymore.
7
I would modify Ms Alexander's concept to say all of us deserve citizenship. Why limit Jefferson's eloquence, built from John Locke's concepts, to some people on planet earth and not everyone? We don't need to open our border -- we simply need to continue to expand it. We can probably alleviate more human suffering by simply making Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala into the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th US states -- bringing American rule of law and prosperity to another 150 million people. Why did we stop with Alaska and Hawaii?
I am in favor of a compassionate Manifest Destiny. As Jefferson once wrote to Monroe, ""it is impossible not to look forward to distant times when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, and cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent."
Indeed!!
2
There is a peculiar irony that the author of the THE NEW JIM CROW, which advocates against color-blindness on moral grounds rooted in the injustices of the past, claims here that there is no morality attached to citizenship in the nation she wants to reject color-blindness.
2
The basic fact that all of the invaders from the “old world” invaded the “new world” to plant a flag on foreign lands and claim it as their own. Whether it was done by missionary work, grants and settlements, trapping and trade routes, or conquering soldiers and sailors. Colonizers jumped the wall, crossed the rivers and sailed in on boats and ships without asking what the terms of the lease might be. Not only that, when they wrote and signed treaties for their own advantage, they broke them and their word (like tRump) and expected NO consequences!
What the “old world” colonizers didn’t bargain for was that their newly minted slaves and converts would want a slice of the pie and a seat at the table. And to enjoy the same dream of a ‘more perfect union.’ As we have seen, old world colonizers who opened up ‘their enlighten world’ to the colonized, now think they can shut down the trade winds, seas, and land routes that gave them power and wealth. This is not a spigot or a clock that be turned to daylight savings time. The HOTEL has a checkout time for colonizers and the bill is due with ‘incidentals’ added. The rates are posted on the door...!
[But for slavery, genocide and colonization, we would not be the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world — in fact, our nation would not even exist. This is not hyperbole; it’s history. There’s good reason some Mexicans say: “We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us.”]
4
I'm wondering what part of the country Ms. Alexander lives in that has no homeless and no poor. Clearly if there were any she would have moved them into homes, provided them with jobs, education, and healthcare. I'd like to move to her neck of the woods. Must be nice there.
29
To all the sanctimonious commenters who came here legally, or whose grandparents came here legally, please enlighten us on the what the procedure is for a poor Honduran with no family connections in the U.S. to come here legally under current law. It's a lot harder than you think, and it's definitely harder than what any of my ancestors had to do. This column isn't advocating for poor Hondurans to come illegally, it's advocating for immigration laws that make it easier for poor Hondurans to come legally. If you think it should be harder for them than it was for you or your ancestors, why?
6
@Quentin In other words, the open borders that she denies favoring.
9
@Quentin Because there is less need for unskilled labor than there was in the 1800s. Immigration policy should evolve along with the needs of the country. Just because a poor Honduran wants to come to the U.S. does not mean the U.S. must make it easier for him to do so.
12
Ms. Alexander,
Perhaps you might clarify where you got the notion that you have the right to speak for everyone in this country.
25
I wonder if Ms. Alexander would say that African-Americans have no moral rationale for not accepting Rachel Dolazel's aspiration to being claimed as a member of that racial designation, or of any Native nation rejecting people who aspire to join it despite having insufficient connection to that tribe. The Cherokee have no moral rationale to block a person of e.g. Armenian or Zimbabwean ancestry from claiming Cherokee citizenship. Really?
10
The numbers of people migrating to the United States wasn't a problem in 1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, 2000, or today. We're no more "full" now than we were before.
A good argument can be made for how immigrants have always made this country a better, more prosperous nation. Immigrants have always worked harder, for less, and paid their taxes, gratefully.
So, people who object to migration today aren't really saying, "Sorry, we're full now." Really, what they're saying is that "Sorry, you're not white and English-speaking."
Let's call a spade a spade.
191
@Sam I Am Please look at a map of the US showing population density in the years you mentioned and compare it to population density today. Also ask yourself if there are as many opportunities here, now that hundreds of companies have moved to Asia and automation will be eliminating millions of jobs in the near future.
36
@Sam I Am, What are the reported figures? 1800:USA population 5.3 million (world population 1 billion); 1850: 23.1 million in USA (world 1.2 billion);
1900: 76.2 million USA (world 1.6 billion)
1950: 152.3 million USA (world 2.5 billion);
2000: 282.2 million USA (world 6 billion).
Just 18 years later, in 2018: US population 326.7 million (world population 7.7 billion).
So we are more than 44 million more people in just 18 years! And a depleted and dying Oglalla Aquifer under the MidWest; and water shortages throughout the SouthWest and throughout California, to the extent Native American tribes no longer receive their legal allotments under the Colorado River compact. But we're no more "full" now than we were before? I guess traffic was not bad enough in Los Angeles; NYC metro area; or Atlanta in 1999, or now? Is the nation "more prosperous" in 2018, with 44 million more, than it was 18 years ago?
The nation & the globe needs to move to sustainable economies and significantly reduce population growth. GOP gets it wrong to not support family planning. But Democrats would do well to remember their environmental & labor union roots. As well as former leaders such as African-American, Democratic Congresswoman & civil rights icon Barbara Jordan, who argued strongly in favor of reducing legal immigration to about 500,000 per year (from what was then an average of 750,000 per year), including chain migration reform & more enforcement vs illegal immigration.
49
@Sam I Am: There is not enough water in California and much of the West to serve the people who are here now. If that's not a definition of "full," I don't know what is.
It matters not what color people's skin is or what language they speak.
46
The moral basis for excluding others from rights, privileges, and opportunities that we did not personally earn sounds in the universally acknowledged right that children have to the fruition of what their parents have produced, starting with their physical bodies and extending through family inheritance to membership in communities and nation states.
4
It's about time somebody said this. No doubt the point will be largely lost on its readership.
Meanwhile, the United States uses fully a quarter of the world's resources, but hey you deserve it right?
3
If you're born in a nation then you have automatic right to citizenship. It's my birthright to have access to NZ welfare system and free hospital care and to own my own home. For foreigners it is not a right but a privilege to live in my nation. Same applies if you're born in U.S.A.
Everyone from nations with no welfare state would love to move to developed western world nations for all the welfare and free stuff but our government has to close borders to protect it's own citizens and infrastructure. There's billions of economic migrants wanting to move from their cesspool nations and get a free ride off the coat tails of our ancestors hard work in developing a Democratic nation.
18
So why should Central American asylum seekers have preference over Rohinga, African, Syrian, or any other nationality seeking refuge from poverty and violence? Just as the author says none of us deserve citizenship, neither do Central Americans deserve special treatment just because of geographic proximity to the US.
We don't allow asylum seekers to enter the US through Canada - they are required to seek asylum in Canada. Why should asylum seekers coming through Mexico receive special treatment? According to international agreements asylum seekers are to request asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive - in this case Mexico.
308
I suggest that the notion that we don't deserve our citizenship is an exercise in twisted logic.
While it's arguable that no one generically "deserves" anything he or she didn't achieve through their own efforts, a people deserve the fruits of their collective efforts, specifically the personal opportunities freedoms that have inured here as the result of generations of effort and sacrifice, including going to the aid of others at risk as during World Wars I and II, and the defense of our Allies since, which we have paid for in lost lives and taxes.
As such, having for generations paid in full measure, the notion that we are not entitled to the benefits of U. S. citizenship is trivializes the lives and contributions of the American People.
5
I thought I would never say this but it’s hard to welcome everyone when our birthright and citizen poverty rates, hunger, injustices are beyond already.
I agree with Professor Alexander but simply ask-
How do we handle everybody when we are doing such an awful job already?
I don’t know.
"The deeper question raised isn’t whether our borders should be open or closed (generally a false dichotomy) but rather how we ought to manage immigration in a manner that honors the dignity, humanity and legitimate interests of all concerned."
It seems like every comment I post here mentions my son the Trump supporter, but obviously I am concerned about his reaction to things which is often: "mom, why do you care about this?" It seems I succeeded a little too well in crating the sense of entitlement the author talks about here. Perhaps also, his grandparents didn't speak English with a heavy Italian accent like mine did.
My grandmother escaped from Sicily in the 1920s. There was no civil war, only my disgruntled great-grandmother who had lost her son and husband in WWII and gone scary-crazy - so family lore says. There was no where to go, but America!!
I think of my grandmother, how frightened she must have been and what she sacrificed. I think of myself trying to survive on the island of Sicily with my New York attitude. That thought is scary. I think we should send Steven Miller and everyone that disrespects immigrants back where their immigrant ancestors came from. And that includes Baron Trump.
1
@Susan Murphy: if you mean "Barron Trump" -- the 12 year old son of Trump and Melania -- he is a native born US citizen, and cannot be deported anywhere, for any reason.
3
Ms. Alexander makes a good argument for liberty and immigrant rights to go hand in hand. As an immigrant myself, I have a different perspective.
The original promise of this land is indeed the right to life and liberty. Emma Lazarus eloquently put into words the yearning of others to embrace what many here take for granted.
But the founders vision wasn’t for America to be the one promised land, it was that every man was born free and equal, wherever they are. That is our actual birthright as children of our ‘creator’. The sad truth is that tyrants and exploiters everywhere deny people their birthright so they flee. America is best served when exporting liberty and openness rather than importing talented people contributing to brain drain.
How different the world would be if US money and power was used to support liberty and equality (India, Brazil) instead of tyranny and apartheid- Israel, Russia, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
3
What is too often forgotten in the various diatribes about who deserves to be here and whose ancestors did what is that with the right of citizenship comes with responsibilities. Voting, military or public service, civic organizations etc., are the way that those of us who are lucky enough to have been born in the US "pay" for our "right" to be here. Unfortunately, that seems to honored more in the breach than in the practice.
When I was active duty I didn't think that mandatory service for all citizens was a good idea, now I'm not so sure that all Americans couldn't use some public service time.
4
"On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
By this argument, those of us who were born into circumstances in which starvation is unlikely have no right to keep even a dollar that we would spend on movies and entertainment and not send it to famine relief.
9
This article is a thoughtful tribute to the struggles that the migrant caravan, and the ancestors of everyone living in America, endured. Thank you for honoring the immigrant experience so beautifully, Ms. Alexander.
3
According to my family lore, one ancestor, born in England, arrived here on the Mayflower in 1620. He had no papers from any government, including that of the locals, granting permission for him to set up housekeeping at what is now called Plimoth Plantation. Another ancestor arrived later, at age 11, at a time when no papers were required of Scots wanting to settle here. As for me, I was born in Massachusetts, though I'm apparently descended from undocumented immigrants. I vote in elections when they're held; I served a term in my current state's legislature; have I earned my citizenship? Not even close, when you put that up against all the young people who have sustained grave and even mortal losses in the service of our founders' ideals.
Let's reform our immigration system on the basis of those ideals. No, we cannot absorb all the world's poor. We do, however, owe a moral duty to those made poor by this country's sometimes callous and ruinous treatment of their original countries' circumstances.
4
Its difficult to tell how old the author of this is, which is relevant, because it is true that the pampered white, brown or black 18 year old college students and their younger immigrant Marxist Cosmopolitan ideology preaching professors, and all arriving immigrants are correct when they feel and think that THEY did not "earn" American rights and opportunities. But what they out ignorance (have never had a job,sacrificed-contributed anything to this nation) or intentional deception fail to acknowledge or consider is that a majority of a nation's citizen population consists of large fractions in their 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's that are not in the probably often undeserving 1-10% professional class that assuages their privilege selfishness guilt by 'welcoming' evermore foreigners into our society for what's left of the middle class to "share" with. The inconvenient reality is that majority consists of citizens that have worked and paid taxes for decades, obeyed the laws even when inconvenient, sacrificed years when they could have been making more money and got maimed and emotionally scarred in the military or in the police, risked their lives and got injured building the roads, buildings, and mines that comprise the infrastructure that makes our standard of living and 'just institutions' possible. So most citizens "did make that" and, therefore, have an ownership and national sovereignty right to their lands, and just institutions.
13
After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship.
No, but our parents who for years before lived, worked, sacrificed, paid taxes and built their communities that we were born into did. Jumping a wall moments before is not quite exactly the same kind of work or ethic. Having to resort to morality to make the case shows desperation.
14
@John Doe: by Ms. Alexander's logic....if I carjack her new BMW....then I deserve to not only KEEP IT FOREVER...but she OWES IT TO ME...plus I deserve to get free maintenance, gasoline, and insurance from the US taxpayers.
4
First, if the words of the 19th century poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, associated with the Statue of Liberty and cited by Ms. Alexander, were taken as the law, the problem of illegal immigration would not have existed.
But I find that Ms. Alexander's article couches a legal issue in touchy-feely and coochiemoochie terms, with reference to one very unfortunate case of a young woman. The legal issue is, the citizenship is obtained either by birth (is soli) or by ancestry (is sanguis), with other grounds for naturalization. For example, US and France are in the former category, Germany and Switzerland in the latter.
Must the US naturalize every legal or illegal immigrant? -- I have no answer to this question.
6
To the Columnist:
Clearly you don't live in California. Anywhere in California there are thousands upon thousands of illegal, undocumented persons living here. Why? Because by default, anyone who is indigent is provided with maximum services.
How is that wrongful? Well, Californians are pushed aside.
Ms. Alexander, the undocumented persons have children many of whom participate in gang destruction of property, not mere painting of all the public spaces with graffitti, and commit high crimes. Every city, small and large in California has to have a "gang unit".
Since Trump came into office, I have personally encountered about 100 or more individuals with new borns, speaking a language that is not English.
We are a nation of laws. The only means by which a person can participate in this country is to learn, speak, and write in the language of the laws, English.
In the California Spanish speaking neighborhoods, there are no American flags posted to acknowledge National holidays, including Labor Day.
The US is not the wide open spaces of the 20th Century. We as a nation are by population one twelth of the population size of China. We cannot afford to have individuals who do not and will not participate in the country as independent individuals. We cannot sacrifice the resources paid by our fees and taxes to others who are merely taking, and not participating. Citizenry is the protection of our freedoms. That's who deserves to be a US Citizen.
40
@RR
Before California was called that, it was Mexico and the language of the land was Spanish. The English only prerequisite is archaic, colonialist and simply a launching pad to discriminate. I am from California,
African American and fluent in Spanish. Learning a second language is a wonderful experience. Communicating with others unlike yourself is life changing for the whole planet.
6
To answer the question, the moral ground is happenstance, which lies as the moral ground for more issues than we would like to admit. On what moral ground do we deny a person who can’t act, excel in math, or dunk a basket ball from success in lucrative areas of society? No one earns the talent that allows them to pursue a line of work. No one even really earns the disposition that allows them to work harder than other similarly talented people. In fact, most of us don’t earn much of what we are proud of. Stop complicating white rice, Ms. Alexander. You don’t solve the problems of the world by moving one side of the planet’s population to the other.
I am looking forward to reading the Times opinion piece that demands the elites and the small middle classes in countries like Guatemala that thrive on exporting human beings get their act together and create a society that doesn’t impel tens of thousands to seek better lives in the United States and Western Europe. But I won’t hold my breath. Something about the low expectations of soft bigotry. One of the few things Bush or more likely his speech writers got correct.
16
Personally, all I want out of immigrants is a willingness to buy into the civic franchise of responsibility. Pay your taxes, cast informed ballots, go to jury duty, and the other myriad of civic duties that fall on us as a society.
The truth is, I don't care if you're a doctor or if you pick strawberries for a living, if you buy into the civic duties that our country asks, and do so enthusiastically, you deserve to be here. In fact, I'd rather take in a patriot immigrant who can only aspire to manual labor over a gifted and talented immigrant who is here for purely financial or other tangible benefit. Because while you may not set the world ablaze, your children, or your grandchildren will be instilled with that civic virtue and they may accomplish great things, and we will all benefit by that.
If you invest in America's institutions and bear your civic duty, I'm willing to invest time and social resources back into your family. Eventually dividends will be paid. *That* is the American Dream, and the American Story.
I don't know how to make that a naturalization policy. But it's how I've landed on the immigration question.
2
I like your criteria. By them the current occupant of the White House wouldn’t qualify - which is totally fine by me too !
1
The essay dwells on the morality of entry/inclusion/citizenship, (how many times can the word “moral” be used in an opinion piece before it becomes a fascile leveraging of an argument?)- but the author seems to stop short of advocating for open borders. Isn’t this an admission of a kind of impasse between “the moral” and “the selfish” on the part of the author? Indeed nothing short of a radical openness would seem to satisfy the moral imperative to help the many millions suffering under quasi failed states all over the world. Deciding to step back from that radical precipe, a free fall of Jesus-like love and openness, leaves one back in the world we have constructed: one of laws. Being humane is more the issue. In our world being truly “moral” is, effectively, a moot point.
5
@Chuffy, personally I’ve come to view any OpEd framed by morality as mostly a sermon and has no business in the Opinion section of a secular mainstream newspaper, but more properly in a church. It’s a valuable subject but rather instead only demeaned in an improper context. I wish most tele-evangelists - AKA political TV commentators, hosts and pundits - understood this. They all sound like preachers these days.
6
Would Michelle Alexander make the same argument about affirmative action? Nobody today did anything to suffer through slavery. Jim Crow is long over -- and the country has had an African American president for a portion of most people's lifetime that approximates the African American proportion of the population.
So, perhaps, using her logic "None of Us Deserve Affirmative Action".
17
Judging from the comments, Ms Alexander has an opinion that is not shared by many citizens of this Country.
I am a progressive liberal and veteran. I believe I have earned my citizenship not only by my service but also by my legal right to be a citizen and my efforts through voting and other civil duties I perform.
I agree we need a humane and compassionate immigrant policy. The current policies of the Trump Administration are horrible. That does not mean we simply open our borders to the world.
7
Sorry, Ms. Alexander. We DO view people like Mr. Vargas and Ms. Serrano-Hernandez as "fully human". We DO NOT however view them as citizens of the United States, with the rights and privileges that citizenship entails.
No citizen of another country is "entitled" to US citizenship.
What they are entitled to do is stay at home and attempt to change their home countries into places that are desirable to live.
Work to change your own country...do not claim a right they we must make room for you here.
19
What these folks deserved were countries that hadn’t been screwed up by the U.S. mucking about annexing land, appropriating resources and supporting dictators. Then perhaps they could have made a difference in their own societies and would want to stay home.
@jc Many countries could make that claim. That is not a reason to abolish the US as we know it. Chile and Argentina also suffered from US interventions. But they are better places to live than Honduras. Why is that?
6
The author misses the point. It makes no difference if the people who are citizens here "deserve" to be here. Every country has a concept of national sovereignty or borders. Is that somehow unfair, maybe it doesn't matter, the rich countries of the world can't absorb everyone in the poor countries and still maintain any semblance of their national character or relative wealth. And that may not matter to Ms Alexander but I think it matters to most Americans across the political spectrum. Of course one party can run on an open border platform and see how that works. I doubt they will be happy with the results. Given not having an open border policy legal immigration should be focused on the needs of the current USA not our needs in 1880 or the words on the base of a statue.
10
Most people in the U.S.--those birthright citizens--would be hard-pressed to pass the test required for those seeking citizenship. We ask so much of those seeking to stay here, but so little of those already here.
1
A person does not earn membership in their family, they are simply born into it. They benefit from that belonging. They have responsibilities to their family and their family has responsibilities to them.
Similarly, a person does not earn membership in a community or people, but they meaningfully belong to the community and people into which they are born. They have responsibilities to their community and their community has responsibilities to them.
One's responsibilities towards another's family and community are different than to one's own, and vice versa.
The nation state is in some sense a relatively new innovation in human history but a community and a people are not. A nation state like our own is an audacious union of communities and peoples, out of many, one, and when a nation state like ours does that and enshrines liberty and freedom, however imperfectly, the benefits and responsibilities of belonging are tremendous.
The birthright of citizenship is unearned and random, but it is not without responsibility and it is essential to the entire American project of "out of many, one." Regarding immigration, I don't believe the goal should be to dissolve the concept of community and belonging as a way of justifying admitting all comers, which it seems Anderson hints at.
This is just one point about belonging, I don't pretend to answer the many hard questions of immigration, just to say that the notion of belonging, from birth, is not easily dismissed.
4
Like most of the commentators, I feel I am entitled to my American citizenship. But we should not forget that there are also basic responsibilities of that citizenship. "Stay informed of the issues affecting your community. Respect and obey federal, state, and local laws. Respect the rights, beliefs, and opinions of others. Pay income and other taxes honestly, and on time, to federal, state, and local authorities." Mr. Trump and family would have a hard time living up to most of these standards and should have a bit more humility and compassion for those less fortunate than us born in this great country. Maybe, Mr Trump will exile himself to Russia--a country he seems to admire more than ours with a leader he loves--after his work on behalf of Putin , he should be entitled to citizenship there by now.
"After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
The questions above are the very definition of "red herring."
"Citizenship" is not a "right," like becoming a parent (cause if we had tests for parenting, most would fail).
American citizenship is a "privilege," like driving an automobile. You have to conform to the law to be eligible to drive. Just like you do to be a citizen.
The only "moral quagmire" is that of the modern progressive, who can protest on behalf of the disadvantaged who can, by an accident of birth, walk to our border, while the same progressives are almost totally silent on the "right" of most of Asia and Africa to emigrate here on the same "moral" basis.
But I do think the author is getting somewhere, albeit not intentionally. It would be a wonderful thing to bring back basic civics in high school.
Those who cannot pass civics in school should be substituted out of the country in favor of a "deserving" new immigrant who can pass the class.
5
Ms. Alexander argues for greater care, compassion and concern for immigrants, which she seems to define as those that make it to our shores. I guess I find this line of thought to ignore the favoritism/ subtle racism of if it. Compassion for those that make it to the US largely limits that compassion to Hispanic who can walk/sneak across the border and Europeans who don’t need visa and have the money to fly to the US before overstaying their visa. Why should we be more compassionate to Ms. Serrano-Hernandez simply because the had the good fortune to born in Honduras and therefore able to get to and sneak across the US border.
I have traveled to 50 countries on every continent except Antarctica, mostly visiting small farms or sweatshop textile mills. I spent two weeks in Xinjiang, one week in each Laos and Mail this year.Quite frankly many of these places make Honduras look like step up.
Being compassionate to those that make it here is good for them and allows us to feel better about ourselves, but it ignores two-thirds of the world population and doesn’t really address the underlying issues.
5
Notwithstanding her noble sentiments the author fall into dangerous conflations. For example, she confounds "birthright citizenship" with the duty to receive refugees. But refugees and citizens are 2 different things. When a refugee suddenly gives birth in the US, it's not the same as citizens giving birth, or even temporary workers giving birth. Refugee laws are governed by international conventions; citizenship laws are national. There's trans-national ethics implicit in the former, but no ethics in the latter except national values and national law. "Passport tourism" is another item the writer ignores, but it exists.
7
I would chose to frame it differently: everyone deserves citizenship. It is a tragedy that people all over the world would willingly risk their lives to share in the modicum of safety and prosperity that Americans enjoy. Globalization's greatest and most damming failure is that it does not sufficiently raise the standard of living for the citizens of our trading partners, but exploits it. Bring on a new Marshall Plan for Latin America, I would enthusiastically support it!
3
It's got nothing to do with deserving. It's about what will work. Having countries and rules for how people become citizens is a good system for assigning responsibilities and rights. I'm not talking about inalienable human rights, I'm talking about the inverse of obligations. If you owe me a dollar I have a right to that dollar. For a nation to work, it must limit it's responsibilities to a defined group of people, and it's assumption of obligation to those people means those people have been assigned rights. Human rights exist too, they are obligations we all have to take care of each other, but they don't include the full spectrum of citizenship rights.
3
"Many people will sympathize with Mr. Vargas’s story but recoil at his bold conclusion, as it seems to imply support for open borders — a position that no Republican or Democratic member of Congress supports or even takes seriously. This reaction seems misplaced. The deeper question raised isn’t whether our borders should be open or closed (generally a false dichotomy) but rather how we ought to manage immigration in a manner that honors the dignity, humanity and legitimate interests of all concerned."
Everybody read this paragraph again please. It seemed most people skipped it before commenting.
1
I resent the opinion that none of us deserve citizenship. There are those who serve and who served our country in the military. They and their families have earned citizenship. (Yes, I am aware that there are those who are not US citizens who have served, but in my opinion, they have earned it.) My wife and I, and our friends and colleagues, work hard and pay taxes. We help others in our community. We obey the law. I have even provided free medical care to undocumented aliens (has Ms. Alexander done that?), because US law requires it, and because I help people. Yes, I am fortunate that my grandparents became naturalized citizens, but they and their succeeding generations earned their citizenships, as have others.
4
The reader Big Cow wrote in the last paragraph, a set of questions used as an excuse for not solving the problem. Instead, if one asks those questions with compassion, while thinking out of the box, that might be a good starting point for creative, high moral solutions.
1
Want to know when a progressive ideologue favoring illegal immigration for all is out of gas? Look for the tired, pointless quoting of Emma Lazarus. I made a bet with myself before reading this that "the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" would soon saunter onto the stage. I win.
As to who "deserves" citizenship, I refer you to the words of the immortal Will Munny, as rendered by Clint Eastwood: "Deserves Got Nothing To Do With It." It's a matter of our laws, and the law DESERVES to be protected and enforced.
22
Both international immigration problems and global warming have the same solution, no matter where you are born: stop overpopulation.
If the world’s population would have stayed at 1950 levels, we would have less pollution, fewer plastic bottles in our waters....and, yes, fewer migration clashes throughout the planet.
13
One aspect of this piece is truly disturbing. Whatever our faults as a nation, we who were born here certainly deserve citizenship. Everyone should be allowed to be a citizen automatically of someplace - if not where born, where? Yes we are a flawed nation, and we have made some effort to correct our flaws. Perhaps an african american woman has a different perspective than a descendant of irishmen who did not have full rights in their homeland, but did gain full rights here.
And let's be frank about our creation. The creation story is a concoction. The New Englanders were one sort, the planter class in the south were entirely different. and in the middle states, we were a mix. So be it. But born here, I deserve citizenship and feel insulted to hear otherwise. Injustices to some do not excuse other injustices or bad ideas.
10
The author and many progressives seem to fancy themselves as big thinkers. I'd suggest that the opposite is the case. Clearly, millions of people migrating to the U.S. or anywhere else is merely a symptom of much larger problems. What is the progressive vision for how world's poorest countries become stable, economically and socially? Other than ridiculously blaming the U.S. for the world's problems, does the progressive vision include any actual intelligent policy? Does it recognize the concept of nations, borders, and population stability? If not, what's the alternative? Will elite progressives bear any of the cost of tens of millions of new low skill immigrants they seem to want from Central America? I doubt it. Their world is private schools, gated communities, foreign vacations, and high net worth. For them, being pro-unauthorized immigration is nothing more than self-aggrandizing virtue signaling. It solves no problems. It just allows the elite to oppose Trump and the majority of Americans who want to stop uncontrolled unauthorized immigration and to impress each other at woke gatherings and on op-ed pages.
27
@Chris-zzz
Last I checked there wasn't a lot of uncontrolled unauthorized immigration taking place. The best we can tell, unauthorized immigration is down, legal immigration is down and the US will soon be facing a situation where there will be fewer workers supporting an aging population. This is a bug-a-boo trump created and you've fallen for it.
I'm curious if Ms Alexander supports affirmative action. After all no current college applicant experienced slavery or lyching or Jim Crow. Those things were experienced by their parents, grandparents, or even great grandparents. Yet I don't doubt that Alexander would argue that the historical suffering and disadvantages experienced by their ancestors would somehow entitle them to this extreme benefit despite the fact that their own experiences with racism are much likely in the category of microaggressions such as being followed by a store security guard.
Those of us who were born citizens did not "earn" it through our own efforts. That's undoubtedly true. But what she is positing is a radical individualism that cannot be reconciled back to the group think of identity politics which she also endorses.
Furthermore, I'd argue that immigration today is different than in the past. It's a bit like the difference between joining a startup pre IPO vs post IPO - while expecting the same benefits. When my ancestors came to the US, there were no government interpreters. There were no housing vouchers or SNAP or TANF or affirmative action. They carved out a life from the countryside of the Midwest, helping to build what we call the USA.
I'd be all for immigration if we followed the Trump proposal to withhold green cards from those who depend on government aid and if we also deported those who commit crimes. But that's not what Alexander or the Democratic Party are after.
13
This is a fantastic piece. Thank you.
3
the next editorial will be one complaining about accusations of support for open borders
8
A few thoughts. First, Ms. Alexander's contention that "But for slavery, genocide, and colonization, we would not be the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world" is pure bunk. The creativity of Americans - harnessing electricity, inventing the airplane, the computer, steamships, cell phones, the internet, etc. etc. etc. is the overwhelming reason America is the wealthiest nation in the world. Second, I am baffled how Ms. Alexander can make the statement above and in the same essay praise the Declaration of Independence which she must know was written by the slaveholders and colonizers who she damns in the same essay. Third, a proposed solution. I propose that folks like Ms. Alexander, who advocate that the country admit immigrants like Ms. Serrano-Hernandez, agree to support those immigrants with their own resources until those immigrants become totally self-sufficient. That proposal would eliminate a major complaint of the hard core anti-immigrant right but I suspect that that list would be pretty short, however, because it is oh-so-easy to publicly proclaim your virtue when it's paid for by someone else's dime.
27
@John J.
Hear, hear! Well spoken, John J..
Preach!
Thank you.
2
>On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?
***So what should we do with people do who haven't 'earned' their citizenship? Should we throw them out?
To quote a line from "West Side Story," they didn't make this world, that they haven't 'earned' their citizenship.
1
A new voice for the NY Times? Obviously a powerful voice for the these times.
1
what glorious article, highlighting sheer nonsensical liberalism of the coastal liberal mandarins. Oh how I wish you reprinted this in every local paper across the Nation, better yet a week before the midterm election last month. Oh, wait, even better: let the Democrat party adopt it as its platform before the 2020 election. PLEASE. Let's see what happens! (tongue in cheek: we all of course know what would happen then).
10
Sorry but I must disagree with Ms. Alexander that citizenship is a moral dilemma. It is not in any country in the world. Unfortunately, "life" will never be totally fair, and we cannot legislate fate (OR morality). What we can do is offer immigrants, especially those in peril from their homelands, a path to legal citizenship. Personally I believe it is wrong to offer citizenship to people who come here illegally solely for the purpose of having babies born into American citizenship. I think they need to be here legally, or at the very least, in the process of obtaining citizenship (i.e. asylum seekers, etc).
7
The entire idea of the United States was born out of an idea that there should be fair taxation for representation, or in other words, all ''people'' were created equal with inalienable rights, and were not subject to the whims of any monarchy.
I wish that were true for me own country, but putting that aside for the moment, if one extrapolates that to any human, then how can one be subject to one set of ''rules'' while others have different ones ? - all because they were born on another side of a line on a piece of paper.
The popular answer is that what is mine is mine, and you fend for yourself - raise the drawbridge. That answer is only going to last so long.
Soon our world will need to come together, or perish equally.
2
"Give me your tired, your poor ..."
Whether they come from Mississippi, New York, California, Arkansas, Texas, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico -- or even Norway ...
1
Your ancestors built this country. You definitely deserve citizenship!!
JC have a clue. We cannot let every single person into this country who wants in, we don't have the resources. We who were born here are lucky but so what? Life isn't fair haven't you figu=d that out yet?
8
Kudos Michelle.
2
Judging by the foolish comments on this article, this country is likely to be doomed by its own cruelty and lack of introspection. I wish illegal immigrants were the terrifying scourge these people seem to think they are. Instead we ignore them, exploit them, and dehumanize them while pretending that they, and not us, are the threat. The chickens can't come home to roost fast enough.
4
Birth is an accident of time and place. Citizenship/country of origin has to mean something. And so does Rule of Law.
Let's stop blaming America for poor governance in countries such as Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. By allowing (especially illegal) immigrants from these countries to stay in the US (without following the law), we are doing the leaders in Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras A HUGE FAVOR.
Dr. Alexander, if we treat the border as our front door, how many strangers would you let into your home? What would they need to do to prove their good intentions?
14
Holy cow -- what a piece of writing & thought & values.
1
Very glib, very pat, Michelle.
Suppose, your parents did all they could for you. Do you not deserve it AND should others get what you were given?
Very slick. But it just does not stand up.
Around 1820, the US needed settlers to open its frontier, but had too few Americans of English, Irish, Scots, and Welsh origins to do it. So it admitted thousands of Germans, Scandinavians, and Slovaks, etc, Eventually the frontier closed (1880) and the US had enough farmers and ranchers to replace all who passed on.
The Civil War killed 597,000 northerners. Total Northern population was 22,000,000. That 3% were were mostly young men in their prime, when northern factories needed many thousands.
In America, British culture produced unusually independent men like Henry Ford, JD Rockefeller, and others. So Americans of British extraction oft shunned factory work.
More group minded Germans, Scandinavians, and Slovaks took some factory work. Poles, Russians, and other East Europeans, who had fewer alternatives owing to speaking no English, not knowing US customs and laws, or how to get around here took a lot more. The US was desperate for them and let them in. Granted they got exploited--another story.
Now the US is full, but still needs rare skills--not unskilled.
Americans can do house work, gardening, & harvesting. Saying they wont do such work was the same justification given to slavery. Americans just need more pay. Interimly, the US cannot be other countries' safety valve.
18
Just when I allow myself the tiniest glimmer of optimism about the future of the USA, the Times publishes an op-ed that has even a tangential race component. The spite-filled, nativist comments knock me right back too the corner labeled Despair. Perhaps I should read something else with my morning coffee.
3
Where is it said or written in any of our country's founding documents that we must enable a million plus immigrants a year? Or allow all who care to come here be given the same automatic rights and privileges that Americans have?
19
Every time I think the New York Times has reached the zenith of pointless pandering to political correctness I'm confronted by something like this column.
Yeah, I deserve citizenship. My family came here a hundred years before the Revolution, fought in that war to separate from Great Britain and form a new nation, then in the Civil War to preserve the nation and expand CITIZENSHIP to oppressed people. They farmed the land, paid taxes generation after generation, fought in additional wars to represent the US in preserving or establishing democracy in Europe and Korea and generally abided by the nation's laws since its founding.
So their work and sacrifice has earned me citizenship in the US. I don't have citizenship in any other country, and simply sneaking across the border illegally into any of those countries wouldn't make me a citizen.
25
Cool, I guess since you guys will have no border soon I'll be able to visit without that irritating delay at the border.
7
This is a very naive and foolish opinion piece. Of course no one “deserves” a particular citizenship. National citizenship is an accident of birth, like having good genes. No one in their right mind would argue that a newborn baby has done anything to deserve US citizenship or that there is any fairness or equity in where one is born. But it doesn’t follow that we should do anything about our immigration policies because of inequality of national birth. We simply cannot give everyone in the world US citizenship because morally no one deserves US citizenship more than anyone else. We have no moral imperative to assure equality of results for everyone on the planet.
13
This country has a very high poverty rate relative to the wealth of the nation; relative to the masters of the universe who have set the house so all the winnings flow up to them; and relative to most other developed nations in the world. We have generations of people living here-- whether native born or immigrants-- who do not share in the bounty of a decent lifestyle, a good job, and most important-- of a good education. Some of that is due to poor choices, some due to historic and entrenched racism, and some is due to simple bad luck. We must be very selective in our immigration policies because we owe the poor who already live here, a chance at a better life. To accept illiterate, impoverished people from Central America, many not even fluent in Spanish (which is not our country's language, but one with which you can at least get by) serves what purpose? Who does it benefit? Poor black people in Baltimore who live with gunfire every day? Under-the-radar Mexicans in the CA central valley? Native Americans on run-down reservations? I am a liberal democrat. But this open borders issue is utter nonsense and will destroy the democrat's chance of saving this nation from trumpist fascism. Better we pass out birth control in every impoverished nation, and help them build sources of clean water and decent schools. Beyond that: you want to move here? Apply for immigration, like I would have to if I wanted to relocate to New Zealand. (which sounds great BTW)
19
So those people that bring guns that kill kids should be allowed in? The ones that bring in drugs that kill kids should be allowed in? Those that come in and steal, rape, and murder should be allowed in? The reason we have rules about who can come into this country is to keep these people out. That is why there is a procedure to enter into this country. Protecting the borders is necessary. Can you stand in front of a family that is now morning the death of a family member and say the person that killed them has the right to be in this country?
6
This is absurc, typical of the Left. "Answering these questions may be easy legally, but they’re more difficult morally. After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
I was born here. So were my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. One of my great great grandparents witnessed, from about 15 feet away, the very first copy of the words "Five me liberty or give me death" by PAtrick Henry ... from his grave, which is still right there in Richmond.
I think I deserve citizenship. None of my ancestors immigrated to the USA ... they were here before it was created.
I consider it immoral to allow people to come here illrgally, or get citizenship because their parents came illegally, when there are so many people deserving ... by their own efforts ... to come here legally.
Lets stop, NOW, totally, completely, ALL illegal immigration.
Lets deport all those who of their own volition came here illegally (but not their children born here, BEFORE election day, 2016). Lets build a physical and legal wall that cannot be bridged either physically, or by left wing judges trying to
do so. And lets do it now.
Lets abolish the filibuster and just do it, while this Congress lasts. We've got itme.
9
Okay, let’s populate America with the neediest and most deserving. That lady from Honduras isn’t even in the running for neediest; let’s welcome in the entire populations of Yemen and South Sudan.
And, as Ms. Alexander points out, most of today’s Americans are not deserving; so let’s expel every American who’s unable to give proof of their deservishness.
9
Assuming that the author of this article is a US citizen, perhaps she should renounce her US citizenship while the rest of us think about it :-) Then she can write another article and tell us how things worked out after she lost her US citizenship :-)
15
The headline should be: “None of Us Deserves Citizenship.”
4
Speak for yourself. We have ancestors who fought and died to establish this nation. They fought the British, the French, Italy, the war of 1812, the Spanish American war, the civil war, the Japanese, Hitlers forces, Korea and in Vietnam. How about Martin Luther King and those who risked their lives in their quest for equal rights. The draft ended decades ago so now we have a military of volunteers who put their lives on the line for our country. So speak for yourself. If you don't think you deserve to be a citizen, so be it. But your authority on declaring who doesn't deserve citizenship, stops there.
17
When the poem "give me your tired, your poor...." was written America was a small country looking to grow so people came here from all over the world to find work. A welfare system was not in place, so you sink or swim. Today, lots of illegals come here and get welfare, medical, education benefits. And frankly I do not want to pay for this through taxes. In my community I see lots of illegals using foods stamps or whatever it is called today, their kids go to school and I have to pay for this. I am 68 years old retired on social security. I can barely pay for my bills why should I pay for illegals? Why should I pay for healthy young men and women on welfare.
19
'Late last month, 19-year-old Maryury Elizabeth Serrano-Hernandez reportedly scaled a wall along the United States-Mexico border while eight months pregnant and gave birth within hours of placing her feet on American soil. She was part of a widely publicized Central American caravan and traveled more than 2,000 miles from Honduras propelled by the dream of giving her new baby, as well as her 3-year-old son, a life free from the violence and grinding poverty she endured back home.'
Serrano-Hernandez was fifteen or sixteen when she got pregnant, when she should have been in school learning a craft or a trade.
At the age of nineteen, she's got two kids but no evident skills – apart perhaps from climbing high walls when heavily pregnant.
There are 7.7 billion humans on this planet. By 2050, there will be two billion more — so almost ten billion of us.
Global overpopulation is the primary driver of climate change and global warming.
Humans respond to opportunity costs and benefits.
If we reward young girls who become pregnant, then they will become pregnant.
If we reward young girls not to become pregnant, then they will not.
Central America is utterly dominated by the Roman Catholic Church and more recently by Christian Evangelicals who are utterly opposed to family planning let alone voluntary termination of an embryo or foetus.
And, indeed, when your unborn baby is your meal ticket, as here, you have every incentive to get pregnant.
26
8 U.S.C. 1401 states:
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
…
(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;
That is the America I want to live in.
3
Ridiculous article. I was born here, I'm a citizen, as per our laws.
We cannot feed and clothe and shelter the world. We do not have the resources to do that. You seem to think we should allow a "proximity pass" to those who live within walking distance. What about the yemens, syrians, rwandans, ethnic muslim chinese, somalians, etc,etc Don't they deserve to be allowed to come here too.
Typical hypocrites on the left.
18
Yes, we are in acute need of immigration reform.
No, we don't need sophomoric foolishness like this.
25
@gc
YES! Very succinctly and intelligently said!
2
America is not exceptional due to righteousness or divine intervention. It is different from other countries thanks to the economic success its European invaders enjoyed. They were able to kill off and dispossess the natives and exploit the great untapped natural resources by the use of cheap labor (African slaves, underpaid immigrants etc). They set up a republic to benefit themselves and their progeny, which has succeeded.
"It is a birthright" is your basic tautological answer. Michelle Alexander lays bare this reality.
This article is about 99% nonsense, and it hardly surprises me that Ms. Alexander is an opinion columnist for the Times. In addition to my paying Federal Income Taxes for over 60 years, my parents and grandparents also knocked themselves out for their whole lives to ultimately allow me to be born and live here. THAT is my moral right to be here. There are 7 billion people in the world, perhaps 70% of them living in poverty. According to Ms. Alexander, if they want to come here to better their lives, we are morally bound to accept them. Let's do that, right now, and in about 5 years Ms. Alexander won't be writing for the Times, but searching out food in garbage cans to sustain her. No, I did nothing on my own to deserve citizenship by being born here, but I also did nothing on my own to deserve being born at all, so maybe that means I don't deserve to live at all and my parents or recent foreign arrivees or the government itself is morally justified in killing me to make room for deserving people from elsewhere. SOYLENT GREEN is closer than we think.
17
This view has resulted in the trump situation
13
We all count or no one counts.....
1
It’s called birthright citizenship. It’s enshrined in a thing called The Constitution of the United States. You know, it’s what makes Anchor Babies into automatic citizens.
7
It is unfortunate that Alexander's views are now becoming mainstream within the Democratic party. These include the position that there are no such things as borders and everyone who wants one is a racist. This is of course crazy talk and will lead to the downfall of the Democratic party and the reactionary rise of white nationalism.
13
The New York Times likes to post provocative avant-garde pieces that are sometimes extreme in their progressivism. There's actually a book called "The Intelligence Paradox" that says that very intelligent people often lack common sense. Can the New York Times find some columnists who write about, you know, traditional values, common sense, everyday life? Why does it always have to be some bizarre radical on the right who likes "to poke the bear" with unconventional views? Their views have their place, but so do the views of the conventional majority.
10
What on earth is an ‘undocumented citizen’? Other than a contradiction, of course. Wow, the tortured wordplay of the justifiers of illegality.
I’m an immigrant and a citizen. My children are citizens, not immigrants. This whole ‘nation of immigrants’ thing is so pointless. If you were born here, you’re an American. If you’re naturalized, you’re an American. If you’re here illegally, and we find you, you should be deported. No common sense defying wordplay required.
13
Michelle, None of us deserve citizenship? Silliness and nonsense. If all you have done is vote, you have helped to maintain our nation and Constitution. If all you have done is served in the US Military, you deserve citizenship. If all you have done is teach the nation's children, you deserve citizenship. If all you have done is care for the nation's sick, you deserve citizenship.
However, if all you have done is leech off the nation, perhaps you don't deserve citizenship.
As a citizen, you have and deserve your voice to say who may be extended the rights of citizenship.
5
‘But for slavery, genocide, and colonization...’
Ms Goldberg perfectly captures the leftist, Howard Zinn view of America’s development and success. As if that’s all there ever was.
Appalling.
9
I deserve citizenship by virtue of the U.S. Constitution. Hondurans do not have this right and I"m sick of insufferably sanctimonious, self-appointed guardians of morality.
12
It’s “deserves” - not “deserve.” “No one” takes the singular.
3
Re: On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?
Well Mam, I signed up for the US Arm Forces laying my life on defending this country.
If you do this, you deserve citizenship. No matter where you came from. If you don't you are a free rider
2
This deeply Biblical sermon ought to be read by the entire congregation, including the Resident of Pennsylvania Avenue's Big House and the Elected Employees who labor and languish in Washington's Domed Wrestling Arena.
The premise of this article is just plain dumb. What does it mean to earn anything? what moral right do some of us have to be smarter or stronger or better looking than others? Should a coal miner earn the same as an NBAer? The coal miner works harder and does a more necessary job. The question is ill-framed and dopey.
6
An argument for open borders, right there on the page.
5
Is it possible to write a stupider column?
I was not born a Rothschield, a Hilton, or a Koch. Should I be given a share of their family fortunes? How fair is it that these undeserving people get money, and I have to work.
Life is not fair. Jimmie Carter, a man far wiser than this columnist, said that 40 years ago. It's as true today as then.
12
Americans have earned their citizenship with blood, sweat and dollars. Ms Hernandez broke into our country and is stealing your money without having paid a penny.
11
Yes, they fled intolerable situations, many of which were created by US policies, but what about all those who were unable to flee, those who have been left behind to suffer in hell? Were they simply not "courageous" enough?
We need to think bigger. We need to stop thinking of ways to "include" the wretched of the earth in the First World's prosperity, and start thinking about a new world order built around their concerns, which are rapidly becoming all of our concerns.
2
An earlier poster points out the hard questions African Americans struggle to answer when deliberating the immigration problem. We've labored and often died for the right to enjoy and exercise our freedoms. Yet we are not immigrants and some us of resent the sympathies bestowed upon undocumented aliens. Yet, all an immigrant wants is a good and safe life just as Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Jack Johnson, A. Philip Randolph, W.E.B. DuBois and M.L. King Jr. all labored for a fruitful life not hindered by discrimination and subjugation. So yes, some Americans earned and deserved their citizenship. No matter how much empathy we might have for her, a pregnant Central American who climbs a fence hell bent on giving birth on American soil should not automatically earn a preference over others.
5
A home is a country writ small - I look forward to moving into Ms. Alexander's basement in my dotage.
btw - I prefer my eggs over easy and my bacon crisp.
15
It's articles like these that makes the world hate liberals. If one's first act in coming to America is breaking and entering or over-staying a visa, any moral obligation on or part ceases. With respect to those who apply legally, from where I'm standing we have no moral obligation to let them in, only a choice of whether to do so.
11
The logic is of course compelling but undermines so much about how the world is organized that it's basically nonsense. Of course no one "deserves" citizenship. No one "deserves" an IQ of 150, deserves to have been born to rich and educated parents, deserves to be 6 feet tall, free of cancer, or natively bilingual. It's a pointless question, really, whether someone "deserves" citizenship, or has a moral right to it. Of course in a perfect world we would all have the same abilities and same opportunities and no one would be left behind in grinding poverty when there is plenty to go around.
But what to we do with the world we are actually living in? How should we organize ourselves? Citizenship isn't a terrible idea for the reality we have.
9
Sorry, but this is a losing argument. Probably a pretty high percentage of NYT readers buy it. But that is a few percent of the population. Maybe 10 or 15% of the US population buys this totally open borders argument. Far more people would support a moderate approach of returning to Obama era immigration policies. Getting a legislative solution to DACA. Increasing the number of refugees. Maybe increasing total immigration somewhat. But the far left argument of this column will go nowhere. I guess it makes the writer and a lot of NYT readers feel happy. But politically it it is so marginalized that it is utterly ineffective.
4
Ms. Alexander writes: "The deeper question raised isn’t whether our borders should be open or closed (generally a false dichotomy)..." And yet, nowhere in her column does she suggest anything that could not be construed as supporting open borders.
Hey, if America is so rotten to the core and so irredeemably incapable of moving past its Original Sins, then sure, let's not say no to anybody who wants to come here. That'll teach us a lesson. Hey, who needs a taxpayer-funded social safety net? Who needs wage and salary levels that have been artificially propped up through the archaic notion of citizenship? We can finally get the globalized labor pool we deserve.
And while we're at it, let me just suggest this. Who needs Stephen Miller when Michelle Alexander could be the perfect spokesperson for the Donald Trump 2020 re-election campaign?
14
Thank you Ms,. Alexander for your clear eyed summary of the conflicting values and rights of citizens that are the foundation of the U.S. White men who owned property are indeed the first, and in the beginning the only, group of American citizens to declare themselves as having voting rights. You have correctly and bravely written a brief summary of U.S. history that many want to obfuscate. Kudos to you for your courage.
3
The biggest human evil is tribalism- the view that our group matters and the other doesn't (or is evil). That may have conferred some evolutionary benefit during our hunter-gatherer history but not now. Companies cannot find enough workers; crops wither on the ground because there are not enough workers to pick them. Even for selfish reasons we need more immigration.
The border security arguments are totally false. The people at our border are not invading, they are seeking asylum. Some try to sneak in, especially as we try to shut off legal asylum routes and limit legal immigration, but that is our doing. Numerous studies show that immigrants are a net plus for the economy. They are not "taking our jobs," and if they to a small extent lower wages for the least educated here, pass a strict and generous minimum wage, with no exceptions based on legal status. As for crime, immigrants commit half the violent crime of citizens.
No, what motivates anti-immigrant fervor is irrational fear and hatred of "the other," and Trump is a master of manipulating that.
2
True and beautifully well-said.
Thank you.
1
Wrong premise—citizenship isn’t a moral concept, it’s a legal one. People aren’t citizens because they’re morally upright (if so, Harvey Weinstein should get his citizenship stripped). It’s because without the distinction of citizenship, a nation’s identity will collapse. Any definition of citizenship will be at some level arbitrary, and birthright citizenship to me works fairly well. It’s ironic if Ms. Alexander is attacking the concept because that puts her in the same camp as Trump, who also doesn’t like birthright citizenship as he also thinks it confers citizenship to too many “undeserving” people. Progressives, be careful what you wish for...
7
The author needs to take a basic course in political science or start by reading an article such as this one about the dangers associated with the disintegration of the nation state (dangers already present in the U.S.): https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta
A nation that cannot enforce its own laws or preserve its sovereignty is one that will ultimately be unable to serve its own citizens, never mind non-citizens. The United States, in all its glory, is still home to child poverty, high infant mortality, extreme wealth inequality, eroding infrastructure, and on and on... What business do Americans have complaining about the plight of illegal immigrants when the U.S. can’t fulfill the basic needs of its existing citizenry?
Furthermore, maintaining porous borders can be viewed as enabling poor governance and disorder in neighboring states. How about conditioning the entry of immigrants on their home states’ attainment of certain security, economic development, and good governance benchmarks?
8
A beautiful essay.
2
We are not a nation of morals, we are a nation of laws. Almost invariably, laws create winners and losers, and lead to immoral results in some cases. But one thing is clear: you cannot have a moral system without a system of law.
5
This article by Michele Alexander is misguided and actually harms the ability of people to enact comprehensive and humane immigration legislation which includes protection for the Dreamers but also enhances border security which is obviously so lax that a 19 year old that is 8 months pregnant can circumvent the security that is in place currently.
Actually, this article will backfire since it presses many of the hot buttons that are often associated with illegal immigration:
- anchor babies
-poor people having large families ( a 19 year old already having 2 kids) that will apply for government aid
-poor order security that is easily overcome
-Dems are extremists that want open borders and no border security whatsoever
Every country needs to be able to secure their borders and define citizenship for their own people.
To say otherwise is absurd. This extreme position plays directly to the extreme right paranoids who wants to separate children from their parents and lock them in cages which is abhorrent and downright insane.
We do not need inflammatory positions from the extreme left just like we do not need same from the extreme right.
What we do need is common sense immigration reform that will enable legal immigration, a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and secure borders.
5
There is the morality at looking at the deep causes of problems and recognizing that countries and cultures have created problems that don't appear to be the responsibility of individuals but the individuals have the responsibility to deal with problems they have. Nature doesn't have compassion. Cultures that have over grazed their land and are seeking new territory are aggressive and destructive of other cultures. The reality is that there are too many people on the Earth, too many cultures and religions that have done little to stem the desecration of their land, so theiy are trying to export them demographic blindness. To do nothing would allow an ecological failure expand. Lifeboat USA and EU cannot accept the 2-3 BILLION desperate, starving, sick, uneducated people who want something better. When lifeboats overload, they sink with all aboard perishing. The Four Horsemen we see galloping around now are being fed by cultural, religious and ecological madness, in the face of a finite Earth. Reality trumps compassion. Compassion for the few overlooks the faceless BILLIONS out in the cold. Finally, the world is seeing the resistance to a path of excess compassion, leading to ecological disaster (Trump support, Brexit, French yellow jackets, Merkel's decline, Italy's turen, etc) China keeps on by using more debt. THREE Ds - Debt, Demographics, and depletion of finite resources.= DOOM.
2
Surely there must be a middle ground between wall-building xenophobia and delusional open borders arguments like this one. As a citizen (whether I deserve it or not), I believe we can do better.
We can treat immigrants with compassion while also insisting that they respect our laws.
We can welcome asylum seekers while also deporting criminals.
We can admit that there is an optimal number of immigrants (greater than zero, less than 'anyone who wants in').
We can have a conversation about immigration without accusing each other of racism, elitism, etc.
Be wary of anyone who tells you otherwise.
3
Arguing for open borders on moral grounds is ridiculous. Can anyone claim that they have a moral right to their house, job or anything they’ve received in life?
Controlling immigration is just a practical manner. Imagine how this country would function with the responsibility of housing, educating, providing health care and other services to all of the world’s poor population? Who would pay for this?
4
Want the Republicans to win big in 2020? Then start talking about open borders, even as subtly and obliquely as this piece does.
12
Bravo Ms. Alexander, very well said. Thank you.
1
My sense is there is a fundamental lack of clarity about citizenship, and in my view, most Americans, including Ms. Alexander, do not fully grasp what citizenship should be. Citizenship should be an active relation between a person and the state, a commitment, not only to regular participation in politics at the local level, such as meeting with representatives for an hour every few months, but also a duty to vote, keep oneself informed, serve in the military or on a jury if summoned, and to be more than passive passport-holding consumers who live and work here. The cardinal requirement of citizenship, in my view, involves a duty to protect fellow citizens if government becomes abusive. This is what citizenship should be -- with the people controlling government through our representatives. Accordingly, issues such as where a person was born should really be irrelevant. (For further discussion, see 9:28+ on this video.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cp-waw1UyI
I always tell my friends on the left that we can't simply have open borders and they always respond that no one is seriously in favor of open borders, just humane immigration laws. This is the classic leftwing response. But then I read a piece like this one from Michelle Alexander--a real hero on the left--and I know my friends are being disingenuous.
Like taxes, governments, and standing armies, borders are simply inescapable facts of life in the modern world.
6
While many want American citizenship, there are many who want to give it up because they have left, yet the US has made it too expensive for people to renounce. It’s all so absurd.
Casuistry and sophistry galore. Of course all people, citizen or no deserve respect and an acknowledgement of basic humanity. No one should be demonized or treated shamefully at our borders. Children and family groups need special attention.
But every nation-state needs borders and every nation state has immigration laws. Your referencing our alleged claim of exceptionalism doesn't apply to many of us who never thought we were "exceptional", merely both lucky and industrious as a nation.
But thanks for pulling the veil away and showing all that the activist's pro forma denials notwithstanding, you and your fellow activists do want open borders in practice, not in name. If you want to change our immigration law, do so openly and campaign for it. See how many votes you get.
Border security and a lawful system of immigration is not solely the cause celeb' of the nutty far right xenophobes as you imply. We can do better concerning migrants and we need a far better fairer system. But you don't call for that. You'd rather marinate in righteousness while casting a baleful eye at any who say enforce our current laws with justice and humanity always.
9
Nationalism is as destructive as capitalism. The idea that we are Nationalist before we are Earthlings is ridiculous. I could easily argue in court a right, as an Earthling, to live anywhere on Earth I chose. The reason we have nations is to manipulate economies and natural resources to the benefit of a few. If we become Earthlings first, then we care about all life on the planet, not just our life in our country.
1
There is so much liberal cant that goes unquestioned. We are told that if Central Americans are poor, without jobs and public sanitation, their countries overrun by criminals and without democratic institutions, it's all the fault of the US. It's because when left wing dictators overthrew right wing dictators, the CIA helped the right wing dictators overthrow the left wing dictators. It's because 100 years ago United Fruit colluded with local oligarchs to set up banana plantations. According to this line of thought, the US has done nothing to help economic development in Central America. The poverty of those countries (much as we respect their cultures, of course) has nothing to do with the legacy of Spanish colonialism. If not for the US, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc., would all be peaceful, prosperous and thriving today.
Therefore, since it's all the fault of the US, it has a moral obligation to grant residency rights - and public benefits- to the citizens of those countries without restriction and upon demand.
5
The writer said: "After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
There are your people who came before you who immigrated from somewhere and who did earn the right to be here. Unless you are Native American, your forebears struggled to get here legally. And then they pay taxes... the quintessential earning your right to be here.
Another note: with global warming and shrinking resources, the third world's poverty and endemic crime cannot be foistered on those of us who believe in the right to a civil, legal and safe society.
Why are the elites in those countries enjoying the fruits of their crime? The US can do our part to enforce injunctions and investigations on the proceeds of their crime when they seek to buy property and stash their money in the US.
2
I wish the author had mentioned the fact that 1) that there were real open borders in the US until the first immigration laws of 1880s based primarily on racism
2) Trump and most of the white supremacists would have been kept out by Ben Franklin who didn’t want Germans. God forbid that any Irish would have been let in! And as far as most of the US Supreme Court, once you eliminate the Italians, Catholics and Jews we have a very small bench!
3) Of course some of your commenters claim things are different now! But, the arguments were the same: from allegiance to unacceptable religious authorities ( Catholics really come to mind), no experience with democracy (all of the above when they came), no English literacy (ditto). The claim that there are fewer manual labor jobs now is really a farce! Any! I repeat Any American who wanted one could have the jobs these undocumented people take if they wanted them which they don’t!
It is a joy to watch Stephen Miller, Kelly and Trump (whose grandfather was a draft dodging brothel owner not allowed to return to Germany) whose ancestors would never have gotten in under their own proposed laws spout such rank hypocrisy!
America came up with a tremendous FREE public school system that transformed all these people into the most productive, best educated population in the world at the time. We have the largest most successful democracy in the world! Lets continue our transformation of the huddled masses into productive citizens!
For a lawyer, you are woefully ignorant of immigration law, and its relation to international laws, and the foundations of both the nation-state, and of the international order.
Citizens of any nation are under no obligation to justify themselves to those who are not lawful immigrants. That's just backwards. And "grinding poverty" when you are mostly talking about Mexico, the 10th largest economy in the world, is not an American human rights issue but a Mexican one.
It is estimated that around 73% of those attempting to enter the U.S. from Central America have a credible fear level claim on asylum. They should get fair hearing, and have their cases adjudicated with full respect and dignity and all necessary efforts taken. That's literally a money problem, it costs money to upgrade the immigration courts to handle the backlog, and get back to hearing cases as they arrive.
But no country is obligated to take any other immigrants, no matter how sad their story. And no country does, either. When it goes beyond the internationally agreed obligations of the world to deal with those seeking refuge, countries can and do pick and choose who they want to join them. Is Ms. Alexander even aware that those fleeing war have no protection, nor do internally displaced people, beyond totally rudimentary humanitarian law?
Enough of people writing on either side of this debate in America without educating themselves on the nuts and bolts of immigration. Ignorance is fake news.
5
Excuse me, Ms. Alexander, I did earn my citizenship. I have the certificate to prove it. So please don’t make blanket statements.
7
Where is it written that American taxpayers have a ‘moral obligation’ to provide the necessities of life to an endless stream of foreign citizens who, with a brazen attitude of entitlement, demand entry...or without permission, cross our borders illegally? We are a sovereign nation, not a nanny state...and our government’s obligation is to serve the best interests of our citizenry, many of whom have competing interests and are struggling to provide for their own families.
Get real. There are approximately 6 BILLION people living in poor, overpopulated, often violent third world countries. You feel an obligation to help them? That’s admirable, but YOU go to THEIR countries and help them.
9
Don't be reductive. 'All the world's poor' aren't going to move to America if we adopt less cruel and inhumane immigration policies. And all these comments talking about how military servicemembers and their families 'earned' citizenship 'these migrants' didn't completely miss the point that the wars they served in are highly likely to have contributed to the human suffering that causes mass immigration.
3
Once in a while the New York Times regains it sanity and publishes an article which tries to analyze how it is that ordinary Americans voted for Donald Trump, who turned out to be superficial in his arguments, with no ability to govern once elected.
Then they publish an opinion piece like this that makes it perfectly clear why Trump was elected. The New York Times seems on occasion to support open borders. Such a point of view is unsustainable, extremist, and less consistent with reality than the extremist Republicans who maintain that global warming cannot matter because Christ will return before the ocean levels rise. And geologists are inlfuenced by the devil when they talk about the Permian extinction which couldn't have happened because the earth is only 6000 years old.
The problem with this essay is that it ignores the real problem, excessive population growth in the third world.
The population of Guatemala for example exploded from 3 million in 1950 to about 17 million now. That's the reason for the bone-crushing poverty in Guatemala.
Allowing members of the migrant caravan to become US citizens is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.
Why don't the editors recognize how separated from reality such reasoning is? There is plenty of suffering in the US.
Democrats have not been able to even PROPOSE universal health care. It might be because they want to grant citizenship to an unending stream of refugees.
Can't you see this increases Trump's appeal?
17
Oh interesting! I’m definitely in favor of revoking the 14th amendment. Let citizenship be determined by civics tests, military or peace corps service and the acquisition of a Native American language- get on it, Rosetta Stone. Citizenship should be earned! Oh no? That’s not what this was about?
4
I have always idealistically believed in the Declaration of Independence AND the quote on the base of the Statue of Liberty. My family are not from indigenous people’s stock. I am here by the immigration (deserved or not by today’s metric) of my forebearers. I am grateful. At the heart of our immigration policy is our warped incarnation of “winner-takes-all-capitalism” that sees immigrants as only a suck on the system. Tweak that perspective and see immigrants as raw material. Not to exploit, but to collaboratively work with and develop. The ideas, energy, vitality, passion, drive and heart they could gift us will be the foundation for a truely awesome nation.
1
Many of the commentators here seemed to have missed the author's point. Maybe citizenship shouldn't be a birthright. Maybe it should be something that every generation has to earn.
Of course such a stance would raise other questions (what would happen to those born who don't earn their citizenship?). But the idea deserves some thought and consideration. This issue is not as simple as many assume, and we need more creativity to find better answers than the ones we are witnessing now.
On a side note, I personally believe the only ones who can claim birthright to America are the Indigenous people. The rest of us should pack up our bags and see how we fare in Europe, Asia or Africa. Maybe then we'll have a different perspective on citizenship.
@Kelly Logan
What a backwards move it would be for us to regress from the progressiveness of the 14th Amendment to something which ultimately can be more arbitrarily determined and bestowed! I don't believe every asylum seeker is deserving of nor should get entry into the U.S. but there is a lot to be said about treating prospective immigrants with a whole hell of a lot more dignity than what the Trump administration has been doing. There is a much happier middle ground. What the author of this op-ed wrote is not going in that direction. Neither is giving up on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1
We have a moral responsibility to preserve and protect our inheritance, which includes preserving its democracy, the wealth of all citizens, its culture, and the integrity of its physical environment. Yet where much is given, much is required. We can debate which actions and policies are truest to the spirit of our American legacy, and that is a good thing. But to suggest that we lack a persuasive moral right to manage a gift we were given because we did not earn it, is an unfortunate lapse of common sense. We might as easily question a family's right to lock its doors, limit it own membership and spend its money on itself.
4
Where are op-eds about the suffering of all the Americans who have lost jobs due to the flood of low/no-skilled immigrants, both legal and illegal? Where are op-eds describing how what Bernie Sanders rightly called a "Koch brothers policy" is deliberate on the part of David and Charles Koch, and a slew of other big biz GOPers, because they like having an oversupply of cheap, easily exploitable labor?
Once, over a decade ago, both Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman criticized this sort of thing. But no more.
Here's Kristof's piece, Compassion that Hurts, from 2006: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/opinion/compassion-that-hurts.html
15
This is such an excellent, thoughtful reflection. Thank you, Michelle Alexander, once again, for pointing us to the right path -- the path of hard questions and shared humanity. We love you and we love this fraught, beautiful, still-becoming nation! Keep on keepin' on!
3
The rather large "elephant in the room" is of course that most citizens of your country truly believe they are special (read better than anybody else). I have always found it very amusing that when, for example, there is a plane crash with many dead, the very first statement from your press is something like "there were no Americans on board" and/or "there were only three Americans on board" out of the 178 that may have perished.
@J. David Burch
A plane crash is a tragedy, but if there was one the first thing I'd want to know was if my family or friends were aboard. (I know, I lack humanity. Plus my family and friends are all white. Racist, too!)
4
@Byron Kelly Well I am glad that you have such a good sense of self awareness but if you are as close to your family and/or your friends as you think you are surely you would already know whether they were, or were not on that flight?
I have some ancestors who arrived in 1620 on the Mayflower. I have others who arrived in the nineteenth century from various European countries. In between, still others joined the struggle for the independence of the United States. I owe my citizenship to their efforts, rather than any merit of my own.
I look upon a case like that of Maryury Elizabeth Serrano-Hernandez, and see her attempting something similar to them. She may not be entitled to the privileges of citizenship, but it doesn’t mean her attempt to secure the advantages of citizenship for at least one of her children is unjustified. This decision is prudent for her—not least because her country of origin simply does not compete in the same league in terms of the protection (from violence or hardship) that it offers its citizens.
Some people and families do give back to this country - they don't try to make a profit off this great country, the land, and the people. There are many forms of service - military, public, legal, healthcare, and teaching. My family has been on this Continent long before it was "discovered" by the Spanish or English.
This idea that we don't deserve citizenship is like saying how come I get to live in this era of technology and others did not.
2
I would prefer to see immigration strictly controlled, with young, healthy and highly educated people who will be able to work at well paying jobs, or with the capital required to start a business, given priority.
The vast majority of the 'caravan' appear to be poorly educated, perhaps not even literate. They may be strongly motivated but motivation without skills and education are not enough to support oneself in this country.
Automation will continue to take jobs. It is likely that poorly educated immigrants WILL work, but will not earn enough to cover a basic lifestyle and will be a net burden to taxpayers. For example, we will have to bear their healthcare costs.
9
A very complicated issue indeed. There are millions and millions of actual and potential refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants and so on, far more than any developed society can welcome and integrate. The most obvious step is to stop creating them via war, poverty, kleptocratic and corrupt governance, climate change and so on. And it is also imperative that the migrants be treated with compassion and dignity, which does not give them a right to overwhelm and perhaps destroy the cultures they seek to emigrate to. Those who live in the richer nations may not have any moral right to their situation, but they did make those societies, even if often through unfair means and they also have rights. As an aside, how many immigrants is Ms Alexander supporting financially and/or opened her home to?
6
I appreciate very much the moral clarity of Ms. Alexander's vision and I am moved by it. The attention placed on what underlies the nature of citizenship (that it was not earned by most of us but an act of providence and the reality of how this nation was formed in the first place) places the debate over the immigrants and refugees coming to us in the deepest and truest context I have seen in a public forum. Thank you.
3
It seems we're all about rights, but not much on responsibilities. If you look at pure physics, and biology, we only have a 'right' to compete for our share of the biosphere. If you want a stable society, 'rights' must equal responsibilities. Don't have kids you can't take care of. Don't be a burden to society if you can help that society. Try to fix the society you have rather than running away to another society to solve your problems.
Borders are part of maintaining a stable society and must be respected. If you don't want a stable society, grant all the 'rights' you want.
14
Birthright debate aside, let's look at why people want to come here. What drives people to give up what and who they know, uproot their entire family and way of life to trek a thousand miles, or more, endure hardships and torture to cross a line on a map? To work in menial jobs that no one born here wants to do. To live in many cases marginalized lives, live in the shadow of deportation back to wherever they came from. Do you really think this is the life they strived for? They hinge their decision on hope. A hope they will not have to endure excruciating poverty, violence, and misery, which a vast majority of Americans do not have to endure. Trump can wax poetic about immigration policy from his cush room in Mar-a-Lago, which probably employs said immigrants so he doesn't have to pay the high wages Americans would demand. This country is built on a foundation of sketchy deals and history. Remember that. It is a house of cards that can easily crumble.
My grandparents legally emigrated to this country from Ireland in the late 19th Century. They were very poor, but like today, they provided cheap labor to the affluent in this country. My grandfather was gassed by the Germans in WWI and my father lost an eye in WWII. I have a disability from Vietnam. I feel for todays immigrants, and I’m outraged at how they are being exploited by the political class. But I also feel that my parent’s and grandparent’s sacrifices in defending this country, and their willingness to respect the country’s laws and make a life for themselves here without the benefit of a social safety net, distinguishes them from many of today’s immigrants from Mexico. Of course, true refugees should always be accepted, especially from Central American countries where United Fruit and the CIA ruined these countries.
2
Your grandparents, like my ancestors from Ireland and Ukraine, came to the US legally because the our immigration laws were very different. If either my ancestors or yours tried to emigrate today, they would face a multitude of obstacles likely to keep them out.
And if suffering in war is somehow a qualification for citizenship (I’m not sure why that would be), then surely the suffering that the current flow of migrants have endured at the hands of ruthless gangs and ruthless governments should qualify them for entry. They, too, are wounded.
Please have some compassion.
Perhaps the general dissolution of families, and especially the African-American nuclear family, has affected Alexanders sense of logic. Contrary to Alexander's premise, the idea of moral obligation to other citizens and a nation derives from our sense of moral obligation to our family members. Otherwise, our babies would be abandoned, and parents would not provide for their own children. In Alexander world, after all, one baby has no more moral claim to two adults' protection than any other.
From the sense of moral obligation to family come a sense of moral obligation to community and nation. Perhaps Ms. Alexander does not see that American citizenry has a larger moral obligation to its co-citizenry poor and oppressed, or those who live the aftermath of oppression, as compared to the poor/oppressed of, say, Honduras, Togo, or Tajikistan. Fortunately, most of us do. Co-citizens are family. Like family, we fight sometimes, but we'll still die for each other, as our soldiers do on the battlefield all the time.
13
« Answering these questions may be easy legally, but they’re more difficult morally. »
Citizenship is a legal construct; it has moral implications but it is not a moral construct.
7
Thank you, Michelle, for this seminal column. Well researched, and also written from your heart. You’ve given me plenty to ponder at a deep level. I should know better than to read readers’ comments before writing my own but what happened this time was a New Year’s Resolution. I resolve, with the impetus of your column and the incredible diversity of readers’ comments goading me on, to seek out opportunities to meet and talk with people whose ideas are different from mine. To find common ground with un-likeminded people based on fundamental core moral values to find ways to move ahead to enable our country to live up to the words engraved on our Liberty statue. Also, the lead photograph in your column has brought me a contemporary Madonna and Child. She seems both precious and incredibly determined and will be leading me into 2019 with all the grace I can muster.
I feel a very slippery slope under my feet, though I am attracted to the ethical impulse behind this column.
I am pro-immigrant, and most in my personal experience are indeed fine people who add value to the place. But not all. There are enough bad actors that a sieve of some kind is actually important.
Citizenship has to be conferred, not asserted. It's a mutual trust thing.
Presumably, the author has a home or an apartment. Is she entitled to a wall? A fence? Doors? Why can't I just move in? Along with my extended family, including my crazy stepbrother?
Do we have a right to govern ourselves collectively if we don't have the ability to define who "we" actually are? And are not.
If we can't govern ourselves, how can we agree on what is actually behind money and its value? Money is essentially a trust exercise. The Bitcoin exercise gives us a good view at what happens when a currency medium is unmoored from "full faith and credit."
What right do we have to create laws? Ownership of anything? Defend ourselves? Against who?
I basically trust most of us, though things have gotten dicey the last few years. I am just less trusting of those who I don't know, at least a little. Before I say "move in" I want to feel confident that you are likely to be a good roommate.
8
Dear Michelle Alexander:
With your own money, you are always free to legally sponsor and support a foreigner for a legal Student Visa to pursue academic or vocational training...You don't need to try to force US Taxpayers and US Citizens and Legal Residents to support US Illegal Immigrants!
From Quora...
Can an American family be sponsor for an F1 visa (ie Foreign Student Visa)?
A US Citizen can financially sponsor an F-1 visa.
The U.S. school is the program sponsor and will issue the necessary documents for the F-1 visa. If a family wants to financially sponsor the student, then they can provide proof of financial resources, typically a bank statement, and an affidavit of support (generally each school will have their own form for this). However, you must understand that you are signing off on a contractual agreement to pay for the students education, (tuition, fees, books, living expenses) in whatever amount, for the duration of their educational program. It is considered fraud against the United States government to renege on that commitment. So take it seriously.
The student should start the process by applying for admission to the school of their choice. Not every school in America is eligible to sponsor F-1 students, but most colleges & universities are, as well as public high school districts. You'll find more issues with sponsorship from, specialty, vocational, or very small schools.
15
$100 billion a year is spent on Illegal Immigrants by the US according to Trump's Twitter. This money would be better spent on our Legal US Citizens who are economically disadvantaged...eg spend this money by providing free college tuition to Legal US Citizens who are economically disadvantaged, providing root canals and crowns for legal US Citizens on Medicaid rather than yanking out their teeth, etc. As a child of US Citizens who legally immigrated to the US from South Korea, I find it perplexing that so many "Illegal Immigrant Advocates" would like to encourage illegal immigration into the US. The US has a legal immigration process that is open to all who truly qualify. My parents and many other legal US immigrants came to this country legally and became Legal US Citizens and Permanent Residents...going on to become American Success Stories by attending university, gaining legal employment, paying taxes... building a life in the US for themselves and their children. America is the Land of Opportunity for all who qualify to immigrate to the US Legally...it is Not the Land of Opportunists for Illegal Immigrants who are seeking to game the system to get entitlements and/or to work here illegally. Let's take the $100 billion a year spent on US Illegal Immigrants and give this money to help our Legal US Citizens and Permanent Residents who are economically disadvantaged.
21
College is not the answer; education is. Citizenship is a rejection of other entanglements. Basic civics.im the grandchildof immigrants who put their former countries behind them and dug in to build this one.
1
@Cassandra, Actually it is closer to 200 billion annually.
So a 25 billion dollar barrier at our southern border may pay for itself in a couple of years.
5
Ms. Alexander needs to do some basic research.
All countries, as sovereign nations, have the duty and responsibility for setting laws about who are citizens, and who can live or visit there, for the safety and protection of their citizens. We do not yet live in a global government where we are all "citizens of the world" though some may see that as a goal.
The people who are already citizens, in short, determine who else can join their "club". This is the meaning of self-determination and democracy.
By Constitution, those born in the US are citizens. Democracy and the rule of law determine who are citizens. By law, passed by Congress and the President, many persons born to other citizens- by blood relationship, are citizens too...the exact laws are complex.
Finally some citizens do indeed earn the right...by serving in the military for instance, or through going through the long immigration and naturalization process. A few are even made citizens through acts of Congress or the Presidency and Secretary of State for their contributions.
Citizens of other countries, unless they are refugees and in danger, by virtue of our laws and international commitments, do not have the right-not even the moral right-to demand citizenship or even residence here outside of our laws.
The moral case-and the economic self-interest case- for increasing the number of legal immigrants is another issue entirely, but it is dishonest and a manipulation to try and conflate the two issues.
16
@Fran Cisco- my reading of her piece is that she is NOT trying to conflate the two issues
"Answering these questions may be easy legally, but they’re more difficult morally. After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
The point you make is that we won the gene lottery.
I (and it seems you) were LUCKY enough to be born to parents who were already US citizens, and therefore met the LEGAL requirements of citizenship.
To the best of my understanding, no one in my family came to America after the 1700s, with most of them being here before there WAS a United States of America. Perhaps many of them were in essence migrants, "desperately poor people" that were lucky enough to not be met by " border walls, tear gas, detention camps, militarized policing and mass deportation".
The moral argument Ms Alexander tries to get us to ponder is another thing altogether.
$100 billion a year is spent on Illegal Immigrants by the US according to Trump. Wouldn't this money be better spent on our Legal US Citizens, particularly US Citizens who are economically disadvantaged? I would rather this money be spent on providing free college tuition to Legal US Citizens who are economically disadvantaged, providing root canals and crowns for legal US Citizens and Permanent Residents on Medicaid rather than yanking out their teeth, etc. As a child of US Citizens who legally immigrated to the US from South Korea, I find it perplexing that so many Liberals would like to encourage illegal immigration into the US. The US has a legal immigration process that is open to all who truly qualify. My parents and many other legal US immigrants came to this country legally and became Legal US Citizens and Permanent Residents (ie Green Card Holders) and became American Success Stories by gaining legal employment and building a life in the US for themselves and their children. America is the Land of Opportunity for all who qualify to immigrate to the US Legally...it is Not the Land of Opportunists for Illegal Immigrants who are seeking to game the system to get entitlements and/or to work here illegally. Let's take the $100 billion a year spent on US Illegal Immigrants and give this money to help our Legal US Citizens and Permanent Residents who are economically disadvantaged.
9
@Cassandra "$100 billion a year is spent on Illegal Immigrants by the US according to Trump."
Trump is a well known LIAR. So where is the proof that these immigrants legal or illegal cost America anything? I am inclined to believe they actually provide more in terms of taxes (sales tax and provisions purchased) than they consume. In particular illegal immigrants don't even exist on paper and as such do not qualify for any kind of help. The real burdens on the tax payer are the 2nd, third, or 4th generation American losers who refuse to get an education and get a job! The vast majority of these welfare cases are white people living in the deep South of America!
@Cassandra---Are you seriously quoting and relying on a Trump twitter feed as a reliable source of factual info!!!!
You imply that citizenship is a matter of behavior, not of place. What follows from this is that the Central Americans who have been coming here without papers, including those who have been in the U.S. for awhile, could organize themselves to go go home and remake their own countries. Several of America’s largest philanthropies have, over the years, been pouring funds into social service agencies that organize the undocumented to demand what they see as their rights from our government. These philanthropies could, instead, underwrite programs what would organize the undocumented to demand rights from their own governments.
There are so many Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans who have come here illegally over the past few years that large percentages of those countries are living (and trying to move here). Our country's natural resources are limited. The northern plains can never count on rain and the large aquifer that underlies many states has been receding. Much of the West is arid. We cannot absorb more people.
The fact that most illegal migrants have had only a few years of elementary school school education makes them more of a liability, in this Information Age, than an asset. Virtually all of them would be financially dependent on government aid for the rest of their lives. Some would join gangs to supplement their incomes.
Let them accept Mexico’s offer of asylum, or let philanthropies help them return home to rebuild their own governments.
23
$100 billion a year is spent on Illegal Immigrants by the US according to Trump. Wouldn't this money be better spent on our Legal US Citizens, particularly US Citizens who are economically disadvantaged? I would rather this money be spent on providing free college tuition to Legal US Citizens who are economically disadvantaged. As a child of US Citizens who legally immigrated to the US from South Korea, I find it perplexing that so many Liberals would like to encourage illegal immigration into the US. The US has a legal immigration process that is open to all who truly qualify. My parents and many other legal US immigrants came to this country legally and became Legal US Citizens and Permanent Residents (ie Green Card Holders) and became American Success Stories by gaining legal employment and building a life in the US for themselves and their children. America is the Land of Opportunity for all who qualify to immigrate to the US Legally...it is Not the Land of Opportunists for Illegal Immigrants who are seeking to game the system to get entitlements and/or to work here illegally. Let's take the $100 billion a year spent on US Illegal Immigrants and give this money to help our Legal US Citizens and Permanent Residents who are economically disadvantaged.
7
Many commentators are making valid arguments that a country has to have rules about citizenship. But Ms. Alexander's article is about a moral and not a legal imperative.
Those of us who are, have done, actively or passively, what it takes to become US citizens. That grants us legal rights. But whatever our circumstances, it does not grant us any moral right to that status. The legal right to citizenship is the product of chance, being born in the right bed for example; moral rights are absolute and not contingent in the same way.
People express moral outrage at undocumented immigrants breaking our laws. They are wrong to do so because such law-breakers, as distinct from other types of criminals, are merely seeking to enjoy the privilege of US citizenship which the rest of us have acquired by chance. They might say: "you have it by chance, why should we not have it too?"
That cannot be the way things are; there have to be laws limiting and controlling immigration. But those laws, and the way they are implemented, have to be informed by the fact that they lack moral justification.
If that was to happen, if we would all accept the "there but for the grace of....." viewpoint when looking at would-be citizens, our immigration policies would be a lot kinder and we would be a far better country.
4
@Max Davies
"..it does not grant us any moral right to that status."
My goodness- You could say that to just about anything! You got a job, saved money and bought a car.. but do you have a moral right to own that car? Is it really yours?
This is the liberal left paradox- create a vacuous argument which encompasses everything and defines nothing.
3
If one's parents cleared the path to an exclusive college that fails almost no one, one will end up with a degree from that college barring some extraordinary event (like death or a felony conviction). Was that degree earned? Meh. Is the degree-holder far better prepared to take on a job with some complexity and responsibility than most other young adults? Very likely.
Citizenship is for those prepared to participate in the society. If you are born here, you have 18 years of practice and education before voting. Since we are all created equal, being born here is the best one can do: the maximum prep time as an apprentice-American, and free of any brainwashing under the rule of foreign monarchs, dictators or criminal groups. Taking away birthright citizenship is in direct conflict with the idea that we are all created equal. If one is born elsewhere, the burden of proof to demonstrate preparedness for citizenship shifts, and that, too, has far less wiggle room than first appears.
There are indeed plenty of questions, and, from a planetary view, birthright citizenship is neither equitable nor merit-based. But a shift to a more restrictive definition would mean the end of the American experiment, and a much less restrictive definition might just mean the same.
I am an immigrant, I believe Ms Alexander is wrong in mixing legal and political problem with moral dilemma. No country can exist and function based on morality of some, or even most, of it's citizens. Nations are formed by their constitutions and run by laws. We may empathize with poor of the world and even help them but no country should have open borders. America allows asylum; a rarity in the world. Often, not always, we help the countries during natural disasters and epidemics. It's not the question of place of your birth or borders, it is how the world made of two hundred countries can function.
Morality didn't run the life in the stone age, and it can't dictate the modern world either.
20
We need immigration to build up the workforce to pay FICA taxes or else we'll go broke trying to sustain Medicare and Social Security.
I wonder how many immigrant-bashers are willing to give up their entitlements to maintain the status quo.
4
@Occupy Government
If illegals are being paid "under the table" they are not paying FICA taxes.. If illegals are paying FICA taxes that means they are using a fraudulent SSN and that is another federal offense- on top of being here illegally.
7
@Occupy Government
These immigrants arent paying FICA taxes. Making this into a dollars and cents argument is counter-intuitive to Ms Alexander's argument.
5
@Occupy Government We do not need more low wage workers with many kids and without a high school diploma.
9
Indeed, people attempting to come to this country are morally entitled to greater care, compassion and concern than we are showing at this time.
But, while our Declaration of Independence does insist that all men are created equal, with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that doesn't automatically entitle anyone who enters our country to citizenship.
As to which of us "deserve" citizenship, that's a moot point. Citizenship is my birthright because my ancestors were citizens. Call it dumb luck or anything you want to, but that's the way the world works. Ms. Alexander would seemingly have us believe that sovereign countries have no right to exist and no right to exclude people.
Mind you, at this point I'd like citizenship to include a basic intelligence test with the penalty being that if you couldn't pass it, you'd have to leave. That's not going to happen either, but we'd have a better country if it did.
169
@Vesuviano You say citizenship is your birthright because your ancestors were citizens. But your ancestors - and mine - left untenable situations in their countries of origin and arrived to find more or less open borders. Immigration is an essential part of our strength as a nation. Opening up legal paths to those who need to come here -- and those whom we need -- can be done in a way that ensures our security AND welcomes new Americans in a compassionate way. The best solution to large-scare illegal immigration is much more legal immigration.
Re: intelligence tests. It might be more useful to require them of presidential candidates.
89
How about intelligence tests on high school civics and current events every two years in order to vote?
25
@Vesuviano- I am have ancestors from 3 minority groups in the USA. My native American ancestor was NOT allowed U.S. Citizenship until 1924. My African-American Ancestor was not given citizenship until 1865. My Asian-American cousins and relatives were not allowed citizenship until 1952- McCarran-Walter Act. My European Ancestors had no such problem for citizenship. By what I read as your handle, are you Italian? If so, my American Citizen Ancestors saw Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, and any non-Northern European, Catholics and not Protestant to be alien and foreign. Some proposed to block the groups I listed.
The Declaration of Independence is NOT and ever was a legal document, only the aspirations of my 3-6x GGFs and many, many others that fought British Tyranny.
My late wife went through the proper process through the INS before USCIS. She did the paperwork required and did not lie. It took many years and she finally got here. She was NEVER a burden as she worked hard and never receive one cent in benefits.
We cannot accept everybody into the United States and we cannot shut out everybody from the United States. There has to be comprehensive immigration reform that looks at all proposals from both sides. America's Constitution was a compromise and so there can be a compromise on dealing with immigration.
What you say is I have mine and close the door on others. America is still the shining example to the world and we cannot go down Trump's Road!
34
During the great migration of 1914 to 1970, hundreds of thousands of African born and their descendants migrated north, and west to escape the injustices of Slavery.
This happened within the borders of the United States. Despite this fact, these individuals of African descent, were not treated as "Citizens of the Untied States."
In her Pulitzer Prize winning book "The Warmth of Other Suns" Isabel Wilkerson poignantly relates the trials and tribulations; the injustices that African born slaves and their American born families had to endure, had to conquer, in order to become "People" as in "We the People of the United States," of the Constitution.
These Americans made the country richer, in all aspects of the word. Imagine this country without the 14th Amendment. Imagine this country if the "Jim Crow" laws had not been overturned with blood and suffering.
Now consider:
"On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
13
The idea that the mere presence of a person living and breathing on a certain part of the planet could be considered a crime is deeply weird. Especially when that part of the planet is 3.8 million square miles.
10
"But we claim to be unlike most nation-states; indeed, we insist that we’re “exceptional.”
Really? In the age of Trump, do we really still claim exceptionalism? I certainly don't believe that anymore. Any country that elects a person of the moral traits that Donald Trump has is not exceptional.
Freedom indices now list the US as a flawed democracy. Can't we dispel with the notion of exceptionalism as strawmen in our arguments as well?
3
'...a place where they could not only survive but also thrive.'
What a shame that the only place in the world they can do that is the US that the author describes as immoral, cruel, racist and built on 'slavery, genocide and colonization.' Sounds pretty awful - why encourage anybody to come to such a place?
There are many historical errors in this piece, but: if indeed Honduras is in the predicament it is now - as the author and many other assert - because of past US intervention, it seems odd that Hondurenos would go to such great lengths to join their own torturer and the destroyer of their nation; it's like abused spouses insisting on going back. Should we not help them break this cycle of abuse?
I concur with other posters: family planning and responsible parenthood would do a lot more to help the situation in Central America than the sloppy moral black-mail packaged in this article, which is, quite frankly, insulting to Americans and to immigrants alike.
23
What an absurd predicate.....Granted, this country needs to rationally reform its immigration policy-which of course should not include building a physical wall , that will be both expensive and ineffective. But this ‘argument’ is nonsense, and is counterproductive.
12
Thanks, Ms. Alexander. I'm saving this column. The US is now reaping what it's sown, after decades of propping up central american dictators, death squads, and the criminal gangs that have metastasized in their wake.
11
This line of argument will lose Democrats election after election.
35
My grandparents came to this country after World War I because they were starving. They were not rich nor well educated. Till the day they died they had a rather tenuous and sometimes humorous grasp of the English language. Their three children's first language was German - yes today we would probably call them anchor babies. I am sure that I have relatives that may have committed crimes, even had a few that were on public assistance - that does not make me less of a person.
Today, my fellow "citizens" refer to me as a rapist, murderer, animal, and gang member. Living in the south I am reminded on a regular basis that the 2nd amendment is there god given right and my "foreign" last name makes me a target of their hate.
Very few of us know what led to our families being in this country nor the "full" circumstances of their US residence yet we feel we "deserve" our place in this country.
I would hate to know where my relatives would be if they had tried to come to this country under the current administration - my guess is they would be treading water in the Atlantic. We are all hypocrites.
9
One of the most profound statements I've read recently was a character in the John LeCarre novel "A Little Town in Germany". He said the closest we get to "truth" is hypocrisy.
Taxes earn citizenship. Or service.
Just showing up does not.
13
@George. Undocumented immigrants pay taxes: they use individual tax ID numbers when they don't have social security numbers -- and the IRS relies on this income. They pay into social security, in spite of the fact that they are ineligible for benefits. Like all of us, they contribute to our economy as consumers (who pay sales tax), and as home dwellers (whose rent subsidizes property tax.) They are as likely as any American to raise sons and daughters who put their lives on the line in our armed services.
1
The responses, rejoinders and willful misreadings here to Michelle Alexander's clear, humane and just arguments, I suspect, are probably universally from "white" self-identified Americans who fear the "other," sincerely believe they are in danger, and, as such, have become monstrous in their weaponized self-righteousness against those more vulnerable than they. (And they are correct in grasping that their lives too mean absolutely nothing to our leaders.)
One can expect all manner of abuse, threats, and terrified hatred from this same demographic toward any of us having the gall to speak clearly for basic sanity, basic humanity. We too pose a threat, evidently. We know you'd like us dead, silenced, disappeared or deported simply for speaking.
3
By opening our borders, do you know what would happen to the jobs and wages of unskilled citizens who are already here? Our poor, and the middle class as a matter of fact, are already struggling to make ends meet. How can we take on more people when we are already challenged to care for those who are rightfully here?
The author speaks of our "our nation’s unparalleled wealth and power"and I say, news flash....it is no longer "unparalleled".
27
How can we deny admission to anyone, using this standard? Just exclude criminals? That is simple and unworkable!
6
Michelle Alexander is wrong to assert that the words inscribed on the Statute of Liberty no longer ring true. The United States admitted 334,203 legal immigrants in 1886, the year the Statute of Liberty was dedicated. American needed immigrants to fill the vast, virtually empty territory it acquired with the Louisiana Purchase and Mexican Cession. Last year, the United States admitted 1,127,167 legal immigrants, about four times as many as it admitted in 1886.
https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2017/table1
17
Right you are.. And none of us deserve any of the money that we "earn." Or the education we get. Or the houses we live in.
And, obviously, the author of this piece, Ms. Alexander, does not deserve to write her article or have her column. It would be much better if an immigrant, any immigrant, was given the column. And wrote it in the language of her choice.
Nihilism is such a nice philosophy -- until actually put into practice.
36
US Current population is 327 million.
Total undocumented or illegal population 22 million(re Yale research. Their conflicting numbers but the highest is 30 million illegals......that is close enough to 1 in 10 are already here illegally. Certainly true in California.
So following your argument - 1) if the U.S. is sort of like the Garden of Eden and we are all inadequate non-deserving sinners and and none of deserve to here or 2) because of the US violent past we should open our borders as reparations.
What total number of immigrants do you propose? Just give the readers a total number because you don't dare.......400 million? 450 million? The real solution is called sovereignty control: 1) switch to Canada merit point based immigration, and 2) use Federal work permit with real employer fines.
22
The argument is rubbish. Those who are citizens earn their citizenship every day by paying taxes, working for civil society, raising good children to become good citizens, and abiding by the laws of the land. They also earn it when they agree to bear the moral burdens of their society even when they had no hand in creating them.
12
@Kinsale I don't know about that. I've seen plenty of born and bred citizens not pay their taxes, not raise their children responsibly, and definitely not abiding by the laws of the land.
And that's what gets me the most. That a man in Florida can drink himself into oblivion, beat his wife senseless, and then crash his vehicle into a light-pole, and get a slap on the wrist in the form of a few months probation. That a multi-billionaire can cheat the government out of millions, and not only escape any penalty, but be elected to the highest office in the land.
But if an undocumented man so much as forgets to put on his seatbelt, his whole life can be destroyed, with the swing of the judge's gavel.
Where's the justice in that? I'm asking you.
Where is the justice in that?
@Kinsale Undocumented immigrants do all those things: they pay income tax, contribute to social security, and -- as much as anyone else -- raise good children willing to bear moral burdens.
My understanding is that she is looking for the opportunity to do exactly those things. So... by your argument, she gets citizenship.
With global warming/climate change well under way, we’ll all be refugees soon which means borders will not have much relevance in the near future. So, shouldn’t we show a little more compassion, empathy, and understanding towards our fellow human and nonhuman earthlings who’ve already been displaced through no fault of their own as a result of related manmade disasters?
6
Of course we who are citizens deserve citizenship - we were born here and/or we or our ancestors immigrated here legally.
I'm all for legal immigration, but we are a nation of laws. Following the law is rewarded, breaking the law results in punishment. It isn't that difficult to comprehend.
I would like to live in Stockholm or Oslo but if I just snuck into Sweden or Norway rather than following their immigration laws, when caught I would be deported. Same thing with any wealthy, desirable county on earth - why should America be any different and turn a blind eye to people who don't respect our laws?
31
@MNNice
If sneaking into Sweden or Norway was your best hope for protecting your family from any form of oppression, including poverty, I'd say you have a moral obligation to give it a shot, laws be damned.
I share many of the ideas of the author. Being a German citizen living in Germany I always struggled at the idea sending immigrants back to their home country. Having German parents and being born in Germany is in my opinion just lucky. I did nothing to earn my right living here. It is obvious that there has to be some rules in place because every country has a limit to how many immigrants it can handle. At the end the answer to this question could be the rules of the market. You have to give companies in poor countries a chance on the European and American markets. I am sure most people would rather stay in their home country if they were a given the opportunity to work and provide for their family. But the outlook at the moment is rather bleak. Not only wants Trump his wall to stop immigrants from Mexican and the other middle American states, the solution for most European country of how to limit the number of immigrants in the future is not helping the economy of the struggling African, giving companies access to the European market. They rather help the Maghreb States (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya) protect their southern borders.
2
I agree with the author that refugees are morally entitled to far greater care, compassion and concern than we have managed to muster to date, not to mention reducing the expense to the point that no one is making money off people that are likely fleeing poverty ends. What I don't agree with is that people who are close enough to walk here, jump to the head of the line in front of people that are likely fleeing even worse circumstances from Syria, Africa, Burma, etc. There seems to be a sense of entitlement on both sides of this argument, with refugees thinking if they get here that they should be let in, and a lot of current US citizens thinking that even if they follow the rules that they aren't as good as them and shouldn't even get consideration. There needs to be some sort of middle ground that allows half the available slots to people fleeing bad circumstances that can't do anything for the country, and half that have skills that we need (out of that half, people that are willing and capable to serve in the US military should be near the head of the line). Bi-partisan legislation should be able to address this, and if both sides of the argument walk away from the table believing they didn't get what they wanted, there likely is a just solution that is as fair as we can be. Trump isn't the sort of President that is going to make a Solomon type offer to split the baby, so maybe legislators need to do what is fair, even if their constituents aren't happy.
2
This isn't about being "deserving".
Who deserves to be part of a family? Why does anyone feel they have rights and obligations as part of a family, that they do not have towards strangers?
Countries are an extension of the concept of family. Some members were born members, others were adopted, but no one has a problem distinguishing between members and non-members. And while some members of a family may misbehave, and others may disown them, no one has a right to unilaterally decide which family they want to be a member of, and demand that they be accepted as such.
If everyone is a member of every family, then no one is and the concept becomes meaningless.
Every culture has rules for who is a member of a family, and every country has rules for who is a citizen and who is invited to become one, and they differ, that is what cultural difference is about, but every society has rules, for good reason.
Now that so many have broken the rules and won admittance anyway, some want to throw out the rule book. Good luck with that.
22
when you divide people into the deserving and the undeserving poor, you end up with Charles Dicken's London, not the American dream.
93
@ariel Loftus
It's about the legal and the illegal. The nut of the reason people want to come here is because the rule of law doesn't function where they came from.
3
Are recent NYT editorials and comments from "liberal" readers giving us a hint of the 2020 Democratic Party platform? Will it include open borders, mandatory "reparations" from all whites, no matter how destitute they may be, and "criminal justice reforms" freeing ALL POC from prison, and doing away with police forces? Looks to me like we're heading that way. Of course, if we do the last two items, open borders won't be a problem, because no one will want to move to the US any more.
26
Thank you Ms. Alexander for serving a deeper and more difficult truth. You speak to the dark side of America's soul. As you can see from the comments, reflexive paranoia and defensiveness exists in many NYT liberals, not just in the right wing. People here are really really afraid of immigrants right now.
Let's take a breath and consider the simple point made in this article. In every move immigration policy makes, let us unequivocally honor the dignity of the illegal immigrant. Is that so hard? I can stop you and turn you back, but I will do so in a humane way. Furthermore, the old method of dealing with refugees--releasing them into the community with court dates---had a 99% return to court success rate.
Any realistic border policy would begin by divesting the resources the US puts into Central American militaries, which further oppress their people. Indeed we would need to undermine the current political classes in those countries, which rob their people. And then we would have to consider the cozy relationship those corrupt elites have with banks in our country, making their debt servicing payments on time. This is the sordid reality of "illegal immigration".
6
So, 99% return to court, what is % of them are getting ‘stay permission’? What is % of denied return/self-deport? The case here - people have nothing to loose to show up in the court - there is always plan ‘b’ if you rejected - get lost and play cat-mouse game next 20 years, wait new legalization reform. Those ‘show up in the court %’ meaningless and convince nobody.
3
Of course, we 'deserve' citizenship. Being a citizen confers (or ought to, anyway) not just rights but obligations as well.
The obligations include (just some) military service, payment of taxes and participation in civic life. One of the benefits of being a citizen is the right to grant citizenship to one's offspring.
Some of us have found ways around the obligations: We may not vote, or pay taxes properly. Some of us construe the freedoms that we are granted with a license to use those freedoms badly or even malignly.
BUt the value of citizenship to me is that it is both earned and heritable. Passing on the wisdom necessary to actually be a good citizen is another matter entirely.
6
I sponsored my wife from the Philippines. We went through the thousands of dollars and years of waiting. She is a permanent resident and we will soon pay another $850 for her to take her citizenship test. SHE deserves to be here.
153
@Mark If money can buy citizenship, then money can take it away. Nice that you followed the rules but we are talking about bigger issues here. If the planet is only so big and we continue to be encouraged to over populate so our economics continue to grow, then Nation lines are to control, not to love our country.
19
@Mark
If paying money, taking a test, or waiting in line is the metric, then there are about 300,000,000 of us who don't deserve to be here.
27
@Mark, I sponsored my wife, it cost a hundred dollars for an AIDS test. It did not cost for her citizenship test. If people keep voting for not paying taxes and for the government to charge fees instead, things start to cost.
My education was free (not really, but the tuition was zero), it wasn't new socialist millennial radical new ideas, it was a state university back when government funding for education wasn't being sucked up by 10 private universities and, once again, back when people understood that never paying taxes means everything costs more.
The cruelty at the border is made possible by a backlog of nearly a million cases in immigration court, a direct consequence of repeated denials by the Republican controlled House of Representatives of the necessary funding.
It isn't that you are being subjected to a huge injustice, it's that people who vote against having a government and against paying taxes over and over again eventually have an effect on society. How does the Filipino population vote? Last I heard, mostly conservative. Maybe rethink that choice.
19
Right to citizenship is not determined using moral grounds.
It is determined using legal grounds.
The author's argument is entirely specious.
The law, is the law.
45
Who made the law? Does the law work in interest of all the people involved or only in the interest of those who gain the maximum for the law? In such a scenario, is it even a law or a mere rule based system enforced for personal benefit of few.
2
@Objectivist
Supposedly Ms. Alexander is a lawyer which makes her poor argument that much more ironic.
17
@Objectivist The law, written and enforced without genuine compassion can be very cruel and can lead to great human suffering. Is that what Objectivist wants?
1
If we've got it so good, then the answer lies in spreading what makes it so good elsewhere, not bring everyone else here. And the answer does not lie in reminding ourselves that we don't deserve what we have and the fruits of what we as a nation have achieved. It didn't "just happen." It's been a long and often bloody struggle. The author would do well to keep that part of the story front an center. I doubt she would would begrudge a Mexican for exclaiming "Viva la Mexico!", or suggest he or she shed the legitimacy of their own Mexican citizenship over the very clear, questionable, and disturbing history of Spanish colonization.
Make Latin America Great! seems a better long-term solution there, against the tired non-solution of American self-loathing and the questioning of the legitimacy of US citizenship.
23
To quote William Munny, "Deserves got nothing to do with it." This self-flagellation so rampant among liberals drives people to the party of Trump. Fact is, the U.S. has laws, all of which need to be enforced. If you wish to change the laws, you need to convince enough people and politicians to do so. I can tell you that no amount of philosophizing and moralizing will get a majority in the U.S. to embrace an open borders policy, which you appear to advocate.
20
I have to imagine that if it was white people at the border, the GOP would not have an issue. This whole “crisis” is just a reflection of the ingrained racism of the GOP and the contempt and disdain that the white, largely Southern Party has for all people of color, including citizens.
6
@Sterling
And I would think your premise is wrong though there is some truth in what you say about racism. I believe the real "crisis" has to do with exploitation of people for financial gain.
1
@Sterling
Your statement is false.
The majority of new immigrants admitted to the U.S. since 2015 are non-whites by a considerable margin. The two leading sources for new immigrants have come from South-East Asia and Mexico.
Does that mean that the U.S. immigration system is biased against whites? Not likely.
And since the majority of people trying to cross America's southern border happen to be non-white, doesn't mean that it's racism either. They just happen to be non-white.
5
This is the type of thing that will lose us (Democrats) the election, once again.
42
I'm very sympathetic to Ms. Alexander's implicit policy position, that the US can and should accept more immigrants than President Trump is willing to accept. But her logic goes too far: if we lack the "moral grounds" to deny immigration to one person, then we lack the "moral grounds" to deny immigration to the entire world.
So the answer to Ms. Alexander's question, what moral ground do we have to deny immigration, is simple, by analogy to the "lifeboat principle." When the lifeboat reaches the point that taking on more people would swamp it, those on board have the "moral grounds" to refuse to allow more people on. Our lifeboat is far from full, but it doesn't have room for everyone in the world who might prefer to live here.
A much better argument for Ms. Alexander to make is not moral and absolute but practical and moderate. Immigration levels are nowhere near the point that they threaten American well-being, except if "well-being" is defined to include comfort about the race and ethnicity of the immigrants. The American-born population is aging, and will soon tip into decline. Meanwhile, American jobs are going unfilled. Quite simply, we need immigration to sustain our way of life.
Despite the nativist fears that Trump stokes, immigration is good for America as a practical matter, most importantly economically.
https://politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/democrats-and-immigration/
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
1
People who come into the United States must come legally. The fact that someone elects to embark on a dangerous and treacherous journey while also bringing along a toddler or two for the trip should not magically turn that person into some kind of hero, who now has more right to be here than those that were born here or who came here legally. It is opinion pieces like these that are almost completely devoid of logic or common sense that feed the engines of the anti immigrant and xenophobic movements in this country. Yes immigrants add value to our economy and culture and way of life but almost any person that just got here ten seconds ago should not be arbitrarily deemed as superior to almost any person that was born here. There must be rules for immigrating into the United States and the standard for immigrants that want to come here, live here and become citizens must be a very high one.
18
Clearly, we are all entitled to free health care from the British National Health Service, free income from OPEC countries, and free beaches from Caribbean and Pacific islands.
And all with free delivery to us right here!
31
Citizenship is about responsibilities, not just rights. And like it or not, one of our responsibilities is to set a workable immigration policy
That’s what Merkel forgot in Germany, ultimately costing her the premier leadership position in Europe
Bien pensant editorial columnists in the New York Times don’t have to worry about the consequences of unleashing a flood of Central American “heroes” on the US. Working class Americans do.
26
Viewing the right to citizenship on moral grounds, as Michelle Alexander does, no person can argue with her logic or her moral rectitude.
It is precisely because Ms. Alexander is right, and even the most xenophobic, nativist followers of Donald Trump know deep down she’s right, that the Trump administration and conservative Republicans find it necessary to dehumanize the undocumented aliens who present themselves at our borders.
It is no accident that among the alien families fleeing for their lives from cruel regimes, the focus of Donald Trump is on the black and brown migrants. To the everlasting shame of today’s America, it is much easier to demonize non-white refugees.
There is only one viable and moral argument for slowing our reception of undocumented migrants, and that is the claim that we must be able, as a nation, to absorb the influx without forcing the new arrivals into unsupportable camps.
This is a big country with large open spaces, and the refugees seeking a new life are hard-working and innovative. They must be allowed into America first – permanently and with a guaranteed path to citizenship – and the details of the temporary housing can be worked out later.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution offer the nativists no argument for exclusion, and certainly the preservation of a white majority is a reprehensible excuse. It is also futile.
2
Columns like this are no replacement for bipartisan legislation on immigration. Open discussions in Congress with all stakeholders weighing in is what’s needed. Compromises will apply.
1
Borders themselves are a form of apartheid. But the best argument I've heard for why an American deserves citizenship is based on the sacrifice of their ancestors. Ironically, all of those people were once immigrants themselves, who came to America for a better life.
Ah another dazed and confused progressive asking us to "open our hearts", so they can get us to open our wallets. Open borders and unbound empathy are the conditions by which the great Democrat power and money grab takes shape. I am not participating in the empathy Olympics if their own countries, regions and localities aren't. That's just foolish. Let's care for our own people first. It's simple.
23
"After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
Really!?
Not only is this one of the most simplistic and absurd statements I have ever read from a NYT columnist, it conflates concepts of "deserving" and "morality" with "citizenship" in a myopic, pseudo-intellectual, selectively slanted soup of U.S. history.
Yes, we should have sensible immigration policy, maybe with work visas and the like. But, for decades we (i.e. selective businesses like agriculture, restaurants, now construction) have looked the other way as cheap labor poured into the country without border scrutiny. So, shame on the powers that be for this exploitation.
Now it's time to solve the problem humanely, but intelligently and practically based on what's in the best interest of the U.S. without historical shaming.
Open borders is an absurd, reckless concept. No amount of moral handwringing is going to fix a broken immigration system. I might like to be a citizen of Denmark, but I know I can't just walk across their border.
We are a country of immigrants AND a country of laws.
Our morality should propel us to help less fortunate countries in need so their citizens don't flee. But let's not twist notions of morality into reckless policy.
Otherwise, just circulate this piece of journalistic pablum to every Trump supporter so he can be reelected in 2020 and escape prosecution.
19
Many times we learn from a well crafted, logical argument of the opposing view. This is not it.
15
So much more is asked of immigrants than those of us born here. For example, there’s no “cognitive tax” for birthright citizenship, but there’s one for naturalized citizens - the USCIS naturalization test.
@Mark
I'll wager that there are currently better health services and social welfare support systems for today's immigrants than was the case for prior generations of new arrivals.
5
@Mark "So much more is asked of immigrants than those of us born here. "
Really? Then why was my father drafted into military service in Vietnam and exposed to dioxin during his tour of duty? He died 15 years after his military service at age 38 because of it and his widow and three young children weren't provided with any compensation by the U.S. How about that?
3
A country without borders is no country. Guidelines, rules, regulations, structure, borders; all of these contribute to prosperity and a civilized nation. Having a bleeding heart for those suffering or impoverished is your emotion to have but placing the safety and sanctity of our nation to offset your feelings is another.
Our nation has fought many wars, my ancestors including Native Americans have spilled blood and treasure across this land and I do not intend to watch all their centuries of sacrifice go wasted for open borders.
As natural citizens of this country we are standing on the shoulders of those women and men before us that laid everything out on the line to unite and protect this nation. And not to see it thrown off to the side so that we can open up our gates to any and all without warrant and assimilation.
7
On what moral grounds do any of us deserve citizenship that se did not ear ourselves? You could ask the identical question about any advantages that we have that we did not "earn" ourselves. Seems to me that in essence you are advocating a a planet governed by one system of global communism.
You need to get a grip (and stop taking the words of the poem on the pedestal of the Statute of Liberty so literally).
13
We have the right to control citizenship in much the same way that Alexander has the right to her property.
16
The author is mistaken to assert that the words inscribed on the Statute of Liberty no longer ring true . The United States accepts far more legal immigrants today than it did in 1886, the year the Statute of Liberty was dedicated. In 1886, America accepted 50,189,209 immigrants to fill the vast, virtually empty territories it acquired with the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican Cession. In 2017, the United States accepted 1,127,167, nearly twice the number it accepted in 1886.
https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2017/table1
2
We the People of the USA ratified the Constitution and have the right and responsibility, passed down from he original citizens to enact and execute the law. Citizens are different from non-citizens under the law, and have more rights that have been handed down from our parents and the Founders of our Republic. That is how laws and government work.
As long as we are a Republic, we will have borders and people will cross them and We the People do decide, by writing laws, how to greet them.
The essential problem is that we have developed laws that encourage illegal immigration. (I call it illegal immigration, because it is the legal status of the immigrants that makes them valuable for employers as weapons to use against citizen workers, which means that the more illegal we make them, the more useful they are sa cheap labor that can be used to threaten other workers.)
Yes our foreign policy creates economic and political dislocations that send people here, and we should take responsibility for our actions.
The problem is nether party is trying to actually solve the problem. Walls have been militarily obsolete for hundreds of years. Amnesty for Dreamers may be fair, but it's not a solution.
Speed up legal immigration by funding the process to reduce illegal crossings. Treat asylum seekers with respect. Give all humans the same job protections so immigrants cannot be used as a weapon against citizens. End the drug war.
Make corporations respect our borders and workers.
4
Citizenship is not a moral construct. It is a legal one.
9
Excellent reporting, and we all ought to thank Ms Alexander for such clarity, the intrinsic value of all and each individual being, and that the abuse of power exercised by this vulgar bully in chief (and his acolytes) is an outrage, It is ironic that Trump's family emigrated from Germany but simulating and declaring they were from Sweden, as Germans were not welcome at the time. It tells you how imperfect the system was, and is. Allowing the entrance of Immigrants have made this nation what it is today, riches and flaws combined, as expected, even when some welcome humility is lacking (by those who have conveniently forgotten we all came out of Africa, and began invading distant lands, trampling on others, and creating wars of convenience to appropriate things we didn't earn nor deserve. Be that as it may, it behooves us to show some contrition, shed our arrogance (plentiful, it seems), and show some prudence for a change (doing what's right, however difficult). Some of us consider ourselves as citizens of the world, and a privilege being accepted by Mother Earth, and the need to reciprocate by caring for it's climate and overall wellbeing.
2
America isn't simply "a nation of immigrants". Millions upon millions of Americans are descended, at least in part, from people who came to this land before there was a US of A. They were not immigrants. They were settlers. They were pioneers. To our shame, many were slaves. They were the founders of this country that now people from other countries want to live in. We Americans, most of us still, are not immigrants. We can't go back to where we came from. We came from here.
8
I don't even know where to start criticizing this author. An illegal immigrant to this country has the right to go home and fix whats wrong in their own country. They don't have the right to much else. There are very few things I agree with Trump on but his stance on birthright citizenship is one of them. Its a fraud committed on the people of this country and it should be illegal. Imagine if a pregnant woman walked into your front hallway and produced a baby, should we then grant her part home ownership? I don't think so. You'd probably call the cops and rightfully so.
13
So with this logic that no American really deserves the citizenship that they were born into, then that can be applied to the family you were born into as well. Children born into wealthy families shouldn’t be entitled to their family money and property. Being born into the right family is simply a form of birth lottery as well. I think with this new logic, I’ll just show up at one of the Koch or Bezos homes and claim to be a member of the family and demand my fair share of money! Life isn’t fair and history is full of injustices but that doesn’t mean we should open borders and tear down walls. I work hard to provide for my family and am a patriotic American. The nihilistic attitude people like this author have towards being an American citizen are highly disturbing.
11
Who said desert has got anything to do with it?
Without borders to manage population movements civilization -- democracy and the welfare state, for example -- would impossible and everyone's life would be nasty, brutish and short.
4
Basic biology shows that without some mechanism to restrain of flow, organisms cease to exist. The same probably applies to countries, particularly when there is such overpopulation and high mobility in this world.
One could ask how she feels she can morally have a nice house and posessions when billions live on so little? Same principle.
8
I oppose the call to morality when it is used to deny legal rights. And I oppose the call to morality as a justification for open borders. The question is not "What is right?" By definition, there is no way to settle moral arguments. The question is "What do we want?"
We don't ask the empirical questions enough. "What do we have to do to prevent murder?" vs. "What punishment do murderers deserve?" "How can we ensure citizens have a decent life?" vs. "Do high school drop outs deserve to get welfare?" And "What immigration policies make us the strongest, freest, best off?" vs. "What do we owe refugees?"
Being a human does not grant anyone the rights to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness, much as we might wish it did. A right is a freedom backed by an authority capable of guaranteeing that freedom. That's what gives us citizens the rights we enjoy. Refugees. much as we would like to help them - and will help them to the extent we can - have no rights in any meaningful sense of the word.
4
Come on, Michelle, just say the words you so desperately want to say but feel you can't: "I believe there should be open borders". You come so close to doing so in this article but weren't quite brave enough to do so and instead chose to use a lot of words to say it indirectly. Be brave and clear next time you have this chance.
8
I am working on my family history to pass on to other family members.
I haven’t found an ancestor who was in the United States before 1800. Some came in the early 20th Century.
It is also interesting that many people ask each other “what nationality are you?” But if we are born in the U.S., how can we be any nationality except “American”. Even that is a misnomer because “Americans” have been living on the two American continents for thousands of years.
Ms. Serrano-Hernandez has as much right to be “here” as the 20th Century Trump immigrants from Germany.
Good point. We should take over Mexico, because the "citizens" of that "country" have no more claim or moral right to that land then we do. To warm up maybe I'll take another man's wife because I find her appealing - who are they to say I can't get what I want?
17
What a weird, ungrounded opinion. Citizenship in this country is for most American citizens not a privilege, it is - literally - a birthright. An American citizen can commit the most heinous acts possible, and not lose his or her citizenship. Serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy were executed or put away for life, but did not lose their citizenship. Even those convicted of treason or espionage against the United States, as President Trump may soon be, do not lose their citizenship. As one lawyer to another, Michelle Alexander, you might consider brushing up on your Constitutional law.
10
A few years ago, an undergraduate student at UPenn in an "opinion" piece in the Daily Pennsylvanian wrote that the "Pilgrim Fathers" were the first illegal immigrants to this country. Of course they were not illegal only because the indigenous population had not made such a law.
3
As harsh as it sounds, immigration is a lottery. As Ms Ciofoletti points out, the history of humanity is one of constant migratory flow. Many, in a harsher world often with no transportation other than their feet, no medical science to cure them when they fell ill or were wounded by already established residents, succeeded. Most did not. There was no question of “rights.” There was only territory to be approached or defended.
We struggle now to establish some order to the process, balancing protectionist laws and compassion for human suffering—although not for invading armies. Fortunately, we live in a country that can afford to consider those choices.
But it’s still a lottery. My adopted Korean daughter was a foundling on the streets of Pusan. My husband’s family fled Nazi Germany to the relative safety of Palestine. His older brother escaped to the Dominican Republic but soon died of yellow fever.
Our ancestors of all ethnic backgrounds understood the role of luck. The Romans worshipped Fortuna as a goddess, her symbol, the wheel, which has now become a television icon.
The best we can do here is treat immigrants on our borders with compassion and respect, even if we can’t ultimately grant all of them entry. Unfortunately, I have no solution as to who should win the lottery.
1
Unghhh. The logic here is simple: there are people who have LEGALLY applied for citizenship and there are those who have and will enter the country ILLEGALLY. It is simply not fair or just to simply treat them the same way.
Quick case in point: a few years ago I broke my ankle while skiing in Switzerland. Before they would even look at my leg, they pre-authorized a credit card $5000 USD. The Swiss people in the doctors office said they “felt bad” that I would have to pay while they were being treated for “free”. I had no problem paying; I don’t live there, I don’t pay Swiss taxes, I don’t vote there. I did not expect charity from the government - simply because I exist.
I’m sorry but there are lucky people and unlucky. If you are a citizen of this country, you are the former. If you are not, follow the laws and try your best.
This logic will get Trump elected again and again. The ultra-liberal/sanctuary city/borderless crowd just cannot see that their shortcomings combined with Russia’s use of Facebook and Instagram have given them their worst nightmare.
11
This is such a blatantly absurd argument that reflects how the NYT editorial page has gone from respected to fringe extremist. Laws need to be changed. To make it impossible for these people to ever gain the right to work or reside in the United States. Their asylum claims are so phony.
Is it moral for these migrants to jump in front of people all over the world who have been waiting decades for their visas? Many of them also come from poor and violent countries.
If people had to apply for citizenship, newspaper columnists, community organizers, and other useless people would be among the first to be deported. Does she really think most Americans consider people like her to be an asset to society?
11
Ms Alexander's immigration op-ed would be right up conservative commenter Richard Luettgen's alley, and we would have sparred with him energetically. After unheard of silence from Richard in these pages recently (he was so prolific and passionate that the New York Times listed him, along with Socrates, Rima Regas, Christine McM and gemli, as one of the Gray Lady's most influential commenters), I did a search to check on his absence, and learned that he passed away on December 1st.https://gaffneyfuneralhome.com/obituary/richard-luettgen-12012018/
Our condolences to his family - we are very sorry for your loss.
31
Very sad news. RIP, Richard. Your comments were always informed and thought-provoking. My sincerest condolences to your family as they grieve your passing.
16
Thank you for this comment @common sense advocate
A member of our Community team wrote a tribute to him here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/reader-center/a-tribute-to-a-prolific-times-commenter.html
14
@common sense advocate
I had noticed Richard's absence. I suspected illness. I'm sorry to hear the worst. Thank you for sharing the obituary. I never knew the man in person. However, I loved sparring with him over news.
My condolences to the family.
Sincere regrets,
Andy
11
You are right.
No one ‘deserves’ it.
You have to earn it.
Some of us did.
3
It reminds me -- the winners in the luck lottery of life have repackaged "The Divine Right of Kings" to apply to "huddle masses" merely yearning to survive by asserting:
"Life isn't fair"
No more morally high falutin' than "I'm alright, Jack."
1
It’s a sure sign that you’ve run out of logical arguments when you resort to silly philosophical questions, such as the meaning of “deserve”. Another sign is circular reasoning such as, “we don’t want open borders, just compassion and dignity”, which of course means let them in and make their babies citizens (so...open borders).
11
I am a legal immigrant to the US. Today I stood in line to renew a visa for fours and noticed that there were many mothers with infants. Despite having given birth here, none of them were eligible for automatic citizenship and if the mothers were unwed they never will be. What I find interesting about all these stories about the mothers and the kids that the NYT's runs, is where are the fathers. And, why does a 19-year-old do for a living when she has 2 children at that age? If she had her first child at 15 or 16, she has a middle school education with no English (and in Honduras that may be grade 3 equivalency). Who paid for the birth of her child after she climbed the fence? Who looked after her three year old? Who will look after her kids for the next few months? America can't save everyone in the world, other countries even the second world country I am in, have laws and they enforce them. Anyone whose first act in America is illegal is cheating and the more democrats talk about open borders, the closer we get to four more years of Trump. We need to fine or jail anyone caught employing an illegal alien and we need to process the ones that are here and deport them. Enough about compassion, there are already parts of this country that look like a third world country and that is what we will become if we do reform our immigration system.
15
Unrestrained immigration is an inappropriate response to the moral issues the author raises.
8
Ethicists who fail to appreciate the proper role of selfishness, to the benefit of ourselves and ours, do not understand the way the world works - and needs to work.
6
None of us deserve free stuff either - doesn't seem to stop the top dozen Dem 2020 hopefuls from falling over each other to each offer more free stuff than the other...
Especially so, to non-citizens...
7
Well titled, and subtitled.
That's helpful.
I don't think open borders actually work. They destroy the earning potential of those at the bottom in order to prop up the profits of those that own the means of production.
But what I hate is the entitlement and arrogance of the people that were lucky enough (like me) to be born a US citizen. You didn't earn it. So please stop whining and complaining that others want what you didn't earn. It's pathetic, immoral, and plain embarrassing.
So sure, enforce the borders. But never forget that you didn't earn your place here, and work to make the places people are coming from better so that they have equal opportunity wherever they are born.
2
Articles like this will guarantee Trump's re-election.
10
What an incredibly dumb argument from the far left. I’m a democrat but this line of thinking only gives fodder for Fox News and drives moderates to the GOP.
Where does this line of argument end? My children did nothing to earn the home they live in and the possessions they have — should they be forced to share all that with less fortunate children? Then again, in the thinking of the far left, I as a white man did nothing to earn my “white privilege”, so should I be forced to give away my property? This kind of thinking goes leads to certain defeat for the left.
Better to frame the immigration debate in terms of humanitarian arguments and leave our citizenship out of it.
7
@Reader
Ms. Alexander isn't disputing the right of your children to their home and their possessions. She is pointing out that an happy accident of birth is no more than that. Those who are here, whether others believe them here legitimately or not, usually are working and contributing and typically do not benefit from the taxes they pay. All of this holier-than-thou nonsense directed at them is misdirected.
You house, feed, and clothe them Ms. Alexander.
Leave me and mine out of it.
13
No moral system requires national suicide.
Furthermore, does Ms Alexander's moral system apply only to the U.S.? Is she similarly outraged that Maryury Elizabeth Serrano-Hernandez cannot obtain Chinese citizenship for the asking?
13
The Americans of 1776 were indignant when British Parliament imposed laws and taxes on them and accused them of treating them like slaves. Their sense of entitlement not only caused them to go to war but simultaneously to exercise the power to deny citizenship to both the indigenous people and the Africans they brought and would continue to bring for 30 years after the Revolution. Fighting for freedom meant fighting for the right to enslave others and to deny citizenship to those who had been born here. That's the legacy and that's what we are bequeathed by birth in America. Thank you very much.
2
Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein had several concepts that ran through many of his books. The one salient here is "service confers citizenship".
In Heinlein's worlds, every citizen had to serve a stint in military or other public service. If a person chose not to, they could not vote or avail themselves of other privileges of citizenship.
I've always thought that made eminent sense.
3
This is a situation where I think I get to the same ultimate place as the author, but without adopting her moral argument (I believe it's called "concurrence"). To the extent the U.S. has meddled in the affairs of other nations and helped precipitate displacement, I view generous asylum/immigration/refugee policies as a moral imperative. But my good fortune to have been born here does not create moral right of entry for anyone else. Rather, I think it is about the virtues this country purports to hold dear.
The reason to help people is because it is virtuous to do so and this country purports to be virtuous; to be "EXCEPTIONAL." IF a conservative politician wants to point to how other countries close their borders and such and asks why we should be different, that's fine. That's a leader arguing for mediocrity. I believe I we are a great nation (or at least have the capacity to be). Great nations do great things. I think Merkel showed more virtue and greatness in taking in refugees when Germany's ostensible ALLIES TURNED THEIR BACKS ON HER. Then they (including our president) mocked her struggles. That doesn't sit right with me.
Yes, countries have a right to control their borders. But just as no non-citizen has a moral right to entry, no country has a moral right to be viewed as "great" or "exceptional" either. So do we want to actually do "great" things anymore or just sing patriotic songs and take selfies at the Statue of Liberty while hiding behind walls?
2
If there was a Universal set of moral principles no one's rights would be denied anywhere on the planet. It's not moral, it's moral relativism.
The question is how do we balance our morality with reality so we can live with ourselves.
3
The author posits that no one deserves citizenship and suggests that therefore it should be abolished (by opening it to all comers). Maybe instead every generation should have to earn their citizenship by doing some substantial service for the state? Say, a five year period of public service in the military or in some public works administration? And those who don't do some such public service lose their right to vote?
7
Dear NYT,
Not sure I saw this mentioned in any comments or Ms. Alexander’s piece, but the moral responsibility we have as US citizens is not about being citizens or not, but instead over the immoral actions of past US administrations and corporations that left much of Central America and parts of South America in political and economic taters. We destroyed many socialist governments in the name of winning the Cold War. There has been no public acknowledgement of the trail of destruction this caused. We are doing it now with embargoes on Cuba and Venezuela.
It’s our 100 year involvement in those countries, often purposefully destabilizing genuine local efforts at self-government that are the roots to much of the inequality, poverty, and extreme random violence that has ruined a beautiful part of the world.
Not to mention a four decade affair with illegal drugs, in which the US drug consumers funded the rise of parallel armed forces with the various violent drug “gangs”. We have exported the worst kind of local gang culture back to these countries, ie Mexico, etc.
Morally speaking we should pay for these years of involvement and put in place a kind of Marshall plan to aid these countries so that desperation is not driving their most ambitious or forsaken to run to US borders to have anchor babies. That kind of immigration is not good for the US, but it also not good for countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc.
6
Michelle Alexander probably thinks we don't deserve to inherit our parent’s homes and personal property when they die. But most of the planet, or at least the portion of the planet subject to the rule of law, recognizes the right of inheritance. Most of us inherited America and U.S. citizenship from our parents. We have the right to share or not to share our inheritance with people outside the family.
We cannot end global poverty by sharing our inheritance though unrestricted immigration. Hondurans are poor, but they are not among the poorest of the poor. About 1.2 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. (Honduras’ average annual income is $580.) Today, we accept more than one million legal immigrants a year, but if we opened our borders to all people who live below poverty levels, we would succeed only in impoverishing ourselves.
10
The EU has broken the national barriers between their member countries in a partial answer to this.
"Freedom of movement for workers in the European Union. The freedom of movement for workers is a policy chapter of the acquis communautaire of the European Union. It is part of the free movement of persons and one of the four economic freedoms: free movement of goods, services, labour and capital."- Wikipedia
Even so, it is still the case that people wishing to immigrate from desperately poor countries outside the EU face a difficult to impossible effort to be allowed in.
The economic benefits to wealthy nations from unlimited immigration are simply not there. It does no good to anyone if the pool of available labor vastly exceeds the demand. You end up with a bad situation for everyone.
If people migrate seeking better economic conditions, the only way, in the long term to satisfy this desire is to create better conditions where they already are. It's physical impossibility for all those who wish to migrate to do so.
We need nuanced, intelligent immigration policies where both the immigrants and the host countries benefit. It's not a simple yes or no issue.
8
Americans deserve their citizenship for the same reason that a person deserves any inheritance they might get from their family. It's a birthright.
131
@mlbexMy brother stole the other siblings inheritance, seeing it as his birthright since he was a boy. So much for birthright.
12
@mlbex You have a strange understanding of the word "deserve." By your logic, if you inherited the gene for diabetes, cancer and/or alzheimers from your family, you deserve it. Family inheritance is a gift. It has nothing to do with "deserve."
33
@RCJCHC
I feel for you. My siblings are in the process of doing exactly that. My mother is still alive. My siblings have stolen money that was intended for me. They have power of attorney, and access to the accounts of our very wealthy mother. They are neglecting our demented mother. They aren't about to spend what they view as their money on my mother's care , or even act to ensure her safety. My sister told me that my mother has started multiple fires, has fallen repeatedly, and does not take her medication. She is alone and demented.
I have no legal standing and am unable to protect my mother.
3
Why is it that these articles always hinge their arguments on walls, detainment and tear gas? Or linger on the history that most of us find wrong. Because that is where the moral argument is easiest.
Unless Ms. Alexander wants to suggest that the laws surrounding legal immigration are immoral, then breaking those laws is also a question of moral transgression. I am talking about the established process by which anyone can apply for citizenship.
Yes, the process is arduous. It should be. Some of my relatives were turned back at Ellis Island because they didn't meet the requirements of the day. As an American, I can't just move to another country without meeting their requirements. I don't find this morally objectionable.
I heartily agree that a home should be standard issue for every human on the planet.
A home without poverty, racial bias, gang violence, spousal abuse or drugs is something too many Americans are already in need of.
13
Can we please stop the bellyaching? Sure, the US ain't perfect. Who is? But you know what? We've done a pretty good job so far, especially when it comes to immigration. There have been hiccups and injustices, to be sure, but look at the results. We are THE most diverse and inclusive country in the world. And this is still the case despite Trump's best efforts, and it will still be the case decades from now. Can't we take pride in that reality instead of complaining about how we're not running up score high enough?
10
I understand the argument, but it is wrong. We are not born (or adopted) out of the ether. In many cases, our parents made that decision for us. It is inherently unfair that parents tend to care more about their own offspring than for those of others. That is nature's way. Otherwise, families will not exist, long-term civic institution would not exist, ... countries would not exist.
13
“But for slavery, genocide and colonization, we would not be the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world — in fact, our nation would not even exist.”
As an African American, this country was built on the backs of my ancestors, which earns my lineage and me the right to American citizenship for as long as it exists.
Now, if America ceases to exist, that may be another story. But, as long as the colonizers are here, I deserve it.
134
@Mdargan America was built on individual rights. Slavery, contra Leftist intellectual frauds, was a mere historical coincidence, ended by people who respected individual rights. Slavery, the least productive economic organization, existed in the cultures of traditional Africa and the near-Stone age Indians of pre-America. They were not prosperous, not a historical coincidence. If slavery causes prosperity, then explain the poverty of egalitarian, socialist, slavery.
16
@Mdargan I totally agree that we American citizens are all in this together no matter how we got here. BUT, two questions:
-we must admit that we personally had nothing to do with it, so, philosophically, I don't agree that you or anyone "deserves" it. I say that as part of a group that's been historically oppressed far longer than any other group and even today gets it from both the left and right
-and, this is not meant to be offensive, but is a real question: are you glad that your ancestors were brought to the US? My guess is that it's complicated but I bet that your ancestors would be happy in retrospect to be brought over so as to provide a better life for their descendants.
6
@Mdargan @Beth Cioffoletti
Most Americans welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL immigrants; i.e., foreigners in the US illegally. We cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is thus impossible for US taxpayers to support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
US laws allow foreigners to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too.
The cruelty lies not in limiting legal immigration, or detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, etc. Indeed, many believe bringing children on such perilous journeys constitutes child abuse.
Open borders is a policy no nation will ever approve. We will lose the 2020 elections if open borders are part of the Democratic platform.
29
There is so much wrong with this piece.
First, most people everywhere believe that the country where they were born is one of the best, except for a few in very sad circumstances.
The US has no especial claim to compassion. Our history is full of examples of brutal dispossession and cheating, starting with the native people of this land. Our treatment of Jews fleeing the WWII atrocities is another example.
Second, every country I know would dispute the idea that citizenship should be open to anybody that wishes to get it. Many countries do not even subscribe to birthright citizenship. My own peculiar beef is with Russian pregnant tourists flocking to Miami to have their instant citizens born here.
Third, current liberal views on immigration are somewhat new and, one has to wonder, maybe dictated by political expedience. Witness the recommendations of the Barbara Jordan commission on immigration during the Clinton administration.
13
"On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?" FALSE. I do earn them. It's called paying Federal Income Tax. I have been working and receiving a paycheck since I was 14. That is how I have earned it. By contributing (vastly) more to the system than I take.
19
@Tom
So glad to hear that simply paying income tax is sufficient to earn US citizenship in your view.
The majority of both documented and undocumented immigrants I come in contact with have for years been paying taxes while never drawing anything out (they're really not eligible for almost anything in most cases).
Very happy to hear you [apparently] support citizenship for all these people.
Of course, that's not how the law works - US citizens who fail to pay taxes are still citizens, while immigrants paying taxes continue to prop up programs like social security that they'll never see a dime from (yet will support you into retirement). But glad to have your support for blanket amnesty resulting in full citizenship all the same.
8
@Tom
I think you would be surprised to know that most all new americans, legal or not have no problem paying taxes. Many illegals actually pay social security which they have no likelyhood of collecting benefits from. The article is not taling about merely paying money to be here. As you I was blessed with being born here, luck of the draw, we could have been born in Syria or Uganda!
@Tom Hi Tom! Documented and undocumented immigrants also pay into the Federal Income Tax system.
There is much sentimental mush here. Foreign cultures can be incompatible with ours. That is why all societies (with the possible exception of Switzerland) that consist of nationally, racially, and religiously diverse populations are usually riven with controversy and often violence. That includes even advanced countries like Spain, the UK, Belgium and yes, even "nice" Canada.
Immigration can nonetheless be beneficial to all if the newcomers are true immigrants who accept the culture and laws of their new home even as they renounce and "abjure" their old sovereignties and assimilate. If they don't, if they cross borders just to escape their old failing societies or just to gain economic benefits without also developing a patriotic affection for their new home, strife and violence follow as Sweden, France and Germany are discovering. In contrast, Denmark insists that immigrants assimilate and become Danes. It works.
In other words, in good societies all inhabitants, including immigrants, must play by the rules and embrace core values, and customs. Otherwise they only bring with them the very evils of their old countries from which they are escaping.
This requires commitment and good faith on the immigrants' part. Those of them who refuse to play by the rules are not really immigrants -- they are a migratory invasion that violates the rule of law and should be dealt with as such. In Spanish, what goes on our southern border is called a reconquista, not immigration.
16
Many readers of Ms. Alexander's column today misread it. She was not advocating open borders. She was advocating for a more humane and moral approach to immigration than what is currently being practiced.
Members of my family fled Eastern Europe during the rise of fascism. Some transited through Switzerland, Portugal, Brazil and Mexico before crossing the into the US border, bribing a Border Patrol agent to let them into America.
The wealthy and highly skilled are still allowed into America with few obstructions; it is the poor and unskilled who are being blocked. I understand the rationality for this.
This policy should be applied in a humane manner. Updating the steel slat barrier is an acceptable idea, as well as other reforms that were in the compromise bill that the Senate approved many years ago.
8
The question about the moral grounds of our birthright citizenship is a mis something, I cannot find a term to fit here. Morality has nothing to do with the question of our citizenship and rights at birth.
The better questions is; On what moral grounds do we deny people in desperate need often caused by our fellow citizens reckless behavior in foreign lands for profit, succor and assistance in their time of need?
7
The world's poor do not have an inalienable right to move here.
590
@Talbot "The world's poor do not have an inalienable right to move here."
And be supported with taxpayer funds they did not contribute.
158
@Talbot The US clearly cannot let in everyone who wants to come here, the country would overwhelmed and changed beyond recognition. However, that does not mean that the US should simply harden its heart, absolve itself of any responsibility for human beings who don't happen to have the luck of being born here or managed to jump over all the legal hurdles. With great wealth comes great social responsibility, something that too many people in the US, particularly the uberrich have forgotten. It is not only the poor outside our borders that are ignored but also those inside because those who have much believe they have it because of their own virtues and those that have little lack those virtues. All human beings have a right to aspire to a better life and those that can help others cannot absolve themselves of that responsibility. That is the most fundamental message of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohammed and all spiritual leaders.
55
@CNNNNC In fact, undocumented immigrants do pay taxes and generally receive much less in the way of government support than do US citizens.
88
On airplanes, waiting for our flights to depart we are always reminded that in the event of a loss of cabin pressure we should, "Make sure your own oxygen mask is in place before attempting to assist other passengers."
We have not been able to end poverty, hunger, homelessness, or even infant mortality in this country, and we will never be able to do so as long as we're releasing pregnant teenagers on "their own cognizance" to come and add to the population we need to feed, house, and provide with health care.
The heroine of this piece's problem isn't that she was born in Central America. It's that she was pregnant at 14 and again at 17. She could have been born anywhere, she would still have had to depend on the ability of others to find the money to feed her.
53
A young person enlists in the U.S. military in the face of risk and sacrifice that many natural-born citizens are not willing or able to take. How is it that after one or several tours of duty that person is not first in line to become a citizen?
A student that comes under an F-1 visa, supported by an NSF grant, graduates with a Ph.D., finds a job that sponsors an H1-B visa, applies for lawful residence under EB-2 priority status. After nearly two decades residing in the U.S. that person becomes a naturalized citizen. All the while, that lawful immigrant was likely paying taxes every year, was gainfully employed, and possibly helped create tens to hundreds of new direct high-wage jobs.
In my book anyone that has dutifully served this country, especially within the military, has well-earned their citizenship. Not through a lottery, not through an illegal border crossing, not under a fraudulent residence process or investor visa application.
Those naturalized citizens take great pride in paying forward all the opportunities this great nation has provided. They also feel betrayed when every immigrant is painted with the same brush by those in power today. So-called citizens who are blatantly betraying the precious core values of this country.
19
@Daniel Rodriguez: I agree that a person willing to enlist in the military should be granted citizenship as long they complete their hitch and receive an honorable discharge.
4
There are plausible moral arguments for open borders, though if one thinks that many policy preferences can be mapped on a spectrum ranging from the more individualistic to the more communitarian, open borders would be at the far individualistic end of the spectrum. But what makes arguments like Alexander’s morally indefensible is that they obviously privilege non-Americans at the expense of Americans: Everyone else in the world has a right to come to the U.S. if they want, and they also get to have their own nations, if they prefer to live in their own cultures among their own people. Native-born U.S. citizens, by contrast, don’t even have a claim to their own country, and there is no other country in which they can claim an automatic right to move (no sympathy from Alexander for the plight of American citizens who would really love to live in France but can’t get a work visa).
This inequality is justified by the U.S. being “exceptional.” But if that is what Americans “exceptionalism” entails, then it is not surprising that many Americans would say that they don’t want that exceptionalism—they want to be part of a nation that serves its own first.
20
@RC Where do you get that from this article? I imagine most supporters of open borders support other countries having open borders too. In fact, any plausible road to open borders would surely involve reciprocity, such as the European Union allowing both Germans to live in France and French to live in Germany. Another recent example is the visa extension a few years ago between the US and China; both countries allowed the other country’s citizens to apply for a 10-year visa.
3
@Aoy So your premise is that all borders are just social constructs and we can all move to Europe......may I ask how is Britain doing with open borders per Eurozone laws and millions of immigrants?
2
Require all US citizens between ages 18 and 24 to perform 2 years public service, choice military or environmental or social service. Ask not what our country can do for us, ask what we can do for our country.
25
@Anne Russell The idea of national public service is widely popular, as are programs like Teach for America. People actually want to do this, especially if it helps them get started in their lives and careers.
4
Professor Alexander's plea for the nation to take a moral approach to immigration right.
I would add a slight different moral perspective. Many of the "caravan people" aren't fleeing violence and poverty as some naturally occurring event. We, the American people significantly contributed to their suffering and have a moral obligation to provide them with reparations.
People from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador make up the majority of the caravan. In each of those countries the official US policy was to support dictators, death squads, oligarchs and drug dealers who created the violence that these people now flee.
We owe those individuals at our border today reparations for what we have done. We also owe those that stayed behind.
Rather than billions for Trump's wall, why not billions for land reform, support for small farmers, reforms of the police and justice system, better education, tax and tariff incentives for real development and a rational system of immigration?
But I may be putting the cart before the horse. Before we can have a humane, moral approach to immigration policy we have to first awaken those qualities in ourselves and extend them to our government.
Any number of polls and survey's show that while Americans embrace belief in God, they struggle mightily with applying moral vision to their lives and the lives of others.
Professor Alexander is right. We need a spiritual revolution to supplement the political revolution that created this country.
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@ drspock
Good idea but if I were you I would not wait for government action. I'm not aware of anything stopping you from writing a check to support a family or families in those countries.
3
Thank you, Michelle. This is a matter too often ignored by entitled Americans. Few have earned their status and, I am afraid, even fewer care. Just look at how casually they treat free elections - and look what they produced in 2016!
12
@RealTRUTH I like the comment in general but who has "earned" their status and how? Did they have no help from others or circumstances or luck?
The citizenship of united states is not a right. Fundamentally, it's a membership based on communal agreement at the national level along with other rules of laws.
If Ms. Alexander wants to renounce her own citizenship, she has perfect rights and means to do so. But it's appalling that she would advocate for abolishing country and borders for others. After all, we are not in the age of communism. Nor will people of this country ever want to.
68
"The deeper question raised isn’t whether our borders should be open or closed (generally a false dichotomy) but rather how we ought to manage immigration in a manner that honors the dignity, humanity and legitimate interests of all concerned."
How about asking prospective immigrants to apply in their home countries at U.S. embassies and consulates, after which time we vet them as per the immigration policies that are set by our elected representatives? If they meet the criteria that our democratically elected government has determined for immigration, then we can give them a card- let's call it, say, a green card- that will allow them to freely reside and work in the United States. We can further give them a path to citizenship after several years of green card status, after demonstrating their contribution to our society.
Would that sound reasonable, Ms. Alexander?
27
@Reacher And just how long would that take??!! Perhaps you should live in one of these countries people are fleeing from and then decide if waiting there for vetting is worth the price of possible dying. And your last statement shows you really missed the point of this column.
@Reacher Reacher, this suggestion is reasonable only in the abstract, as it overlooks the desperation, the threat to their very lives, that causes many to flee from their home countries. Many would die while waiting for U.S. cards.
1
Reacher (clever Childs riff) - as soon as we have a democratically elected government president who was not aided and abetted by enemy of state Russia, we can look at that. In the meantime, President Obama deported more illegal immigrants than any GOP president before him - but since immigration is top of mind for you, I am sure you knew that already.
2
Ms. Alexander is just regurgitating an intellectual exercise in which she posits questions and positions but provides little in answers, except for what behaviors are considered moral. If we were to follow that line of thought than the basic question, which Ms. Alexander ignores, is that of whether "national boundaries" are moral.
35
Just wait until climate change really kicks in, when standards of living are globally under pressure. Everyone can't be a refugee at the same time, so the rules will change. Moral? Perhaps not. Necessary for perserving pickets of civilization? Possibly.
10
@Tom, when Americans start having to move due to a world unsafe due to climate change. When the south is no longer habitable during hurricane seasons. When the Southwest becomes too hot, even with all the air conditioning money can buy? Will our neighbors to the north let in these needy Americans?
They have in the past. We’ll see if they do after our misadventures with our so-called leader.
This article does not argue that no one deserves citizenship or that everyone does - it's asking what right do people, who've inherited citizenship, have to deny others a chance to earn it. For all the comparisons to inherited wealth - her reasoning is not that heirs give their wealth away but that they don't debar others from earning their fair share.
9
EXCELLENT ESSAY. As a hispanic immigrant, I have a nuanced view of the immigration crisis. To explain it, let me tell you about myself, my experiences in my home country and our process for immigration.
First, I am a white hispanic. My family, and the community we lived in, was 100% European with blondes, white skin, redheads. (If I am honest, we look more Jewish than stereotypically Latin).
To survive 500 years in Latin America as a white enclave necessitated a willful racism. To be the minority-majority is to enjoy more than privilege. It's is to be an oppressor, something I saw first hand, and realized painfully and observantly, the way that only children can. That it was casually done, thoughtlessly done, did not make it less so: it was the reality of the experience I observed as a child. It pained me then and it pains me now.
When things got chaotic, my parents immigrated here. On a jet plane. With legal papers, courtesy of the fact that my extended family has teetered back and forth from the US for a century. That is called privilege.
It does not escape my notice that the majority of people fleeing undocumented into our borders are indigenous. The sort of people we oppress there, and now here, economically and with racism. The sort of people who were HERE IN THIS CONTINENT LONG BEFORE US.
Their plight sickens me. It is a scourge on the soul of an adopted country which I hoped represented better. It breaks my adult heart just as it did as a child.
18
@Gwe. Thank you.
US immigration policy is codified in law. The USA accepts as many immigrants as the law allows. Sure some highly skilled immigrants are granted special treatment. Most nations compete for the best talent.
T
Those immigrants who choose to circumvent all processes of legal entry into the USA are simply law breakers.
Reading this article makes me wonder if the author believes we are all citizens of the world.
I am in a third generation immigrant family. We came in through Ellis Island, except for a great grandfather who was sick and promptly sent back to Ireland. But we came in legally.
We are as American as any other natural born or legal immigrant.
When there are no border controls one can expect your country to devolve to its lowest form of functioning.
40
It's quite possible, taking into account the author's reasoning, that SHE does not deserve citizenship.
But those who sacrificed for, fought for, or otherwise contributed greatly to our country are certainly more entitled to citizenship that those who try to enter our country illegally.
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@James
What does “legally” even mean? Oh, the first to reach these shores when there was no legal system, set up a legal system that determines who else should be allowed to enter. And what is the moral basis for that determination?
1
@James
The author's husband is a US Attorney, and the author herself is an attorney who clerked for a Supreme Court justice. You'd think our laws would have some bearing on her opinions.
4
@kwb The article is about the moral basis and consequences of the law. Laws are just what we (well Congress, the President and the Judicial branch) decide what they are going to be. AS citizens we a duty bound to obey, and enforce the law, AND to pursue political activities to change them when they seem to conflict with our personal morals and beliefs.
I think the author knows this - and I think her husbands profession is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT in this discussion.
2
Citizenship is based on the notion that its basis, usually birth, forms a connection on which the nation can rely for loyalty and commitment, while demanding duty, such as military service in times of a draft, and taxes at all times. You may not have earned these attributes of citizenship but, if you are a citizen, they exist. The same can not be said for someone who is present here for reasons of their own design.
29
@David Anderson
The same cannot be said even for people who were born in the U.S. We have a president who brags about not paying taxes, and the people who voted for him don’t seem to mind. But the real point is that the Pilgrams came to this land to avoid persecution; why is it moral to deny others that same refuge?
7
Even if America became rich and powerful solely through legitimate means (I’d say it mostly, but not solely, did), it is profoundly disturbing that people’s life outcomes today depend far more on what country they are born in than their individual qualities. We have an inheritance tax even on fortunes that are legitimately earned because we see that there is a problem when people’s wealth is based more on inheritance rather than their own efforts. Well, American citizenship is an asset we inherit that is surely worth at least a million dollars (there is a line of people willing to pay that much for an EB-5 visa). We should expand the pool of people who qualify as long as it doesn’t create unreasonable costs for ourselves. Otherwise, we act like an entrenched global aristocracy, and in a more interconnected world this will be just as destabilizing as a situation where the richest 5% of Americans mostly get there through inheritance and there is almost no upwards mobility for the remaining 95%. I don’t mind inequality of outcome if there is equality of opportunity, but there is no equality of opportunity in the world today because where you can live and work depends almost entirely on what citizenship you were born with.
6
What moral right do people who are born wealthy have to keep that wealth?
Shouldn't the previous generation's excess be distributed to the needy rather than concentrated among the few?
Seems like the same argument to me. I like it as it applies to money. Go forth and make it popular, Ms. Alexander.
11
@Wolf
That’s your argument, not her’s. Anyway, nobody is arguing that wealth should be generated to give to the “needy.” Estate taxes should reduce the generational wealth needed for an aristocracy. And those taxes should benefit all community members. After all, the wealth would not exist without the participation (through purchases) of the community.
1
@Wolf
And you're planning to take it from them ... how?
While I support a reformed immigration policy that is more generous and humane, this article will not serve that purpose. Alexander's sloppy reasoning centers on the point that, since we were not present at the founding of the Republic, our citizenship status is dubious. Hence, everyone who wants it should be eligible for citizenship.
If a family member gave her the family farm should that be an invitation for neighbors to move in, on the grounds that she did not earn the farm herself?
Alexander is bumping up against the exclusionary nature of national citizenship.
49
@Killoran In a country where all available land is already divided among each existing farms (just like all land in the world is divided among existing countries), and there are no jobs outside farming (just like you need citizenship or a work permit to get a job), it is indeed a problem when farms are mainly acquired by inheritance. There are many countries throughout history that fell into civil war because all the land was passed down by inheritance and people without an inheritance or only a small poor one were out of luck. The right to pass down a family farm presupposes that other people have the ability to settle a new frontier or get a job in the city, but there’s no more frontier and jobs in the city are conditional on your citizenship too.
2
@Aoy" it is indeed a problem when farms are mainly acquired by inheritance."
That's a good point, but Alexander didn't really make this argument, i.e., her claim was that citizenship is grounded in illegitimacy, irrespective of social or economic conditions.
@Killoran
No, there is no analogue to citizenship. The farm example is useless. The point is that you haven’t done anything to earn citizenship, and neither did the Pilgrims. So what is the moral basis on which you deny refuge to others?
1
Beautiful article! Inspiring and hopeful.
8
What right do the people already in a lifeboat that is filled to capacity have to their place in the lifeboat when multiples more are drowning around them? Can the lifeboat hold more without sinking? Will those who are drowning be saved if they swamp the lifeboat? We can help them build more lifeboats in their own countries but we cannot let them all in our own without the lifeboat sinking so there is your answer.
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@GregP
U.S. citizens are not in a “lifeboat.”
2
Our boat is not sinking.
4
@Natural Historian
If you do, in fact, know anything about natural history, you know that our entire planet in sinking under the load of overpopulation. The natural world is in sharp decline. Civilization as we know it is in peril. We are sinking. I give it about a hundred years. Our few descendants will be clinging to the flotsam and jetsam from our foundered vessel.
1
I suspect my comment will be unpopular with both parties, but here goes:
Many states need an influx of immigrants, lower skilled and highly skilled, and that influx will contribute to a net positive impact fiscally for that state. But for other states, already with a high proportion of low income, lower educated workers-immigration is too much of a drain on their budgets. I believe immigration should be allowed with targeted destinations only. That means new immigrants would be directed to states where increasing immigration will be a net positive fiscally. That means that states that are already overburdened with low income workers, and public schools and supportive services are overloaded, would not receive new immigrants. But under-populated states, and other states with ample room in their supportive services budget, would accept new immigrants.
Liberals will not like the solution because families would be divided or need to move to the new state to stay together.
Republicans on the alt-right won't like it because many don't want to see more black and brown people period, even when there is a net positive fiscal contribution.
This Wharton budget model is the best explanation I have seen about the net positives and net negatives of immigration - http://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-effects-of-immigration-on-the-united-states-economy.
Now, start shouting at me...
13
@common sense advocate
Without shouting, please note that there are very few people on the ‘alt-right’ despite what a media disinformation campaign may have told you. And even fewer of those are Republicans.
Some would prefer fewer ‘brown’ people but most would simply prefer that those who immigrate to this country do so within the legal framework this nation has established and not just walk in or overstay a travel visa. You can include non-brown Canadians and Irish, for example, among those who need to leave if they’re here illegally.
Why Democrats enable and encourage illegal immigration through sanctuary city policies is another question entirely.
14
@common sense advocate I take issue with the 'net positive' argument. Even when there is a net positive, the people who gain are not the same as the people who pay or who are negatively effected. Here, Greenwich gets cheap housekeepers, caregivers, tradespeople and landscapers while Stamford gets crowded schools, increasing property taxes, illegal housing, 'social clubs', day labor pick up areas and yes, any associated crime. Illegal immigration serves those who already win and drags down those who were losing or trying their best to stay the course.
11
EGD, President Obama deported more illegal immigrants than any president, Republican or Democrat, before him - without locking babies and children in wire cages. And my proposal is a different approach to legal immigration, not illegal immigration. Last, I'm glad to hear you are not prejudiced against people of color, but Trump actively courted racists in order to get elected - because he didn't have the numbers he needed from rank and file tax cut/deregulation GOP voters.
1
Thank you to Michelle Alexander for writing this important opinion piece. Thank you also to every one who took the time to express your own opinions. I found this to be a fascinating discussion. We need to have this discussion on a national scale. We need thoughtful decisions on a very complex topic. Personally I feel my life and the lives of my children and grandchildren are more threatened by climate degradation than by undocumented immigrants.
12
I marvel at an 8-months pregnant woman who sets out on such a harrowing journey, scales a wall and gives birth on American soil. At that stage of pregnancy, I waddled through my normal activities with one goal in mind: make it though the day and get home to put my feet up!
My four Irish grandparents came here “legally” as my mother brings up often. Since she is of very advanced years, I leave her with her pride in that belief and do not point out that at the time there were no immigration laws affecting European immigration. Certain Asians were excluded, as were persons with diseases, anarchists, the insane, the illiterate and criminals. Only 1% of the 25 million immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island between 1880 and World War I were sent back.
From poverty in Ireland to success in America including home ownership and well-educated children took 25 years of exhausting and constant struggle and sacrifice, but they made it. When they were naturalized, they had earned it with blood, sweat and tears, not to mention the worry over four sons, including my father, who went off to fight for their new country in WWII.
My parents? Me? We did nothing. We inherited this privilege of citizenship from my grandparents. Given their courage and bone-wearying sacrifice, I agree it was theirs to pass down. I am a citizenship heiress!
This mother trudging endless miles and scaling a wall might have come in legally if we weren’t blocking the ports of entry. Her son? I welcome him.
243
Ms Stasia:
Thanks for your powerful and personal reflections, and humility. My only worry about the framing of Michelle Alexander’s and your point of view concerns the term “deserve.”
While it’s objectively true that NO ONE - at birth - deserves citizenship, my own belief is that we do or do not merit it by our actions and behavior - to both support and expand the ideals and civic culture of our nation. Show up, understand and defend the rights of others, engage in debate - and also consider that you are unlikely to have the sole correct opinion or response.
True, a newly arrived migrant has had no chance to show her or his willingness to so support our democratic responsibilities. Yet we should be welcoming those fleeing oppression and violence, especially at the hands of repressive governments. These newcomers are the most likely to celebrate the generosity and freedoms that we longer-term residents can take for granted; they are most likely to contribute to their maintenance, and so encourage us to renew our pledges and responsibilities to be worthy of our citizenship.
17
@Joanna Stasia NYC My family too were Irish members of the “poor and huddling masses” and as a descendant I benefit from the opportunities they took advantage of. The laws - or lack of laws - they had to follow were a reflection of the US need at that time for workers to expand the economy. Those circumstances have changed. The notion that this country can afford to extend unlimited priviledge to the world’s masses without significant sacrifice is irresponsible and false. What are you willing to give up to open the borders as the author describes? Your car? The fresh food on your table? Your children’s education? Your clean water? That was pretty much the situation in Ireland when my ancestors left....
14
As an USN veteran, 1975-1991, I do feel that I’ve ‘earned’ my citizenship-and although I do admire their determination, perhaps you should invite them into your home/pay for their stay here.
10
A good way to counter this argument is to make resources explicitly zero sum. It's coming down to that anyway, we can't print money forever. Then citizens who receive government benifits will become strong advocates for secure borders. And given the prominace of identity politics today it would not be hard to draw race into the matter.
I'd rather have a wall.
13
But it's not a zero sum game at all, @Brian.
Setting aside the compassion/ humanity argument made by the author of this piece, the assumption by many of the conservative commenters on this post is that every immigrant and refugee who arrives in this country is a taker. Their presence in this country means less for you and me.
Ironically - this argument cannot be further from the truth: immigration is growing the pie, not taking slices out of it. Immigration equals population growth, and population growth drives the economy. Every immigrant that arrives in this country immediately becomes a resource for labor and a consumer of goods. Those are the cold hard facts. (Never mind the fact that this country hardly has a social safety net to be exploited, even by Americans.)
It is the strength of our institutions which determine whether immigrants integrate and succeed in America - a determining factor in the success for us all. If we continue to neglect those institutions and blame newcomers for the failures of our nation... you get the country you deserve, I suppose.
Ms Alexander writes with conviction and empathy. Her excellent book, "The New Jim Crow," made me question my understanding of the impact of the drug laws on black urban America. Her thesis was right; the laws have proven to be a disaster.
That said, Ms Alexander's contention that none of us born into our country deserves citizenship any more than the illegal immigrants may be moral, but is hopelessly naive. Couching her contention in the history of our founding documents and founding ancestors as hypocritical to open borders is a guilt trip that doesn't work.
As a sentient, empathetic person, Ms Alexander is morally right to express her outrage that the Honduran caravan is not welcomed by the US. Yes, our country was founded upon an idea and defined by laws. Yes, those imperfect white men and their 19th century followers did conquer the indigenous peoples of this continent. They also either countenanced slavery (up until the Civil War) or practiced it. That is historical reality.
They were characteristic of their historical context. That may not wash for the morals of today, but it was the norm of their times.
Today, our country has evolved into an imperfect nation, run by imperfect politicians not leaders, and populated by an imperfect people. But in the current geo political context of our time, border controls are necessary and just. Should the poor of Central America wish to enter the US according to the current immigration laws, they are able to do so.
7
@TDurk
I too learned much from Ms. Alexander's excellent work The New Jim Crow.
This thoughtful article on immigration is in the spirit of that work, reflecting (as you say) the "imperfect" evolution of our country and the laudable moral principles which we have historically professed.
It seems to me you misapprehend Ms. Alexander's point. Nowhere does she suggest that we should not have necessary and just border controls.
Her point is that the present laws and policies are inadequate, poorly conceived, and unjust, and our attitudes about immigration are both mindless and heartless.
Trump's stupid policy of build a wall and keep everybody out is attractive to some because it makes immigration policy easy to understand, and his characterization of these people as criminals and rapists is both bigoted and absurd.
In many areas, immigrants would be beneficial.
Ms. Alexander's point seems to me to be that we need immigration laws and policies that reflect both our history and the moral principles we have long professed - that is, who we are - meet our social and economic needs, and reflect compassion and justice toward genuine refugees and those seeking to make this their home.
Also, for the past 75 - 100 years, our policies and "interventions" in Central America have contributed significantly to the barbaric rule and criminal violence from which many who approach our southern border are seeking refuge. We should recognize a degree of responsibility.
1
What really drives illegal immigration is not our immigration policy. It is the prospects of successful illegal crossing. A study done by the DHS indicates that about half who try to cross are successful. And the chances improve for those who can afford a guide.
The odds of successful entry are what determines the numbers who attempt to cross illegally. The process is less about legal rights and more about the prospects of success. As long as there is a reasonable chance of successful crossing, those living in abject poverty will continue to come. And the numbers show that millions have successfully crossed. No other country hosts as many illegal immigrants.
22
Thank you for so soberly articulating what I've been thinking and feeling for years. Those so-called nativists in the US, receiving birthright citizenship just because their European ancestors moved in and squatted on North American soil (the "I touch it's mine" kind of nation building), birthed just enough in the way of anchor babies to displace first Nations people, don't deserve citizenship any more than anyoneelse. The closer one is to a refugee ancestor, the more likely (I hope) one is to feel compassion for those who risk all to cross the line separating hope from fear, safety from danger, compassion from callous distain.
9
Morality can and should inform policy but moral absolutism as a prescription for policy, however well-intentioned at the start, invariably ends poorly as unintended consequences pile up. We are moral creatures, but also social ones for whom a sense of cohesion is important. Indeed, many problems in the USA seem to stem from a lack of cohesion. As uncomfortable a reality as it may be to admit, even liberals have a line as to how much immigration is too much. To pretend otherwise is to confirm the worst suspicions of the worst of the Trumpists.
5
I guess Ms Alexander is saying she doesn't "deserve" her US citizenship.
If so, Ms Alexander must be an example and lead the way, doing the right thing: she must present herself before a Consular official of the United States of America and return it.
I'm sure someone else will want it.
61
@Gandolf the White
That’s not how citizenship works, but I’m sure that you know that.
@Gandolf the White - yes, she is saying she doesn't "deserve" her citizenship. Ever heard the expression "there but for the grace of God go I"?
Reflect.
@scsmits. Actually, you can renounce your citizenship. It’s not transferable.
3
I remember when the United States of America turned its back on six million people who were doomed to die.
Has anyone kept a count of the number of people yearning to be free we've turned our backs on since then?
5
@Rea Tarr
Who are you referring to?
@Rea Tarr: even as a Jew who lost family in the Holocaust ... that is unfair and ridiculous.
FDR did turn away a ship loaded with Jewish refugees, which then had to take them back to Nazi Germany, where they all were killed. A horrible incident.
But until after the war, nobody really knew the extent of the Nazi death camps. My uncle was among those soldiers who helped liberate the camps, and I have the photos he took of them. Those soldiers, some of them Jewish Americans, were profoundly shocked at what they saw -- the world did not know, not yet.
In any event, the US of 1940 could not have taken in ALL six million Jews -- it would have been impossible. They COULD have taken in those who presented as true refugees from Hitler's Nazi party, as they had reasonable evidence of religious persecution (*unlike the despicable criminal Maryury Serrano Hernandez) but Germany was a heck of a lot further away than Central America and across a vast ocean. There was no "walking here in a peaceful caravan provided with food and diapers" in 1940.
A different world and a different situation.
5
@Rea Tarr
No, the US and several other nations turned away a ship with a small number of refugees.
If this nation knew six million Jews were to be murdered by the Nazis, we certainly would have accepted those refugees and millions more.
1
Michelle: You could have simply said that we should be more compassionate about the plight of some of those who are trying to enter our country. We did not need a self-flagellatory column about how immoral we are when we insist on enforcing our immigration laws.
71
@Jay Orchard
She’s an intellectual and a columnist because she doesn’t need to ask anyone what “we did not need”.
2
Anyone who does not have at least some Native American blood is an illegal alien in America.
Not all the distorted stories about how most of our ancestors got here, nor the self-congratulating claims of having earned our citizenship, nor the implied or overt insistence on racial superiority, nor the deep insecurity and hatred motivating so-called nationalists, can change that fact.
It’s long past time for a little humility, empathy, and common sense in building a home of which we can all be proud and in which we are all respected.
4
I’m an atheist raised Christian, but when talking to my overwhelmingly right wing and Christian friends I always ask the same question: which are more important, the laws of the USA or the teachings of the Lord? Do you sacrifice the comfort of your home, community and country with some extra crowding and ancillary (primarily positive) effects of liberal immigration policies in order to provide food, shelter, safety and education to children living in poverty and fear with little hope for a better future? What is your argument at the Pearly Gates for denying a child a future or a mother a safe neighborhood (not to mention a father)? Nobody seriously argues for open borders but surely, when you put the racism aside, we can do better. After all, even if your life on this earth gets harder, you have an eternity to relish your good deeds in heaven. For me, making a person’s life, even if we only have one, especially if we only have one, hopeful, safer and joyful is worth a little risk and discomfort.
4
Thank you so much for this essay, Ms. Alexander. We have created a lot of the upheaval that causes people to leave their homes. But we won’t take responsibility, any more than we take responsibility for our genocide of Native Americans and our enslavement of Africans. We today act as if we’re an innocent country, that only does good in the world. Poor us, claims Trump. We repeatedly forget history. Our bombing Iraq, for example, lead to the destabilization of the Middle East. Our policies in Central America are atrocious. We must take responsibility for who we are and what we’ve done.
5
Examine your own history before condemning folks, my own father was an anchor baby in 1923 in Little Italy. Born 10 months
After my grandparents arrived because Italians were undesirables and the law was changed to limit emigration. Some things never change.
3
[Answering these questions may be easy legally, but they’re more difficult morally. After all, none of us born here did anything to deserve our citizenship. On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?]
The recognition of a person as a citizen of any country is a legal construct. It is not earned by anyone. And it is not morally based, if it were then you would not have had this:
+ The Naturalization Act of 1790 that allowed only a European that was a "free white person" to become a citizen.
+ In 1870 the law was amended to include "persons of African descent"
+ In the early 1920s, the Supreme Court "clarified" the meaning of the phrase "free white persons," ruling that ethnically Japanese, Indian, and other non-European people were not "white persons", and were therefore ineligible for naturalization under U.S. law. In that year it also finally bestowed citizenship for American Indians.
+ The Immigration Act of 1924 aimed at further decreasing immigration of specifically Italians and Eastern European Jews, though it also targeted other Southern and Eastern Europeans, including Greeks, Poles, and Slavs in general. To enforce it it set up "quotas" for each country.
Today, we still have a quota system whereby each country is allocated a spot based on rules that are "fluid".
Ms Alexander's argument is compelling but when it comes to the morality of earning citizenship, that's largely absent.
3
Whoa! Why is EVERYTHING these days considered a human “right!” Everything is decidedly not a right.
And everyone is NOT created equally. Just look around you and I would venture to say that no two people on earth are equal. Even identical twins are not equal in everything.
But... people are equal under the LAW. We are a country (and supposedly a world) of laws. And the same laws that give us equality in some things require us to obey the law to keep that. Those laws do not provide for open borders. Millions upon millions have entered the USA over centuries by following our laws and applying for entry. It worked before when people were fleeing unbelievable brutality in European wars and it can work now. But oh no! Now it’s a “right” to justify total disregard for immigration law.
Instead of a wall, I would spend the money increasing immigration application processing centers, both physical buildings and online, 50 fold so decisions could be made in days to weeks instead of months to years. Then there would be no excuse for breaking immigration law. And those that do enter legally will never have to worry about that unexpected “knock at the door” or suffer at the hands of unscrupulous employers who threaten to call the INS as leverage for low wages etc.
6
What did I do to deserve having been born healthy? After all, there are millions of babies who are born with life-threatening genetic disorders, who will never walk, or talk, or be smart enough to get a PhD. So should I maim myself to even the odds? The moral absolutism of this article is as scary as it is (fortunately) impractical. Nation states are not moral entities, nor should they be. They exist for the purpose of providing their citizens with legal and military protection, and more broadly, with a sense of belonging and shared destiny. Who may be a citizen is a complicated question but it is regulated by cultural mores and practical considerations, not by abstract moral discourse that always has the tendency to mutate into extremism, intolerance and violence. The US today is not the US of the 1900s when the country needed people. Today we cannot afford accepting immigrants on the basis of morality rather than legality. Morally speaking, it is at least arguable that a mother of 8 children has a better claim than a highly qualified single scientist. But privileging her claim over his is tantamount to forcing me to break my legs to “atone” for the fact that I won the genetic lottery.
28
@Mor
Yes, always use a basis for citizenship that favors yourself.
I am troubled by some of the comments to this piece.
Absent is any compassion for fellow citizens of this planet, of which we all are. That should be the focus first and foremost.
Of course we cannot have open boarders and allowing someone entry to our country has to have controls.
The basis for those controls however should not be racist, alarmist or self-righteousness.
The plight of some of the people seeking entry to our country can be attributed to our foreign policy or lack of it where they are seeking to leave. How we as a nation cannot consider that is wrong.
Resources should be applied to deal with the plight of people seeking entry, rather then walls, troops and hysteria.
We should not be guided by a myopic leader who hides behind walls.
4
I deserve my citizenship because I obeyed the law. Activists for illegal migrants believe even criminal aliens deserve to stay here in the USA and gain citizenship. Alexander advocates for a policy based on nothing, to let anyone in just because. That's not good enough for a civilized nation state.
Effectively, we do have open borders. Just say the word "asylum" and you are in, and most likely will stay for the rest of your life, with a good attorney.
6
Why not give everyone who crosses our open borders a million dollars, too, to help ease their burdens.
I'm not for a wall, but I'm for legal immigration where everyone is subject to the same basic rules. But someone has to be a sane adult on this issue.
It's one thing to be caring to the extant one can reasonably be, and quite another to believe we can solve all the world's problems by letting in whomever wishes to come.
There are hundreds of millions of people around the world that are poor, don't have enough to eat, don't have jobs, live under tyranny, or under the threat of violence or war, etc.
We can't throw open our door to any who wants in, we can't take proper care of the poor who live here now and are already citizens.
The US, like every other nation, has a right to know who enters, and the right to have rules and laws for doing so.
The whole process should be orderly, and as fair and practical as possible, but it can't be based on the good hearted fool approach of this columnist.
15
I would argue that US is obliged to invade all these countries that send political/financial refugees and impose US laws, economy, culture, develoment, lawns, malls etc ... no one should have to take a harrowing trip to enjoy what is rightfully theirs.
6
People of color need to remember at all times that their ancestors were literally dragged to the Western Hemisphere either before or during the existence of the USA. And once here, enslaved until they were given the opportunity to fight for the Union and help destroy the slave power. We owe the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the struggle of newly freed black people to enfranchise themselves. No one among us is more qualified to discuss this citizenship and enfranchisement issue as Alexander has done with great tact and consideration.
3
Way to elect Republicans, Michelle. Which side of the border one is born on does not negate borders. If Dems aren't willing to defend borders, they will not be put in charge of defending them.
10
Some of you say the world's poor don't have an automatic right to move here and 'be supported by taxpayer funds'.
Do you not realize that
a) the world's poor are moving here IN ORDER TO WORK and therefore increase the tax base?
b) Affluent people rarely want or need to move in the first place, so the entire European population of the New World was formed by people fleeing poverty and persecution?
Perhaps none of you have examined your own family histories in enough detail. Shame.
1
The idea of waiting your turn in line is as so ancient as to not require explanation. You could not cut in from of Ms Alexander at the deli without her making a ruckus.
The people waiting in a tent enclave to cross the border illegally into the US, upon returning to their sleeping bag and gallon of water after perhaps a day of hopeful protest, expect their simple things to be there waiting for them unmolested, and their simple space empty, ready for them to occupy it for the night.
Such is the same for a nation, with greater considerations. When you have to explain this to someone who is forcefully adamant to have some of your spot and your space, it does boggle the mind.
16
American citizenship has always been a category of exclusion—it was intended by the founding fathers to exclude and it is now being used to exclude. Alexander is not arguing for immediate open borders, but she IS pointing out the problem with using citizenship as a moral category—as if it makes one person more deserving than another—and this is what happens over and over in American discourse. Even liberals seem to have a special lament for those times when the Trump administration has violated the rights of a US citizen as opposed to an undocumented person—as if this is somehow an even more depraved transgression. The point is to preserve for everyone equally the space that we reserve for the concept of human dignity. That is difficult work and it does imply radical change, but isn’t it worth it?
2
I would much prefer to live among people like Ms. Serrano-Hernandez, who risked everything to help her family -- the cream of the motivational crop -- than among entitled brats like the Trumps, whose position is based entirely on the blood, sweat and tears to a father or grandfather, or great-grandmother and great-grandfather. Or, for that matter, among less privileged and entitled native born Americans who wouldn't deign to do the work many undocumented workers do for us, who themselves benefit from social welfare programs (maybe legitimately, maybe not), and who tell stories about hardworking undocumented and documented immigrants being burdens on taxpayers (with both these groups, for different reasons, unlikely to be carrying much of our tax burden), despite all of the facts gathered and presented and available over decades. Those who choose to demonize entire groups on the basis of the behavior of the few, but would complain if anyone demonized them on the basis of the behavior of a majority of them. Citizenship, like wealth, in most cases, is an accident of birth. There's no evidence that the Walton kids, or the Koch kids, or the Devos kids, or Mnuchin, or the Kushner kids or the Trump kids would have achieved anything without their parents and grandparents achievements - and in the case of Kushner (and Mnuchin and Trump, for that matter), grandparents who would not be admitted to this country under the standards that daddy-in-law now demands.
6
This article is so deeply confused that it is difficult to unwind it.
Here's the problem:
From the fact that none of us "deserve" our citizenship, it does not follow that citizenship may be assigned to anyone. Broadly, we do not deserve many of our personal advantages, such as good looks, intelligence, or wise parents. They are arbitrary. A matter of luck. But these attributes are still ours and not someone else's.
For instance, from the fact that I did not deserve the upbringing I received from the wonderful parents I happened to be born to, it does not follow that my parents may be assigned to other children. Or, that other children have a right to move into my house and have my parents bring them up.
Granted, my good parents are an advantage that is entirely undeserved. But the reallocation of my parents does not follow from my lack of desert.
So, too, with many other things that are undeserved but are nevertheless attributes that we have and others do not have. I suspect that citizenship or residency in an advantaged place may be one of them.
Whether it is wise and good to allow us to retain advantages and the fruits of those advantages must follow from some other principles that the author is unable to identify.
'Nuf for now....
13
The article makes some good points though I think that as a practical matter immigration must be well-managed for all sorts of obvious reasons. What troubles me, however, is the anti-immigrant arguments posed by most of the commentators here that make the implicit assumption that immigrants will perpetually be “takers” and this will overwhelm any hope of continuing the welfare state. This seems ridiculous to me. All of us are from immigrant stock and we are relentlessly paying taxes; there is no reason to think that new immigrants will not achieve the same status in a few generations or less. In fact, in Philadelphia immigrants from Mexico, China,Vietnam, India and countless other corners of the globe have completely revitalized many parts of our city that were slinking slowly or rapidly over the last few decades; they are working, employing others, and paying taxes and far from burdening the welfare state, they are generally more likely to take care of their own people than those of us who have totally melted into the American mainstream. Also, I might add that the idea that educating our people, including new arrivals, is a “burden” is utterly preposterous; the experience of centuries proves that education is an essential investment that pays off in major ways.
4
Two generations of my family fought and bled for this country.
Go away.
17
@manta666
Only two?
What nonsense. My Ukrainian grandfather came to this country LEGALLY and worked on a farm in upstate NY for 20 years, sending for his family after he had saved the money. My great-grandparents didn’t travel from the Ukraine and Ireland and illegally enter the country for the express purpose of delivering a child on US soil so as to make it a citizen.
Yes, I deserve citizenship. My family worked extremely hard for that right.
244
@Mike - most likely the legal door your grandfather came through is closed now. Also, it probably was always only open to white European immigrants to begin with. You cannot equate the opportunity your grandfather had with what is available to a Central American migrant because the Central American migrant doesn’t have the same options available to your grandfather and probably never did.
65
@Jason you clearly have no idea of the hurdles crossed by those who came here from places like the Ukraine and Ireland 100 years ago.
Did you ever hear the term "Irish need not apply."? We have never been a nation that welcomed immigrants. Each new wave finds resistance and pays a price. A visit to Ellis Island is a real eye opener.
26
@Jason oh, you mean life isn't fair? Well knock me over with a feather!
First of all, my grandfather wrote extensively about the trips my great-grandfather took to Kyiv (as he writes it) to get his travel documents to come to the US. This Central American "migrant" has plenty more opportunities to get into this country than my great-grandfather - he had one: legally, across the Atlantic Ocean, papers in hand. He couldn't simply get my great-grandmother pregnant and push her over a wall at 9 months.
Furthermore, it makes absolutely no difference whether the avenue available to him is still there or not. Heroin was once available in the Sears-Roebuck catalog. It's different now. But to say I have no MORAL right to find his woman's actions offensive is absurd. My great-grandfather worked and saved for YEARS, legally, in this country before he could even bring his family here. And his son, my grandfather, joined the Marines at 17 and went off to the Korean War, then came home and put 4 kids through college. One of those kids, my mother, worked extremely hard to be the snot-nosed brat that I am, living in a beautiful home with a great job, a wonderful family, and more indulgence than anyone could ever ask for. And I worked my behind off to get where I am.
So don't tell me I don't morally deserve citizenship in the country my family has lived, worked, contributed to and paid taxes in for going on 100 years. I certainly don't "deserve" Guatemalan citizenship.
31
The immigration debate desperately needs the introduction of hard facts and historical perspective. Too much of the debate is driven by hyberole, unhinged almarmism, ignorance and plain xenophobia.
During the Mexican Revolution of 1910, most of my ancestors fled the violence in their homeland and settled in West Texas. They were among hundreds of thousands war refugees.
The border then was truly wide open. The Border Patrol wasn't created until 1924.
Most of my family were comfortably set in Mexico as business owners and ranchers. The sense of peril, however, was too great.
They and their descendants all went on to success as business owners, professionals and became citizens.
Immigration is mostly an economic phenomenon, and not a political or police problem as we exclusively treat it.
Immigrants will come if their are economic opportunities for them.
There is a major contradiction, however, border cops work to stop the immigrants. But if they manage to escape detention they will find work and economic betterment.
They will settle in to lives in many ways similar to those of legal residents.
Thus, why the alarmist talk of an invasion?
The alarm is over one thing: the steady browning of America.
Finally, during my years in Mexico, I learned an important truth. The would-be-immigrant is the exception.
Mexicans typically love their country and would not trade it for uncertain futures in an increasingly hostile land to the north.
4
What ever happened to this: https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html
Here's the relevant quote: You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
No one asks to be born poor, hungry, or in a country where having a good life is next to impossible. To criminalize the attempt to seek a better life is the height of foolishness. After all, many of our ancestors emigrated here for the very same reasons people are trying to come here now.
6
.
@hen3ry, get current. Some of our ancestors came to the US in shackles in slave ships.
So because our ancestors did it is no reason to repeat it 100s of yrs later
.
2
Thanks, Michelle. I have often wondered what would upper middle class parents do if a law were passed that said their each of their children born here would have to be switched with a child born somewhere else, say Eastern Europe or Africa? Being born in America is like winning the lottery. Being born middle class and white in America is different from being born middle class and white in France or Lithuania. Once Americans recognize how lucky they were to born here, maybe they'll stop thinking that all that this country offers them is a right. Perhaps it's best to think of being born here as a gift, and especially this Christmas season, we all know how valuable giving is, especially when the gift is a child.
4
I believe that the word “deserve” is a dangerous one that is best used more carefully than it is in this op-ed. I believe that the founding fathers articulated that each human being is entitled, by definition, to the opportunity to pursue happiness - to the extent that it does not infringe on the same entitlement afforded to other human beings. The benefits of the lifestyle that United States Citizens enjoy are not an automatic entitlement of all human beings by birth; they are the result of adhering and contributing to the greater good of our nation by following the laws as they exist and exercising the patient and peaceful process defined for reforming those laws as the majority sees fit. It is conveniently simplistic and irresponsible to assume that any human being who is discontented - and indeed may be suffering - and wants to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship, “deserves to” regardless of their willingness to follow United States immigration processes as they exist. There is a reason for this and that is that without due process there will eventually be no benefits left for anyone to “deserve”.
13
"Statue" of Liberty. Although given the context, maybe "Statute" of Liberty is more appropriate.
3
Most of us are raised by a parent or two who give us benefits we have not earned. No one says because we did not earn those benefits we have no more rights to special treatment than anyone else; our parents should care equally for any child who shows up at their door. Occasionally a family adopts a child and often we give charity for the needy but no one says it is the obligation of families to welcome every child and fully incorporate them into our families. Has Ms. Alexander lived her life sharing every thing she and her family has with everyone who shows up in need.
15
"On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
Yes - the idea of citizenship is immoral because it arbitrarily excludes people. The idea of countries is also immoral.
But the arguments for not granting everyone citizensip aren't moral - they're pragmatic. Everyone can't be a US citizen - if that was the case then the country wouldn't function, or at least it wouldn't function as well as it does.
We need robust legal processes through which people can immgrate or request asylum. But advocating for granting citizenship to anyone who wants it "because it's morally correct" is not a good option.
In the future perhaps borders will dissolve, mankind will unite, and we'll have no need for countries or citizenship. It ain't the future yet, though.
12
Ms. Maryury Elizabeth Serrano-Hernandez has exhibited more courage and love for her children than nearly anyone I have known.
I have lived well and responsibly and love my children and grandchildren deeply. I served 3 years in the US Army andI have never had to make a sacrifice as profound as hers.
Shame on every American who enables the current cruelty and callous rejection of these desperate women, children and men. The GOP controlled House just voted for nearly $6 billion in border vigilance. A nation with a heart and soul would appropriate that sum and more to open our hearts to people who yearn for the freedom we take for granted - or abuse - every day.
5
As the great economist Milton Friedman once said, "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state."
As a liberal, I long for universal health care, free quality preschool education, free access to community colleges, and free access to minimal public housing. If we threw open our borders, none of that would be possible. Billions of people, and I mean that literally, would stream across our border in search of those benefits.
33
@Netwit
The solution to that problem is to stop demanding that all of the other countries drop their social safety nets to give massive tax cuts to global corporations.
If the other countries had universal healthcare, free education, and decent infrastructure, and were not ruled by right wing thugs that we support with military and coverrt action, for example All Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, then people would not have a reason to leave the land of their birth.
We export Supply Side Economics, backed by military aid, and support for state terror by paramilitaries that operate with impunity, then wonder why people leave their country to come to the home of the global corpoate empire.
These caravans come from the capitalist "success" stories in Central America, that have done exactly what we forced them to do: impoverish the People on behalf of global corporations.
If we keep following Republican economics, soon caravans will be heading north from the U.S., because supply side fails.
Yes the borders should be enforced. However, we must end the drug war, which pokes it full of holes, stop demanding other countries abuse workers for corporate profit, stop supporting state terror by our allies (many of our allies kill journalists, labor, and human rights activists routinely, for example), make legal immigration much faster and less frustrating while thoroughly sorting out bad actors, encourage U.S. capital to stay not leave, and give all workers the same strong protections.
1
We "earn" our citizenship in the US by bearing the responsibilities that citizenship implies. The most basic is participation in the institutions of democracy - becoming educated and voting, for example. Beyond that, actively organizing, paying taxes, fighting in the armed services, etc. are further responsibilities that endow us with true citizenship. Just being born here is an accident, belief in the system and participation in its institutions is what makes us citizens and what gives the best of those institutions a chance to thrive.
7
@mijosc
Yes, freedom is both a right and a responsibility.
Freedom is something we have to protect for others so they can protect it for us.
Being a citizen of a Democratic Republic requires that all citizens take time from their lives to help govern, to track what their government does, and hold them accountable for doing the right thing.
Every time We the People get comfortable, we get lazy, and soon out government is being hijacked and the law and law enforcement being used against us.
The biggest problem citizens have today is not the immigrants coming in but the productive capital flowing out.
Global corporations are looting or nation, shipping our machinery and raw materials out as fast as they can.
Last year the Republicans gave corporations that move their operations out out the USA a 10% tax rate, which is half the the 20% rate for profits earned in the USA. This is a another subsidy for exporting jobs.
All three branches of government have spent 130 years elevating corporations from fictitious persons intended to serve us to People with the rights of Citizens. The real drain on human U.S. citizens is not powerless immigrants but the usurpation of the power of We the People by corporations we chartered to benefit us, not replace us.
The right has been hoodwinked into believing that the poor steal all of the money. That is mathematically impossible. The people who stole the money are the people that have the money, the global .1%.
Govern your Republic
@McGloin: First of all, I'm absolutely NOT talking about freedom. I'm talking about a construct that, in order to work, requires active participation by its "members".
I happen to be for open borders. But I also believe that people have to be trained, literally, to be part of a liberal democracy.
And as much as the US and other western powers failed to empower the people they have been exploiting these past 500 years, it is just as true that the lands the west colonized and exploited had their own traditions and were in any case going to resist western institutions. (Interesting though, how many embrace both the religious and fascist western exports.) So who's to blame? No point in even going there.
However, moving forward, as you state, we are in a global economy, a shrinking world. The answer is not to bemoan the power of corporations but to utilize the connections they have established to promote institutions that benefit as many people as possible. I believe in free trade, but also the right of workers to organize, including across national borders. Maximum opportunity, maximum responsibility. Greed is the enemy of a free economy; the moochers are the destroyers of socialism.
A deeply moving piece by a gifted writer, complemented by many thoughtful reader responses, varying in their point of view, but uniform in their refusal to brand the asylum seekers as terrorists seeking to destroy the US. That said, while Ms. Alexander denies that she favors open borders, she offers the reader no criteria by which to determine who would be allowed to enter this country under a humane immigration policy.
A country's control over its own borders stems from a need more basic even than moral consistency. No nation can survive in the absence of a capacity to protect is own security, which includes the power to determine who can cross its borders and under what conditions. In the last century, America has often needlessly allowed ethnic prejudice to distort its immigration policies, but that is a separate issue from determining how many newcomers we will accept.
It does no good to stress the immigrant character of our population, because that fact does not create obligations more vital than our need to survive as a nation. Climate change over the next few decades may well increase the pressure on our border to the breaking point.
While there is still time, we need to devise a humane, sensible immigration policy which, to the extent possible, meets the needs of new arrivals while still protecting the welfare of our citizens. We may no longer be able to serve as a refuge for huddled masses, but we can certainly improve on the president's policy.
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Michelle Alexander believes that America's immigration laws should be conceived in reaction to past injustices, rather than concern for present circumstances or anticipation of the nation's future needs. This is the lens through which America's Far Left filters all matters of public policy in the 21st century — outcomes must fulfill a moral obligation of restorative justice, never mind how many lifetimes ago the perceived transgression. In this worldview, jus soli becomes a mere extension of the notion of "white privilege:" a set of rights and liberties afforded by birth to some, but not others. Ergo, it is unjust; ergo, it is immoral.
The logical conclusion of this revisionist concept of citizenship is one in which it is granted to all those who deserve it. And who, exactly, "deserves" it? Ms. Alexander offers a metric, the only one deemed legitimate by thought leaders on the American Left: oppression, of course.
I happen to believe that we need a simpler, more generous, and more robust immigration policy — but unlike Ms. Alexander, I am clear-eyed that unfettered migration would also mean potentially destabilizing political and ecological consequences. In the long run, the world's peoples are best served by peace and progress in their own nations and communities; it is a far nobler pursuit for the United States to replicate our experiment in self-governance throughout the world, than to vacuum up the world's oppressed out of a misguided, moralistic sense of restitution.
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@Michael
Unfortunately for your argument, the immigrants coming in caravans from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, are fleeing the effects of our current policy in Central America.
These are the capitalist "success" stories that are doing what we asked of them, because the governments that were taking care of their own people were overthrown with our help.
These countries have fully implemented Supply Side Economics, the American Consensus, and Austerity.
They cut taxes on the rich and global corporations.
They cut the social safety nets and investments in healthcare, education, and infrastructure for the people.
They deregulated finance and deregulated extractive industries.
To keep the People from fighting for control of government policy (democracy), our foreign intelligence agencies help the governments we installed with military coups terrorize their people by giving impunity to paramilitary organizations that murder and torture journalists, human rights activists, labor, activists, indigenous peoples, etc.
I am for borders, but they must be managed wisely, not not be used as political footballs with neither side offering real solutions.
The USA must be responsible for our foreign policy. We must protect the rights of workers and speed up legal, vetted immigration.
Most importantly we have to stop letting global billionaires use fake arguments to justify open borders for their corporations which are looting or country, and get them out of policy.
Well said!
In remote places along borders (e.g. big bend national park) you get a perspective about how arbitrary they really are, which puts the arbitrary-ness of citizenship in perspective
On a different but related note, I’ve often thought that free trade should go along with free movement of labor.
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@David Brook Thank you. If capital can move freely around the world, labor should do so as well. Abraham Lincoln said "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
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@David Brook
Yes, When corporations are allowed to freely move their capital, headquarters, and operations across open borders (unfettered free trade!), while workers are supposed to wait decades to immigrate legally, yet another crushing advantage has been given to the owners of capital over those that actually do the work.
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@David Brook
The problem is that all of the capital wants to go out of the country to where the cheap labor is, and all of the labor wants to come in. Now if you can work it out that free movement of labor works both ways, and i can waltz into Switzerland to set up home and shop, maybe we can work something out.
1
One can be disgusted with Trump's rhetoric and tactics and still recognize the practical contradiction of a right to healthcare or a universal basic income with open boarders. To say that, "we ought to manage immigration in a manner that honors the dignity, humanity and legitimate interests of all concerned" does little to enlighten readers about what such a policy would entail in practice.
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Righteous. Excellent and relevant reminders of our his/herstory and how standing up rather than standing down for our ideals is so critical. Otherwise, not only do we not deserve these rights and opportunities at birth, but we do not deserve them as adult citizens. Voting, protesting, reaching across the aisles and borders, understanding rather than caricaturing those from other regions of this country, engaging with our neighbors across boundaries that threaten to divide and limit are what make for a citizenry worthy of our ideals.
7
As one of the last Americans to be drafted I can tell you that I did indeed retroactively earn the citizenship that I was born with. I was brought up to believe that citizenship required certain things and brought responsibility, and perhaps that is why I allowed myself to be sent off to serve in a war I did not choose or even understand. While it is true that most Americans are not required to earn their citizenship, in earlier times some of us actually did.
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Milton Friedman once noted that a country can have open borders or a strong welfare system—but it cannot have both simultaneously. This is the central problem that the US, Europe, and other countries with substantial government welfare programs are experiencing with immigration. A large influx of poor immigrants brings into conflict two moral and human rights issues: do we continue to provide healthcare, education, pensions, etc. to "citizens" or do we have an obligation to assist the poor regardless of location. Unfortunately, the economic reality will not allow both despite Alexander's argument. The reason we have our current system of political nation-states and borders, which have become more rigid with time, is because of the centrality of government in redistributing wealth within those borders. If borders are open to all, the modern welfare state will end. The debates now are around immigration and citizenship, but as more poor immigrants arrive, the debate will be around which benefits any citizen can have.
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An important point, but incomplete: it is quite possible to have open borders and a strong welfare system when there is no inequality across the border to drive migration across it.
Striving to improve the lives of others has never been more important.
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@David Brook. If poverty were their only problem, money could solve it. But throwing money at corruption just wastes money. If Honduras modeled itself on Costa Rica, throwing money at it would be a joy.
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Reasonable free association limitations to what would otherwise be chaos have been written into law by the existing citizens. We citizens, naturalized or not, define those with whom we want to associate and exclude others, such as those who break our laws by jumping over the borders, who don’t speak or ever want to speak our languages, who don't follow our customs, or contribute to our economy (Serrano-Hernandez will undoubtedly want welfare, free education and the rest based on the anchor baby concept.)
It’s frankly that simple. We write laws that define who it is with whom we find it helpful to associate and reject many who don’t make the cut.
Congress has the power to define citizenship. Strict laws may not have existed in 1850. They have changed to protect our evolving welfare state. They can be changed.
The author of this article is at liberty to form a political group (association), to lobby congress or even to write in favor of changing our laws (press), reformatting how we the existing citizens and voters select those with whom we want to associate. They can change the laws so that Ms Serrano-Hernandez and 7 billion others in a large world can gain our citizenship, now redefined as not associating with us on our terms and to be entitled to whatever they demand of our material resources.
We have the right of free association and Ms. Serrano-Hernandez has not made the cut entitling her to citizenship under our constitutionally written laws.
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Ms. Alexander has her own bias of who "deserves" US citizenship. It seems to be people who are poor and/or courageous. There are billions of people on the earth who fit at least one of her deserving categories. Many of them don't live near a US border, but on another continent. Why do we currently privilege those who live nearer to our borders? Could the others are as deserving or more deserving?
She also say people deserve compassion and human rights. Yes, and they deserve it in their own countries! How can we enable that? Instead, as Ms.Alexander accurately writes: "... we cannot ignore the fact that our recent and current foreign policies, trade agreements and military adventures — including our global drug wars — have greatly contributed to the immigration crisis." She mentions Honduras, whose democratically elected president we helped remove in 2009. Since then corruption, violence, and migration have increased dramatically. Let's look at root causes and change what we do in Honduras and elsewhere before its citizens become desperate migrants.
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@Judy - You argue against the author by stating that everyone in the world meets either the standard or being poor or courageous. First, there are plenty of rich cowards outside the US and right now they can become citizens by donating a large sum of money to the US Government (Golden Visas). Second, the immigrants who are here meet three categories and not just one so you can’t equate them with the rest of the world. Yes, they are poor, Yes, they are courageous. However, they are also HERE - which means they are proven to be motivated, resourceful, focused, and capable. These are exactly the folks that our country needs and should welcome. The best are sending themselves.
@Jason
There own countries also need these "best" and motivated people. The brain and youth drain from poorer countries helps keep the poverty going decade after decade in the sending countries.
Also, I do not argue that everyone is either poor or courageous, but, tragically, there are billions of such people on our earth. I also think buying one's way to US citizenship via a Golden Visa is reprehensible.
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The premise of the article seems to be that anyone who wishes to do so should be able to come to the United States (or Europe, for that matter). That is just not plausible or possible.
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@Patrick Doyle
Sadly as evidenced by this article, it is both plausible and possible to the left here in the US.
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But what about birth-tourism? Wealthy women from allover come to the US to give birth! No mention about that?
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I believe in legal immigration and the laws governing this should take people’s suffering into consideration. I also believe that everyone should live in a world free of violence and unnecessary suffering. There are practical matters however. We need laws and closed boarders to protect the system and our current citizens. Unlimited immigration would be a strain on our resources and would impact everyone who is here, including people who have fought to earn a place here. We should do more to encourage nations to treat their citizens with respect so they don’t need to come here. Everyone deserves a safe home but America can’t practically be home to everyone who doesn’t currently have that.
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@John
Since most people in this word suffer, whether it's poverty, crime, hunger etc. that would mean the whole world has a right to move here. That's not realistic.
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Ms. Alexander has it all wrong. This country was BUILT from the shared ideas, labor and passion of generations. They pass this on with the hope that each new generation can carry the nation forward. This is not a birth "right", it is a birth RESPONSIBILITY. And only those who take that responsibility seriously can be welcome.
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@Landlord Bravo. And again, bravo.
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We are all Earthlings with the same rights and responsibilities. Borders do not confer or deny them. They are part of our humanity, not a legislative body or government. Free mobility is a human right.
We have forgotten how we brutalized the Natives of the America's and doing so turned ourselves into liberators.
" We hold these truths to be self evident that all mankind are created equal and enamored with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. " The time is long overdue to start living up to that.
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@Bob Cook - according to the document, they are NOT "enamored," they are endowed. To be "enamored" is to be in love with, and that may be the case, but that's not what document says.
@Kathleen880 The word enamored was used in the Federalist Papers to describe Natural Rights. Maybe you shouldn't be so picky?
Ms Alexander has forced us to face a profound, confounding, and extremely important moral question.
I applaud her for doing so, and perceive that many, perhaps most, of the readers that have reacted negatively to the mere raising of this moral dilemma have found no true rebuttals or answers. In fact, many of the responses, perhaps inadvertently, try to shift the argument from one involving morality (as Ms Alexander proposes) to one based on legality, practical concerns, and/or self-interest.
Now, law, pragmatism, and self-interest are all out there, and we must take these factors into account and deal with them. But Ms Alexander has reminded us that there is also a moral conundrum in our immigration policies that we may have been suppressing in our thoughts and disregarding in our deeds, without properly explaining why to ourselves.
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Some of us won the birthplace lottery and have mistakenly imbued this chance occurrence with meaning. Our self-righteous egos tell us that we are special (blessed, chosen, etc) and deserving of our citizenship when in reality we got lucky. Everyone is the hero of their own story as they say.
Some came from somewhere else legally and wonder why others can’t do the same? Many of them were already doing well where they came from and/or they came in through doors that the Trump admin is slamming shut. Again, they naturally want to maximize the self-narrative where they are the hero of their own story who overcame great obstacles to get here playing by the rules. Some did overcome a lot (thinking Afghan translators for example) and some didn’t.
Others are here because they (or their parents) risked it all to undertake an arduous and dangerous journey here, enter undocumented, and then perform menial tasks that privileged native born citizens consider beneath them.
Who of the above mentioned folks has endured the most to prove themselves worthy of both feeling heroic and of citizenship? What more do they need to do to show the value of their character, fortitude, and resourcefulness than can be shown by just getting here and then prospering?
No, most of us who were born here are not the best, the best are sending themselves. Maybe that’s why so many of us privileged few are so afraid of them.
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@Jason, I would assume that the migrants crossing the border are a mix of those with gumption and ambition and the desperate and the opportunistic, with some criminals tossed in. Some have skills, others have a sixth grade education and had two kids by 19 and will compete for low level jobs against equally disadvantaged American citizens. Most people are a mix of the goid and bad. But despite the guilt tripping and the need for immigration reform, NONE of this requires the U.S. to admit someone who has come here illegally and has not qualified for asylum.
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@Bookworm8571 - I do appreciate your nuanced thoughts. That said, Immigrants commit crimes at a rate about 40% to 85% lower than native born citizens according to numerous researchers. As for competing with native born citizens for jobs - I could introduce you to some farmers in my area that are struggling to get help in spite of raising the wages they pay. The fact is that most native born folks do not want to do that kind of work at any wage a farmer can afford to pay.
@Jason
Why should we accept anyone who commits crimes? If our immigration laws were followed correctly, immigrants would commit approximately 0% of crimes.
An excellent article, and I could not agree more. As an immigrant academic who has now lived in the USA for 22 years, I have always resented Americans who had punitive and distrustful attitudes towards immigrants, as if the mere fluke of having been born here somehow made them 'special' and gave them the privilege to diminish the rights of others. And if we are honest, these people are almost all conservatives.
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I deserve citizenship, morally and legally, because I was born in this country to legal citizens of this country who were also born here to legal citizens.
All parents have a moral responsibility to love, safeguard, and teach the children they bring into this world. Those who live in this country are also legally bound to feed, clothe, house and protect their children, and to provide them with access to education.
The "moral" obligation stems ultimately from what is instinctual to our animal selves. Most species of mammal behave in this same way. Most living things (excluding "prey" species) defend their homes/territory.
Anything else is...something else, to be debated as you are doing here.
I don't agree with the part of our law that declares that any child born on American soil is automatically a citizen. I think that is illogical, and is where a lot of the legal dilemma and moral confusion stems from.
I would agree that we are all created equal, morally speaking.
I do not agree that we are all equal legally. If you choose to question your own right to be here, I say it's your right to do that. But you have no right to question my right.
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@Allen We can't question your "right to be here" but you reserve the right to question our right to be here? That's the reactionary's dilemma right there, hypocrisy on a pogo stick.
To have a civilization, the Rule of Law must be agreed upon by all members. If one can't agree to that in one's country of origin, one isn't going to agree in the new country. You may say you are different, but all around me the proof is in the actions of those who have recently arrived. No drivers' license, no insurance,illegal tenement situations, burden on schools and feeding stations, on and on, recreating the 2nd and 3rd world conditions rather than joining the 1st and agreeing to abide by the law as well as be a functioning member of the community.
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Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too. Imagine all the People, living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer..Well written opinion columns need some basis in reality I'm afraid. Most Americans, most Humans, would work to solve the world's humanitarian crises. The solutions need to be beneficial to all those impacted to work.
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@Bradley
One day there will be one world. Just like the neighborhood we live in; but spread out more.
For 99.9% of us, our parents earned the right to bestow citizenship on us. Their lives, service and work gave them that right. We then have the responsibility to do similar work and service to bestow citizenship,on the next generation. We allow legal immigrants to earn that right by years of work and service. They in following that difficult path earn both citizenship for themselves and for their future born children. Only in extreme circumstances should someone just show up with no previous ties to the nation and gain that designation. If awarded, they have to do the work of two generations to bestow it on their children. That is how you define a nation.
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It isn’t a matter of being deserving or undeserving or moral or immoral. Every country, including the United States, has established laws regarding immigration and who is eligible for citizenship. Like every other country, the U.S. is entitled to make those laws based on what is best for the people who already live and work here. That includes setting immigration quotas and requiring immigrants who come here do so legally and be self supporting. Immigration — especially illegal immigration — comes at a cost to hospitals, schools, housing, charities, workers because illegal immigrants drive down wages, and other areas. Emma Lazarus’s poem is not in the Constitution or incorporated into any federal or state legal code. It was also written at a time when the U.S. had more need for unskilled labor than it does in our current age.
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@Bookworm8571
I'm a volunteer who works -- in a couple of places -- for nothing. My employers save on salaries. Probably, I am taking the job of a citizen who needs one.
One of the things I do -- freely -- is teach English to speakers of other languages. Without asking if they're legal or illegal.
Ha!
2
@Honeybee Assuming Rea is a citizen she is free to do any job she wishes at any salary she and her employer agree on - including a zero salary. What's the problem ?
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@Bookworm8571 countries can make laws, but the author is merely asking us to see immigrants as human; to recognize the situation isn't simple; to acknowledge that we may not snap our fingers and know the exact right answer, but it certainly involves "far greater care, compassion, and concern than we have managed to muster to date".
A rich person cannot alleviate poverty by giving away all their money and the U.S. cannot correct the failed states of the world by letting all their citizens join our country- no matter how unfair and cruel are their plights.
Immigration policy can partially be based on helping the dispossessed with kindness and generosity but it must also be geared to what is best for the citizens of our own country. Open borders are not possible and immigration policy largely based on what most helps our own voters and economy should be clearly and unequivocally supported by Democrats.
If Democrats stand for anything other than legal and responsible immigration policy we deserve the hit we will take at the polls on the matter.
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“Deserve” is largely a subjective moral sentiment. If we are alive, we all enjoy things that we didn’t earn and therefore don’t deserve. We all lack some blessings that others enjoy that we by accident of birth or fortune lack.
Citizenship is among these. We are bound in the belief that every human being has certain natural rights. The duty to secure their political rights rests with the nation of which they are a citizen. The United States government has the duty to secure the rights of it its own citizens. It is necessary to the fulfillment of that task that it not take on the duty of other nations in that regard.
P.S. We are not entirely a nation of immigrants anymore than any nation outside East Africa . None of my ancestors immigrated to the United States. They were all already here by various means and times. They created the United States.
23
The points Ms. Alexander is making seem to be based on a universal morality where humanity is seen as one, regardless of circumstances of birth or social condition. To the degree that the United States has aspired and striven to embody that ideal, it has been lauded. But the unprecedented challenges that are facing humanity as a whole can only be understood as the hallmarks of a transitional age, where the deepening understanding of humanity as one, must produce systems that can express that reality. We cannot fix this problem with the same mindset that created it.
2
I would be satisfied with a compromise over immigration in which those seeking entry would have it granted either on humanitarian grounds in case of amnesty applications, liberally and expeditiously applied on in exchange for meaningful contributions to this country through a contribution of a minimum of 50% time in needed areas of effort such as military service, working in service industries in hospitals, schools, nursing homes, etc. and the absence of any felonious criminal acts during a three to five year term.
Basically either we grant you entry on humanitarian grounds or you earn the right to entry with sweat equity.
The principle is simple. Those who have lived in an area get to have a say in who may join them and on what terms.
Sounds okay, doesn't it? At one and the same, however, we need to understand these tenant rights have legs and should pari passu extend to the legacy residents.
So, if a resident of western NY state despoils the Allegany River watershed, we should recognize the right of the Onondaga Nation to seek redress for grievous harm. Indeed, it should be the right of the First Nations to be the trustees of the lands and the environment they shared with us either through treaty or our usurpation.
Fairness and equity demand we grant the same rules backward in time which we would seek to codify for the future good of the land on which we live.
"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." - Chief Seattle
If you work to contribute to the community where you live, either by trying to make it better or at least not making it worse, you belong with that community. Through many tiny and large acts, we have each earned our right to be in the places we call home. Denying a person who seeks to be in a safe place and is willing to contribute to that place, actually makes us and the places we live worse. (If you think these people don’t contribute, drive through California’s Central Valley on a hot summer day and take a look at the people stooped over in the fields gathering your food.)
It is not “open borders” to accept people into the country and give them the same chances to contribute that we and our families have had for generations. Churches accept new members to grow their membership and spread their message. Companies hire new employees to grow the business, add new ideas, and continually innovate. The people who join these social structures are accepted initially and then vetted over a period of time to ensure they can contribute to make the place better.
America is supposed to be the greatest, strongest country in the history of the world, and yet we cower in fear before a young mother who wants to do right by her children. She wants to make their lives better by joining a community where they can work and contribute and she’ll travel hundreds of miles for the opportunity. She’s proven she has the potential make the place we live better. She deserves the chance.
5
@M
"Companies hire new employees to grow the business, add new ideas, and continually innovate."
Companies don't hire whoever applies. They carefully select who they let in.
27
This article so eloquently gave a clear voice to the thoughts I've been having about the migrant crisis, or as Ai WeiWei puts it, the human crisis.
I am not American, but second-generation Australian. Being an Australian citizen, there are many benefits that I have freely enjoyed. Some of these form a 'typical' checklist - affordable healthcare, free education. But ultimately, I live in a place where I feel, for the most part, safe - free from persecution, military warfare and structural violence.
Did I do anything to deserve all these 'perks' (that many of us I am sure, take for granted)? No. In order to open our hearts to others, all the millions of them, we need to understand that. Here are innocent people, entirely blameless for their 'situation'.
We need to fight fear with compassion, patience and understanding. We need our hearts open to be ready to heal the human crisis that is shaking our world.
12
No dilemma for me. Citizenship is a privilege we don't deserve, which was bestowed on us by our heroic forefathers and mothers, and it entails obligations from us in return. What's more, I use the roads every day and never had to pay for them. They were already built when I was born. Antibiotics had already been discovered too. And there were clean water supplies already. Does anyone "deserve" this? No, it's something we should be grateful for every day.
9
Are there borders to respect on ANY sort of property? For example, if I covet my neighbor's new flat screen television, can I assume that the border between what is "his property" and "my property" is permeable so I can just take his tv? Can I assume the border between what is my neighbor's car in his driveway and not in mine is a permeable border so I can take his car? What did he do to "earn" his new car? Does he have an inalienable right to own his car? Why can't I take his car that he doesn't deserve more than I do? Alexander's argument appears illogical.
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@Iris, you are identifying property as there lynchpin of freedom. The right to own property is not a right, it is a function of your ability to buy it and our legal system of property ownership.
Ms. Alexander is referring to things not property , unless you believe that owning another human being is an inalienable right.
The Hammurabi Code, the first known written code on governing and government, lists as the first, preeminent responsibility of the collective we identify as "The Government," to protect the weak from the powerful.
It seems to me, it is this ideal, that those with power, and yes, property, have an ethical obligation to assist those with little or no power or property.
If you happen to be among the believers of a deity, does your prophet say he will only bestow his blessings and forgiveness on those with the power and lots of property?
14
@Iris
Actually your analysis is illogical. You are comparing apples to oranges. Just what do immigrants "take" from this country? In my experience they mostly give their labor doing really hard jobs the citizens will not do, either from laziness or arrogance. They are exploited for low wages and long hours, then demonized to pump up the political power of those who exploit them.
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@Richard Nonsense, all of those jobs were done by Americans before illegal immigration. Likewise in Europe, there were guilds. My father was a carpenter, he started as a laborer, his job enabled him to raise a family and buy a house. Now, his job would be done by a guy someone picked up in a Home Depot parking lot for 50 bucks a day. I worked in a factory in NJ that employed illegals to package products for Wal-Mart and they had three shifts. They paid minimum wage to someone who supplied fake documents and then paid kick backs to them. They threw American applications (and there were many) in the garbage. They ignored labor laws and made a bunch of money off the backs of slaves that couldn't complain. If they were injured (and they were) they shoved them out the back door. What do you do with a Mexican roofer who falls off the roof, drive him to the Emergency room and leave them there. My kids couldn't get a job at a fast food restaurant because they didn't speak Spanish. My career started as a dishwasher and I work my way up, that paid for college. When was that last time you saw a teenager cutting a lawn? Remember Madge the manicurist? Yeah, now that function is perform by someone who doesn't speak the language? Every country in Europe and Canada hires laborers from other country for crops, but they have to pay airfares and guarantee they leave the country. You don't think there are enough engineers in America, no employers cheat and bring in H1B's.
15
"On what moral grounds can we deny others rights, privileges and opportunities that we did not earn ourselves?"
I do not concern myself with this moral question. It is the wrong one to ask about this situation. If human beings were a sinless and non-violent species, we would all live in a commune and sacrifice for each other. For whatever reason, human nature did not evolve an endless supply of goodwill toward others. We compete with each other for survival. We create social and cultural structures which foster cooperation but they also detect and punish cheaters. Some of these structures work well and some do not. Whether ours in the USA are better than those in, say, Syria or Honduras may be a matter of debate, but the fact so many migrants are "fleeing poverty and violence" in those other places indicates ours has some value beyond theirs. It's worth preserving, I think.
The past is past... Cosmic justice (or the judgement of gods) being what it is, we may or may not be punished for our sins or the sins of our ancestors. But that's no reason to ignore human nature. We must be prudent with our trust. It's rough out there. Just ask the refugees fleeing poverty and violence.
15
I am a naturalized U.S. citizen and I am deeply offended by this headline. I deserve US citizenship because I earned it through education and hard work and by doing EVERYTHING legally.
The grounds on which we, the citizens of the U.S., get to decide who we accept as fellow citizens are the same grounds by which every other country in the world gets to decide the same question.
The reason people want to come to this country -- and not choose any other, particularly, in this case, Mexico -- is that we have created (and are continuing to create) something unique here - more opportunity and possibility than most other countries, a free and open society, law and order, and abundance of the stuff that makes for a good life (clean air, clean water, a room to call one's own).
Some my quibble with my characterization, given their current pessimism thanks to Trump. However, having an experience of living in the country of my birth, I maintain that, even now, it is orders of magnitude better here.
What Michelle Alexander, the NYT, and others of their ilk forget is that their ideas and the policies they advocate will lead us down a path where we are sure to lose precisely the things (the ones I listed above), that make us such a magnet.
Be careful what you wish for!
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@na Amen, welcome, and happy to have legal immigrants. Orderly processing of requests, both to immigrate and to come as a refugee, is what every citizen expects of our nation's government.
15
@na I agree, I came to the US with a dream, but I came legally. I grew up poor, I worked hard, I applied and got my green card. My country did not allow duel citizenship and I always had a good job with benefits, so I didn't become a citizen. I travel a lot, and increasingly it became more difficult to return . When Trump came down that elevator, I knew. I applied for citizenship after many years. I provided ten years of tax returns, and every passport page going back to 1976. I have travelled to 80 countries, I have lived in many, to welcome in a 19 year old with 2 kids under 3 will not add to the greatness of the country, it has already begun burdening it (who paid for the birth of her child?). There are parts of this country that already look like the third world. You wanna come and live the dream, work hard and don't break in. And until the democrats get this, and stop this open border nonsense they have no chance of winning. I'm a democrat, you do not represent me. I am currently in a third world country and spent 4 hours waiting to extend my visa today. There were many mothers with infants in that room, not one of them was eligible for citizenship, just because their kid was born there. And none of them would be eligible for citizenship if they were unwed. Michelle Alexander exists in her little bubble, she doesn't have to deal with the every day issues that this woman presents, I will have to because she will need taxpayer support.
22
You are correct. None of us deserve citizenship; however, we all deserve a nation of laws. There is a distinct difference that is overlooked when politically expedient.
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And what if most Americans disagree with this writer? Do THEY have any rights? Also, are Americans the only nationals who are obligated to take in all 8 billion human beings on the globe or do Russians, Canadians, Australians, Norwegians share in that responsibility? What if they don't want to open their borders? I see some hints from Europe that not everyone agrees with this writer; do other people have a right to their own priorities.
37
These comments are filled with logical fallacies and invective as well as chauvinism and short sightedness. It is a false choice - there are so many of them here - to think we must mistreat immigrants, abuse them, deny them due process and shrug off our moral imperatives or else “we will lose our country.” The choice is not merely binary.
What kind if country is worth preserving that mistreats people within and outside our borders? I thought we were better than that.
2
@Alan McCall What kind of country has no borders or immigration laws?
1
Do we deserve our parents? Siblings? Neighbors? Countries?
True some are lucky; others not. It's part of the "natural lottery". We don't choice our own bodies, minds or personalities either.
The question is peculiar--these are not matters of choice--neither for us nor them; so at best it's a hypothetical--IF it were a matter of choice, would/should we or they so choose?
As for citizens--natives are born and raised in the polity (by definition) and some--with the ability to emigrate--may be said to choose to stay. Others may be stuck.
Aliens (peculiar term) choose to apply. "Desert" is a matter of of selection by the host polity. It's not unlike team selection--in sports and elsewhere.
But the question remains, what should the lucky ones do about the unlucky ones? It's not a matter of desert or debt--the lucky are not indebted to the unlucky.
But better personality types (by many standards--including enlightened self interest), if lucky, care about the unlucky--whether siblings or aliens.
Thus foreign aid--not to be confused with foreign investment for exploitation--on and on. No man is an island. No country either. Somebody tell Trump.
4
Great article! We should never forget the ending paragraph. America's policies, military adventures, etc. are a principal cause of people fleeing their homelands (few make this journey without economic or social or political stresses in their lives), therefore, we are all complicit when we don't demand that this "representative" government ensure that its policies, military and corporate greed does not wreck havoc on other countries and peoples.
2
Our right of citizenship was not earned by those of us who were born here, it was earned by our forebears, who founded and built this country, who fought in its wars and made a nation. It was bequeathed to us by people who cared about what became of their posterity, and it was their right to make a future in which their descendants could live prosperous and full lives. Even if we don't care for ourselves, we have a duty to respect what they did for our sake and for the sake of those who come after us. Our civilization is a beautiful thing, not without flaws, but still beautiful, and as it passes through our hands during our brief lives, we have a duty of stewardship. We have a duty to our own descendants to maintain and improve America as a place where they can thrive.
In the world imagined by Ms. Alexander, we are just here, born without legacy, family or history leading to who we are as people who are more than accidents of nature. There is no meaning to the word "nation". We are just here and need form no allegiance to anything. For all of her expressions of compassion for struggling migrants, Ms. Alexander's world is a cold one indeed.
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@PWR "Even if we don't care for ourselves, we have a duty to respect what they did for our sake"
As someone who has forebearers that arrived in what would become America on the boat called the Mayflower: I respect the courage it took to sail here to try to find a better life, and I respect those who risked their lives and livelihoods to make other's lives better. I don't respect their grave-robbing, their murdering of fellow townsfolk over religious fanaticism, their many many murders of native peoples, their involvement in the slave trade, or their abysmal treatment of later arrivals to this country.
Our ancestors were human, and made mistakes. Our duty to them is to celebrate what they got right, and try to correct their mistakes.
7
Devil's in the details, Ms. Alexander, and the Chicago School wasn't wrong about everything.
First of all, the humanity of prospective immigrants isn't up for question. But in recognizing the humanity of prospective immigrants worldwide, it doesn't follow that that humanity entitles them to automatic citizenship in the country of their choice, with all attendant benefits.
Back to Uncle Milty and the Chicago School - you have a choice, open borders with full access to benefits, or a welfare state. Borders are what enable a welfare state. Choose the former, you'll eventually have no welfare state to come to. Wouldn't hurt to brush up on your Econ 101 as well, and the laws of supply and demand of labor.
Where do you propose that we place these hopefuls? To live, be educated, treated to healthcare? Let me guess - the poorest districts who can afford it least. If you have other ideas, let me introduce you to blue state NIMBYs.
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@rtj.........Friedmans (and the Chicagos school of eeconomics) theory of supply side hegemony......is about as ''GETTING IT ALL WRONG" as you can get !
Ms Alexander ably outlines the paradox of citizenship. The inalienable rights she quotes are universal and apply everywhere human beings exist. That is as true in Peoria, USA, as it is in Puerto Cortés, Honduras.
Fixing our immigration “problem” requires more than humane policies regarding our borders—although doing just that would be a refreshing change. We need to think about those inalienable rights everywhere. Until we address our ever-heating planet, poverty, lack of healthcare, and political oppression in those places that suffer the most, we will never solve the “problem".
Big challenge? You bet. But we have no choice. Our planet continues to shrink. Human suffering is portable and moves more easily every day. Until we address that suffering, none of us can fully exercise our inalienable rights.
4
Ms. Alexander puts her cards on the table: she does not believe in the nation-state. It's really neo-liberalism at its end game...people shall go where they want, do what they want. This ideology does not accept borders, and it does not accept limits. She is unwittingly a useful too of the Davos crowd, that loves cheap labor and lots of it.
But we have a finite planet presently carved up into nation states. No where in her essay do I see any mention of the other US natives that suffer from open borders--ecosystems and the 99% of fellow species that are losing their homes because anyone who feels entitled to come here does so. Despite low birth rates, our nation grows by 30 million per decade, with no end in sight. The US will be over half a billion humans at this rate by the end of the 21st century.
Yet I bet Ms. Alexander is all for "sustainability." Well, her vision of open borders is not sustainable. It's overpopulated certain parts of the US and it led directly to Trump.
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The baby born in the US is a citizen as prescribed by law. The mother and the other child are not citizens also as prescribed by the law and they should go through the legal process as prescribe by the law. And I say this a an immigrant who went through the legal process and spent 5 years and thousands of dollars to get my legal entry visa. Without laws that we enforce we will become that country that these people are fleeing from. There are tens of thousands of people at any one time going through the legal process and those jumping the fence should be able to jump to the front of the queue.
11
Yes!
2
Michelle, you've offered a compelling, thought-provoking argument. However, I'm inspired to take your scenario in a different direction.
In our era of looming catastrophic climate change and overpopulation, how can Serrano-Hernandez see fit to have two children by her 19th year, children that she is compelled to seek the kindness of strangers in order to protect?
I accept your premise that inappropriate US interventions in Latin America during the Cold War and afterwards may have contributed to the societal instability that prompt Serrano-Hernandez to come here - but why should those Americans who have opted to not bring children into the world feel responsible for people in other countries reproductive choices?
On a planet whose ecosystem is hemorrhaging due to overpopulation, thus potentially putting the entire human experiment at risk, why should we be enabling Ms. Serrano-Hernandez' problematic choice?
Perhaps we should place primary blame here on the influence of various Christian / Catholic churches that oppose contraception and abortion, and promote a retrograde view that the burden of child birth is the wage of sexual relations.
But Michelle, are we as Americans within our rights to try to do our part in saving the planet by strongly discouraging others from having children that they cannot feasibly take care of? Or are we required to stand idly by while every last species on the planet perishes due to overpopulation and climate crisis, alongside our own?
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@Matthew Carnicelli
It is an almost entirely emotional argument that provokes thought in the reader by its absence in the piece.
3
I think an issue with this argument is it shifts from one level of aggregation to another illogically. An individual born here has done nothing to "deserve" the privileges they inherit but the people born here do inherit the rights and privledges - and *they* deserve those rights and privledges in a legal and moral sense. The compelling argument is that a people, as a group and across generations and across time, have a right to self governance and to build a society, a social welfare system, and a country (with laws and rights they codify and enforce) and that right to the group leads to progress, prosperity, and privledges (or leads to the absence of those conditions, depending on aggregated choices). A people cannot create a better world within a country if all comers have an equal claim on entry and citizenship. The moral imperative is aggregate self determination and social justice to the group. No one has earned that - no *one* - but countries, peoples, and communities *do* have a right to change their condition and to protect that condition from some strange claim that it is a public, common good.
13
Let's generalize:
We ought to begin by acknowledging that none of us who were born into a family did anything to deserve our membership, and yet all of us — no matter into whatever family we were born — deserve compassion and basic human rights.
Does this mean that we are morally obligated to permanently house the homeless in our own homes?
This article makes the argument that we are.
And in some sense, it is true.
But it's the kind of argument pushed by people who will never have to do so.
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The thing to understand about people up in arms about illegal immigrants is that they aren't actually upset about illegal immigrants. What they're upset about is that a greater portion of people around the country are brown and speak Spanish fluently, and they see that as an indication that they themselves aren't powerful.
This is abundantly clear when you listen to their complaints: "They're voting in our elections!" Illegal immigrants can't, because they're not citizens. "They're taking all our welfare aid!" Illegal immigrants don't generally qualify, and giving all their information to the government is just inviting ICE to their doorstep. "They took our jobs!" Except they didn't, because you didn't even try to do the jobs that illegal immigrants do.
And it becomes even more clear with Trump's campaign warning of taco trucks on every corner - which liberal-minded folks like myself think would be fantastic and convenient. This isn't about laws, or the morality of immigration, this is about whether anglo culture will continue to dominate America, and conservatives trying to ensure that it will by force of arms.
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@Dave Well said. It's just another dog whistle, that allows them to pretend that it isn't about race, and rather about "obeying the law".
My grandparents arrived without papers, fleeing persecution and brutality. They made lives here, raised families, and loved America and the American dream. In recent years, as that dream faded and has become nightmarish, I have given thanks they died before seeing their beloved country devolve as it is.
Should I be deported now due to their lack of papers then?
Also - my friend who was born in Hong Kong became a citizen about 20 years ago - he has been in this country from age 12. He knows American history and constitutional law more thoroughly than I do, with the same love of an immigrant that my grandparents had.
The swearing in ceremony was held at Brooklyn College - the auditorium filled with people from every corner of the earth. There wasn't a dry eye in the house by the time it was over...such deep emotion to renounce all ties to your former home to embrace your new one and pledge allegiance to it.
Those who would do all this certainly belong here.
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If you think the country is “nightmarish” then leave. Ain’t nobody holding you here. Pick any of the top 30 economies and vote with your feet.
The flood of immigrants coming here says that your “nightmarish” statement is empirically incorrect.
2
I am a veteran of over 20 years service in the Army of the United States as a paratrooper, leader, and solder. I served in multiple locations around the globe, including Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Bosnia, Korea, and other problem areas.
I do deserve citizenship as do my comrades who served honorably.
The author of this piece is welcome to describe her own status as unearned; she would know better than I. Frankly, she can leave anytime for wherever she prefers if such a place exists.
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@Chris
Thank you.As a veteran (U S Army 1966-1974) whose family has served in every war this country has fought and
lost members in doing so, I was deeply offended that the author seemed to cavalierly dismiss the cost of freedom.
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@Chris
Thank you for your 20 years of service to our country.
I am grateful to you ,and to all those who have served, and do serve this nation .
10
@Chris. I'm 73 years old, never in military service, have fulfilled my duties as a citizen in many ways over the years, including political involvement, service in local organizations, never missing a vote, and yes, being a committed anti-war activist. I am grateful to have been born in a country that, at least at the time of my youth, expected active involvement in our political system and our government. I am in favor of a system of universal service, in the military in someone so chooses, but with a civilian opportunity as well. Those 20 years you've been in the military, I've been working on the home front to make sure the country you serve still continues to function. I pay my taxes without complaint, and that money provided your pay and funded the military. You seem to have forgotten that the military does not exist without the rest of us.
15
I wish writers would stop using logic and persuasion. It keeps making me change my mind.
3
Most United States citizens are not aware or do not care their government and corporate policies/actions which foster instability and mass migration. We created peace and prosperity at home at the cost of poverty and war abroad. And yes the US might be a great place for US citizens
1
By this logic we should have dissolved the United States the day after Adams and Jefferson died.
We earn our citizenship every day by preserving our Constitution and traditions of liberal democracy. To paraphrase Franklin, we earn our citizenship as long as we can keep our Republic.
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@Norwester How many people actually actively preserve our constitution...say, likely exercising the right to vote, having done their homework first on constitutional matters?
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@Norwester
"We earn our citizenship every day by preserving our Constitution and traditions of liberal democracy. To paraphrase Franklin, we earn our citizenship as long as we can keep our Republic."
Have you been following the news ?
Sometimes there is a large gap between justice and what is right. We are a nation of “laws,” but more to the point, we are a nation of statutes, ever changing to fit the mood of the times.
@DavidJ How about the undocumented immigrants in the US armed forces that our president's administration is trying to deport? You've missed the point of the whole article about birthright citizenship, making the discussion all about yourself. Are you more deserving of citizenship than the immigrant who has also served our country, just because you were born here?
@jsk They're not undocumented.They are illegals.
The murder rate in St. Louis is higher than that of San Salvador; the murder rate in Baltimore is higher than that in Guatemala City and San Pedro Sula. Looks to me like we'd be doing Central Americans a favor by telling them to go home where it's safer. It also looks to me like there are a lot of untruths being told by people who depend on emotion rather than facts.
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@JPE it looks to me like you think cherry picking statistics is a replacement for reality
America is not the only country that proclaims itself a nation of immigrants and freedom. Please look, for example, to your northern neighbor.
Incidentally, if times change, as they do, and America ceases to be so prosperous but Canada becomes more so, will you assert a right to cross the Canadian border at your own election? If so, can you let us know now so we can prepare?
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@Terrence 1. Isn't Sydney in Australia, not Canada? 2. Canadian immigration requirements are infinitely stricter than US immigration requirements, even though liberals somehow refuse to admit this fact. Please research the Canadian immigration system. You are correct that Canadians are richer than Americans, if you are speaking of average citizens, and have a higher quality of life. But how long would that last if Canada opened its borders?
10
@Terrence You wouldn't let in a teen mom either, let alone pay her medical bills. But don't worry if I do. Like most Americans, I am skilled and educated. I don't have pile of children and I can support myself.
3
@me, there is a Sydney, Australia; as well as a Sydney, Canada (in Nova Scotia). Either way, your points are well-taken. Both Canada and Australia strictly enforce their immigration laws. Australia has ended birthright citizenship and requires many illegal immigrants and, somewhat controversially, requires asylum seekers to stay on islands off-shore of the Australian continent, while awaiting a determination of their status.
As for Canada's merit-based immigration system, President Trump has supported moving to a similar skills and points-based system, specifically through his support of the Cotton-Perdue "RAISE" Act, introduced in the US Senate last year. RAISE Act is partially based on recommendations made by President Clinton's Bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, led by African-American, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (aka the "Jordan Commission"). Unfortunately, there were not enough votes for it to pass. In spite of the great work of the Jordan Commission, not a single Democrat signed on to support the RAISE Act.
2
This moral preachment is dangerous. Treating asylum seekers humanely is a mark of a civilized nation. However closing the door on the importance of birthright citizenship because we haven’t (by definition) earned it, leads us backwards toward earlier concepts of citizenship, one bestowed by bloodline, race, or ethnicity.
I’m sure the author hardly means to go there. However, if she denies the validity of birthright citizenship and recognizes the necessity of secured borders, how then is citizenship conferred?
6
@Victor Have you ever read Starship Troopers? I just finished it recently, and Robert Heinlen has me about 85% convinced that citizenship should have to be earned through some sort of national service, whether it is in the military or otherwise.
Much is made of the desperate struggles of many to cross deserts to share in the good fortune of the USA--and that's all true. But let's face a simple fact: many come because they are paid to work. So amid all the nasty portrayals of Latin immigrants, let's ask, and answer honestly: who provides that paid work? Ignoring this central attraction is like the companion blindfolded claim: "drugs are pouring over the border." Of course; but those drugs, too, come because Americans pay for them. Two separate problems, of course, but Americans ramp them up; and Trump and his ilk pretend that the demand side does not exist. We have an opioid crisis; a vaping crisis; a gun-deaths crisis; but the major threat to the USA is from infants and their desperate mothers? D. J. Trump has been exposed as one who hires undocumented immigrants. He also hires documented immigrants. He also boasts of all the jobs that remain unfilled. His beneficiaries all across the wealthy suburbs hire domestic help in one form or another, with or without papers; others hire pickers and packers; butchers and cutters: and he gives those employers tax breaks. Added to all that hypocrisy we have the unavoidable fact that Trump lives in some gilded dystopia, and seems unable to function without nasty conflict and chaos. Remember: “he was elected to shake the system up!”
3
This argument for open borders avoids the unpleasant fact that moral consistency conflicts with ecological reality:
On a practical level, as much as we would like it to be otherwise, the US cannot accommodate all of the people who would like to come here. The world is a terrifying and unjust place for hundreds of millions, each of whom is morally justified to do whatever they can to improve their children's prospects. So the moral justification for those already here is self-preservation.
To generalize Ms Alexander's argument:
What moral right do humans have to living on this planet? We, unlike trees, don't contribute to sustaining its ecosystem. Indeed we are destroying it.
Ironically, Ms Alexander's lead to Robert Heinlein: his semi-fascistic novel Stormship Troopers answered for Ms Alexander: military service earns citizenship.
Be careful of what you wish for: complete moral consistency leads to extremism.
13
Disingenuous argument designed to guilt trip people into sabotaging the country. The US can't possibly absorb everyone from the third world who wants to live here. When a lifeboat is full, every new passenger raises the odds whole boat will sink.
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@Noodles
“Deserve” is almost alway a term of manipulation, otherwise devoid of meaning.
9
Ms Alexander ......my ancestors helped build this country into what it is today. They served in the military, created businesses, cared for the vulnerable here and more. They did that as part of building a better place for their children to live .....so....yes....I do feel entitled to that. Just as I invest my time money and life’s work creating a society here in the US that will be better for my children. Sorry...I just don’t believe it’s practical to radically increase our immigration numbers without sacrificing that which I and my ancestors sacrificed to construct.
29
@TC
Unless your ancestors were Native American, they, like mine, were among those who stole land from those who held it from the beginning of time and in doing so wreaked genocide, even if inadvertently. To claim that gives us some extraordinary privilege and superiority demonstrates a lack understand of our true place.
We Americans should want every human being on Earth to desire to become "American." Anyone who believes in the rule of law that says every man is created equal and deserves equal treatment and equal protection is an "American." For those who can't make it to America perhaps they can work to transform their country into a Democracy just like ours.
We should want the entire world to become "American." But with hateful people like the Trumpers one has to wonder why they would want to do it here?
2
Ms. Serrano-Hernandez is not entitled to simply move here and have U.S taxpayers support her and her children.
If I don't deserve citizenship then the government does not deserve my hard earned tax dollars. That's the social contract. Allowing open borders migration destroys that cooperative agreement and fills the void with every man for himself anarchy.
No enforced immigration laws. No country any of us are obligated to.
35
Ms. Alexander literally says she is not advocating for open borders. So anyone who is interpreting her as saying that she is advocating for open borders needs to, as I tell my fourth graders when they missed glaring explicitly stated ideas, re-read the article.
What does it mean to “earn” our right to live here? It’s an interesting idea. Many people are saying that they earned their right to live here through public service and hard work. I love that idea. Of course, it’s not required of US citizens to give public service in order to live here. You could spend your life stealing from people, exploiting people and discriminating against people, and if you were born in say, Queens, you could still one day become president!
But I think this is a good idea. Maybe none of us born in the US should become citizens until we have earned it. Maybe we should all have to dedicate some years of our lives to public service, fight for our nation, teach in our public schools, be social workers for the poverty stricken, help restore our highways and educate others about our national parks. To earn means to not have it until you do something for it.
Finally, Ms. Alexander talks about morality not just based on history but now. She states, with evidence, that our country’s policies have in part created the violent and poor conditions of the countries people are fleeing from, such as in Honduras. She asks us to simply consider the moral obligations of our country in light of this truth.
5
For me the issue is very simple, everyone should be free to live wherever they wish. That's what justice demands. What give me the moral right to tell anyone where they can or can't live.
The problem of migration is the problem or our times; like slavery was two centuries ago. Not just on the border with Mexico, but worldwide. There are thousand perishing trying to cross the Mediterranean, many perishing on the Arizona desert. We are all morally responsible for their deaths.
It's time to embrace abolition. We abolish the problem by declaring that all should be free to live wherever they wish.
2
@PNBlanco Ok fine. What rules should we live under?
The people of Europe tend not to believe in free speech in the same way Americans do. Many in the Islamic world think that think that blasphemy should be outlawed and punishable by prison or death. Chinese want to kill tigers and rhinos for ridiculous medicinal (sexual) purposes. Mexicans have a very low age of consent by American standards. And so on.
We can not all live in the same nation or under the same laws. We are different. The best way to accommodate these differences is to have different countries.
3
If American citizens are not entitled to our borders, why is the author of this piece entitled to her home? Let a deserving person move in and move her out. As citizens, we work hard to make our own country greater, for example, by removing inequities as best we can but that does not mean we owe the entire world citizenship any more than we should give up our homes we worked hard for to a poor person. We cannot go to foreign countries and demand citizenship. Good citizens work hard to improve their own countries. Morality has little to do with the luck of the draw. My parents were not millionaires. That does not give me the right to break into someone else’s home and demand those benefits. Illegal immigration should continue to be unlawful and unacceptable.
401
@Sue Mee Presumably, the author of this piece worked for a willing employer and used her wages to buy her house. That is totally different from citizenship, which is inherited and not purchased. Plus, people can always build new houses, and you can’t build new countries any more.
A better analogy is that the world is like a city where everyone is assigned to a house at birth, no one can build new houses, and it is very hard to move so 97% of people stay in the house they are born in for their whole life. People can do home improvement, but some houses are already in tip-top shape while others are beyond repair. Plus, what jobs you can get depend on what house you were born in, so people in the poorer houses can’t get jobs that would allow them to buy the tools they’d need to repair their houses. Surely, this kind of system is worth tearing down.
15
@Sue Mee
One is entitled to their home because they have bought it or they rent it. If one lives in this country one pays taxes and to continue to cast those who come here 'illegally' as thieves is immoral.
Within months of Trump's election, a man in northern Indiana was deported amid a great outcry from his US citizen wife and his US citizen neighbors and employees. During the time he was here 'illegally', he built a thriving business which hired and paid fair wages to more than a dozen US citizens, he was a generous neighbor and member of the community, among the first to contribute when there was a need, and was a loving husband and father. He wasn't lucky enough to have been born here nor did he have legal status. His wife voted for Trump believing he would deport 'bad' 'illegals'. It never occurred to her and her neighbors that Trump and his supporters were talking about her husband.
I've never been able to forget the ship St. Louis, which sailed from Europe with just over 900 mostly Jewish refugees at the beginning of WWII. The US refused them entry and while some were allowed asylum in a few ports, including Cuba, of the approximately 690 forced to return to Europe in 1940, 254 died at the hands of the Nazis, including in Auschwitz and Sobibór.
We turn away those who need shelter and asylum at our own moral peril.
13
@Sue Mee Most Americans welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL aliens; i.e., foreigners in the US illegally. We cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is thus impossible for US taxpayers to support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
US laws allow foreigners (aliens) to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally (i.e., illegal aliens) and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too.
The cruelty lies not in limiting legal immigration, or detaining and deporting illegal aliens, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, etc. Indeed, many believe bringing children on such perilous journeys constitutes child abuse.
Open borders is a policy no nation will ever approve. We will lose the 2020 elections if open borders are part of the Democratic platform.
16
My father’s parents came from Italy as poor, uneducated teens without their parents. They worked menial jobs and had 5 children. Unfortunately they did not educate the girls but all of the boys got college educations and two got advanced degrees, including my father who became a teacher. The third generation, all of the grandchildren have college degrees and are at least middle class professionals, a nurse practitioner, a college professor. The opportunity of the U.S. allowed for upward mobility within 1 generation. By Trump standards my grandparents would never have been allowed into this country because they were poor and uneducated.
3
We have a First Lady who entered on some kind of modeling visa with parents tagging along on her coattails, becoming U.S. citizens, with a Husband/Son-In-Law who constantly belittles immigrants to appease his base.
I'm not sure how Trump fanatics square Trump's family with his inflammatory rhetoric, but they seem perversely excited by concluding immigrants are mostly criminals who must be kept out by building a Wall and by discriminately banning immigrants of the Muslim faith.
We should all want a humane process of immigration that does not distort reality with lies. Everyone has their own story and but for the grace of [insert your own higher being here] you too could be on the other side of the Wall.
9
@ScottW Because when Trump says "Immigrants" he really means "Brown People".
Nothing that he says about immigration is supposed to apply to sexy white women.
Nations states define themselves by determining who falls within the circle and who does not. Some, like the Romans, allowed for a broader definition than, say, the Athenians. Is there a moral imperative prompting the decision to grant citizenship under every circumstance; sneaking across the border, for example, accompanied by a claim of persecution as the impetus for the action? The power of the state includes its right and ability to say who is a citizen and who is not. Sometimes the results may appear unfair, unjust eve, to the illegal immigrant whose application for citizenship, or for a green card, has been denied, because they fall outside the quota or because their claims are disbelieved. Private bills can be introduced in Congress to remedy egregious errors, States have the right to determine its character.
6
@heyomania
Sadly, the American character is devoid of those things which so many seem to think grant them great privilege.
The moral obligation of people skipping out on the problems in the country they were born in to run off to America is to fix the problems in the country of birth. And if they did fight and fix those problems, they'd then have an ethical basis to protect their own borders via reasonable laws on immigration against freeloaders trying to take advantage of them. The author proposes the citizenship equivalent of legalizing theft.
I find it intensely aggravating when what should be a moral plea is presented as moral threat, clearly the threat of force is inherent here, should those who favor open borders ever have that power. Majoritarian tyrants love these veiled threat arguments. Most Americans do not.
23