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Open the Borders, End the Housing Glut

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The key is in appropriate, and practical:

If we look at your scenario on the other hand, the amount of force you are advocating for is quite extreme.

Your previous quote; (my bold emphasis)

I have the moral right to defend against such an event by any means necessary

And you still haven't dealt with the idea that your principle is based on correlation, not causation. There is nothing causative about immigration that results in crime or welfare leeching. Some do it, some do not.

Your principle holds true in the example I provided, as it does with the illegalization of drugs and several other issues. The act of immigrating is not the act of a rights violation but you would seek to punish it or control it as though it were. Your 'principle' punishes rational men who seek the freedom to act in the preservation of their lives.

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This is fun, let me try:

P1: Any system of immigration designed to 'filter' so that only the best and brightest people would be allowed in would be steeped in bureaucracy, as 'best and brightest' is an entirely subjective criteria.

P2: Bureaucracy is the bane of intellect.

P3: Non-intelligent people view bureaucracy as a 'hurdle' on their way to the socialistic hand-outs they pine for so amazingly on their way to glorious America.

P4: The people in charge of immigration have to let a certain amount of people in, so when none of the 'best and brightest' can be found wanting to go through the disgustingly long and hugely egalitarian immigration process, they might begin to let in some of the 'better and brighter' or the 'okay, and semi intelligent'.

P5: (generalization:)Non-intelligent people might also view skipping the entire immigration process in favor of hopping the fence, or swimming the pond and existing here illegally.

Conclusion: If the borders were opened to the ENTIRE world, (not just what countries you feel 'match' our 'culture' best.) and any Joe Blow from Reykjavik to Auckland (and beyond!) could walk over into America and start a new life, we -would- experience an economic upturn. Immediately. Simply because the 'best and brightest' aren't going to wait to be measured by someone else's standard of 'best and brightest'. They do not wait, and they do not have time for standards. If the poorest farmer in Mexico could drop his tools and walk over -without- having to go through a Coyote, -without- having to steal someone's social security number, where he is a legal citizen and might even have the ability to find (OR *gasp* create) a legitimate job, instead of whatever low paying under the table work he can find, he just might transform into the same kinds of immigrants who (yes they really did) built this country. Recognizing that brilliant minds are not exclusively born in rich countries, in fact that brilliant people are not 'born' but made.

When simply trying to exist is a crime, everyone is a criminal. When a man, any man, regardless of where he was born or any other environmental factor, realizes that he can go to a place where he -doesn't- have to be a criminal anymore, and he can succeed, he will choose that.

Is America a magical land of freedom and capitalism? No, but maybe, if more people who have lived in countries that suffer from the worst crimes of socialism and communism were allowed to come, they might help spread the growth of the ideals of Capitalism by letting their new friends and peers know that the socialism that they claim 'made Cuba the best place to find a doctor' or 'gave Canada a better health care system than the US' isn't really what goes on.

It took me about five seconds after hearing Yaron Brook mention a couple virtues that might be brought from opening the borders to realize that he's got the right idea.

Oh, and from a practical standpoint: What's one of our problems? Too many empty houses. What does open borders bring: More people to live in houses. Closing the borders creates a limited group of people capable of buying houses. We want to breathe life into the real estate market? Bring more demand.

EDIT: Oh also, if you feel that open borders would allow muslim fundamentalists to get into the country and do their durn muslim fundamentalism all over our streets, please remember: Criminals commit crime. You could completely close the borders and allow -no- immigration, and they would still get in. People who are going to strap a bomb to their chest are not interested in following the law. Terrorist attacks should be stopped by other means than putting up a sign on the fence that says 'plx no terrorists.'

Edited by Jackethan
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And you still haven't dealt with the idea that your principle is based on correlation, not causation. There is nothing causative about immigration that results in crime or welfare leeching. Some do it, some do not.

I don't think it's possible to define principles of proper action when improper action is institutionalized. The question should not be "will concrete action X help me or hurt me in the short term and what rights does that give me to act in retaliation", the question should be "will concrete action X actually assist in accomplishing my LONG TERM goal of achieving a rights-respecting government?"

You guys are arguing about immediate effects while ignoring the long term effects, and this is, of course, going to get you nowhere because the concrete immediate effects are going to be many and varied. There will be some benefits, and some harm, it's inevitable.

Does an immediate policy of open immigration serve the *long-term* goal of achieving a rights-respecting society? Cast in a certain light, it does. It removes a major rights-attacking policy, just as privatizing the school system or deregulating health care would do. However, the storm of denunciation that would surely result might be counterproductive.

This is just one more illustration of the fact that you cannot start with concrete policies if you want to achieve real, long-term change. FIRST you have to convince people to change their underlying philosophy and thus to see that open immigration is a long-term good regardless of the possibly negative short-term consequences. THEN you can make a push for open borders and people will not be derailed and antagonized by the confusion that is sure to result.

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There is nothing causative about immigration that results in crime or welfare leeching.

Well, I haven't mentioned any crimes except welfare leeching. My whole argument is that if we decided to open the borders today, there would be a huge increase in welfare leeching:

Given the fact that unemployment is currently rising sharply, the minimum wage has just been raised, the country just elected its most socialist president yet, and other worrying events, I have every reason to expect that very few immigrants who would come to the US in the next two years would actually be able to find employment.

Now, if I look at the state of the world, I also have every reason to believe that many millions will come to the US in the next two years, most of them poor. Once here, they will have no reason to return, especially knowing that the government (the most socialist one yet) will take care of them.

My entire argument is that yes, given the state of the American economy, in the short term an open border policy would cause increased welfare leeching and in fact collapse the system. And curiously, through 7 pages, that's the only argument no one challenged using economic facts, and our current reality. It's always a hypothetical world, similar to the 19th and early 20th centuries, where immigrants come in and eventually prosper, while overcoming suffering and abject poverty.

Or, if that's not the scenario being presented, then it's the "Open the borders now on principle, even if it ends in havoc, because that's the right thing to do" argument from adrock.

P.S. I think you are being unfair in your interpretation of " by any means necessary". It doesn't mean "by any means". The word necessary allows for this interpretation: by as few and harmless means as possible, while at the same time effective.

Anyway, I did correct that, changed the wording to make it clear, I hope you had a chance to read the edit on my previous post.

Jake

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Does an immediate policy of open immigration serve the *long-term* goal of achieving a rights-respecting society? Cast in a certain light, it does. It removes a major rights-attacking policy, just as privatizing the school system or deregulating health care would do. However, the storm of denunciation that would surely result might be counterproductive.

Why not go a little further, and say that right now would be the worst time to suddenly open the borders, and that my suggestion of easing restrictions gradually would have a much better chance of succeeding in both changing minds and creating economic growth?

Isn't this the one issue which most Americans are responding positively to for ethical reasons, instead of regarding it like a necessary evil (like they do capitalism)?

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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My entire argument is that yes, given the state of the American economy, in the short term an open border policy would cause increased welfare leeching and in fact collapse the system. And curiously, through 7 pages, that's the only argument no one challenged using economic facts, and our current reality.

In that case, you haven't made your case. The burden is on you to make the case, not others to dispell it before it is established. Your argument is that you believe it so therefore you have the right to act.

But I'll dispell the argument on principle before you even make it; immigration is not a right's violation. As such, rational men should not be prohibited from the freedom to act to preserve their lives.

P.S. I think you are being unfair in your interpretation of " by any means necessary".

Those are pretty clear words. Perhaps poorly chosen on your part, but fairly read on mine.

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I don't think it's possible to define principles of proper action when improper action is institutionalized.

As long term participants of this forum we both realize that we (or at least I, to speak for myself) often speak in "shoulds".

However, the fact that the government has institutionalized a particular violation of rights does not mean that the principle "a rational man should be free to act to preserve his own life" suddenly is naught.

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What we are arguing, rather, is that people's culture, defined by their politics and behaviors generally, is usually a good indicator of the majority of their characters.

Wow.

I come from Latin America, the third world, which is also a hotbed of socialism right now.

I guess I must not be an Objectivist, but rather a Socialist. Thank you for helping me realize that my 'collective identity' is more important than my individual identity.

Edited by kainscalia
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I come from Latin America, the third world, which is also a hotbed of socialism right now.

By calling Latin America a hotbed of socialism you just admitted that most people in that region are socialists. Isn't that the statement you are so outraged about? What makes Latin America socialist if not the people? Is it the landscape?

Doesn't the fact that Latin America is a hotbed for socialism speak volumes of the majority of its people's characters? Isn't it a fact that you are in fact part of a small minority who reject socialism?

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Wow.

I come from Latin America, the third world, which is also a hotbed of socialism right now.

I guess I must not be an Objectivist, but rather a Socialist. Thank you for helping me realize that my 'collective identity' is more important than my individual identity.

You are conflating my position. I never said or implied that an individual should take their identity from the collective or that as an individual it would be just to judge someone on their ethnicity alone. But a government must decide the criteria by which to admit people from different countries since completely open immigration is about as likely to happen as a removal of the welfare programs which cause this conflict of interest in the first place. For example, it should consider that 34% of the legal mexican immigrants use one or more major welfare programs as opposed to 7.5% from southeast Asia or 9% from europe. Especially since the average cost is $10,000 a year(excluding schools which are another $10k per year per student). They should also consider the average crime rates. The education of the applicants. The job skills. The health and so forth. Should people from places we are at war with be allowed in indiscriminately also? After all, there are in all probability very, very fine people in Iraq and Iran.

My numbers are from this study.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2003/back503.html

The charts are particularly fun

So to everyone opposed to my position generally, here's the deal I'm looking at. I have worked in construction all my life and during that time have amassed a huge amount of direct first hand knowledge about what occurs and have corroborated that knowledge with somewhat extensive reading on the subject. I am not a racist. I am not opposed to fully open immigration, someday. I know that exceptions exist to every generalization. I know that there is no breach between the practical and moral. I have read(and listened) everything rand wrote in addition to a great deal by peikoff and other objectivists. And what's most important is that I am opposed to self-sacrifice. Particularly my own.

You can go to any roofing company in mid January and watch as nearly every single hispanic employee walks by the dumpster and drops in his w-2 in the garbage. You then might wonder why they don't want their money back. So if you were to rummage through said dumpsters you would find that all of them had 9 dependents listed and no money withheld except for payroll taxes(social security and medicare). So there is really no money to get back despite the fact that these are $40K a year and up jobs putting them in the top 30% of income earners.

Then if you spent time in any Hispanic immigrant neighborhood(which I have very often lived in) you would find that you could purchase an identity, social security card and all for $150.

What's more, if you were white and understood a little bit of spanish you could over here many conversations by people who didn't think you understood about the process. The process is that you and your wife get fake I.D.s Your wife(who is an unmarried single mom on paper) applies for every program she can qualify for. Section 8 gets 80% of her rent paid. Medicaid covers health costs and if you are good you can probably get food stamps and strait out checks for mothers with dependent children(who by the way are going to a free school at the cost of $10,000 a year) Meanwhile mom works under the table and daddy's banking 60 large and paying no taxes.

And for a scale of the scope, the social security office finds 9 million wrong social security numbers a year in a country with 138 million workers. And those are just the ones they find out about where the name doesn't match the number.

And who's paying for this? Me of course and anyone else stupid enough to be a hard working, law abiding citizen.

So here we have a conflict of interest. And before you bother, Adrock, yes I have read Rand and yes I know that "there is no conflict of interest among rational men." But just taking the illegal immigrants for the moment, we have a bare minimum of 34% welfare use and 9 million people that we know of who have at the very least, committed identity theft, which is fraud. Compounding that fact 31% of people in federal prisons are illegal and are there for something other then being illegal since we do not actually enforce those laws. These are not rational men,by and large, even though exceptions exist.

For good measure pile on the fact that a demographic which will be a majority in less than 30 years, votes democratic by a 2 to 1 margin. That means that the republican party will exist only to the extent that they are every bit as socialist as the democrats and the democrats will need to swing even further to stay ahead of the curve.

So here I am with millions of criminally minded mooching parasites sucking on my teat without my permission, screaming for more. Then to be properly selfish in an objectivist sense and understand Rand properly, I ought to, not only, continue supporting the very people who are purposefully and consciously acting to make this country worse, by and large, but that further I ought to attempt to increase the number of people my chafed nipple has to feed?

So very simply we need our own house in order before we should invite anymore people to the party and, open immigration, while a wonderful thing in theory, is way down at the bottom of my list of things to try to change. To reverse the order would be one of the most obvious acts of self-sacrifice I could commit.

It is not my fault that this conflict of interest exists, but it does, never the less, exist. The moral culpability lies with everyone who ever supported the creation or maintenance of a social program and not me.

In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny is stopped by a hesitant young soldier and shoots him in the head. He had every bit the right to life she had, but because his delay would cause her to sacrifice her values, she shot him in the face. Should she have realized that he had a right to life too, and just let Galt die? Sacrifice her own values to provide them to someone else? Not in my "poor" understanding of Atlas Shrugged.

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So to everyone opposed to my position generally, here's the deal I'm looking at.

So, would it be fair to say then that you support the following idea; if the government has institutionalized one form of rights violation, it should also institutionalize another form of rights violation to minimize the damage of the first one? It seems to me that would be penalizing the innocent here for the sins of the guilty. Yea, that's justice.

In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny is stopped by a hesitant young soldier and shoots him in the head. He had every bit the right to life she had, but because his delay would cause her to sacrifice her values, she shot him in the face.

So it seems if we look at the flip side, the 'Mexican Dagnys' of the world crossing the border should be shooting our border agents in the face because they have a right not to sacrifice themselves either. Ouch. The border agent has a right to life to, but screw him if it involves her sacrificing her values for the sake of others.

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So, would it be fair to say then that you support the following idea; if the government has institutionalized one form of rights violation, it should also institutionalize another form of rights violation to minimize the damage of the first one? It seems to me that would be penalizing the innocent here for the sins of the guilty. Yea, that's justice.

No, that's not what I mean at all. They ought never institutionalize rights violations. What I am saying is that these rights violations already exist and the removal of this one will, in my estimation, exacerbate the other, more deleterious ones.

So it seems if we look at the flip side, the 'Mexican Dagnys' of the world crossing the border should be shooting our border agents in the face because they have a right not to sacrifice themselves either. Ouch. The border agent has a right to life to, but screw him if it involves her sacrificing her values for the sake of others.

The circumstance is different. What I meant here was that the discretionary time I have left after I am finished paying for the massive welfare fraud that already exists is not going to be spent encouraging the very people who are profiting by my victimization. No one needs to be shot. :) I just refuse to try to protect the rights of Mexico's citizens when they are so very likely to be helping destroy my own.

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You can go to any roofing company in mid January and watch as nearly every single hispanic employee walks by the dumpster and drops in his w-2 in the garbage. You then might wonder why they don't want their money back. So if you were to rummage through said dumpsters you would find that all of them had 9 dependents listed and no money withheld except for payroll taxes(social security and medicare). So there is really no money to get back despite the fact that these are $40K a year and up jobs putting them in the top 30% of income earners.

Sounds like an ideal situation to me. Please tell me why you would pay taxes into our current system if you didn't have to?

What's more, if you were white and understood a little bit of spanish you could over here many conversations by people who didn't think you understood about the process. The process is that you and your wife get fake I.D.s Your wife(who is an unmarried single mom on paper) applies for every program she can qualify for. Section 8 gets 80% of her rent paid. Medicaid covers health costs and if you are good you can probably get food stamps and strait out checks for mothers with dependent children(who by the way are going to a free school at the cost of $10,000 a year) Meanwhile mom works under the table and daddy's banking 60 large and paying no taxes.

Let me get this straight. You've seen this happen before, to be generous, several times. But help me make the leap to "I saw this happen so many times" to "This happens every time."

And for a scale of the scope, the social security office finds 9 million wrong social security numbers a year in a country with 138 million workers.

They can't work legally unless they fake their identity. In order to make a living, they have to resort to illegal measure. There's nothing wrong with that. I would do the same. If you say you wouldn't, you're lying.

And who's paying for this? Me of course and anyone else stupid enough to be a hard working, law abiding citizen.

How much exactly are you paying in taxes? From the tone of this conversation, you better be making at least a million a year. I very rarely have to pay much taxes. A thousand, at most, two thousand a year. You need to consult a financial advisor and get that straightened up.

For good measure pile on the fact that a demographic which will be a majority in less than 30 years, votes democratic by a 2 to 1 margin. That means that the republican party will exist

That would be a blessing.

Edited by adrock3215
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No. I'm part of a small minority who was able to escape and get a temporary visa.

By calling Latin America a hotbed of socialism you just admitted that most people in that region are socialists. Isn't that the statement you are so outraged about? What makes Latin America socialist if not the people? Is it the landscape?

Doesn't the fact that Latin America is a hotbed for socialism speak volumes of the majority of its people's characters? Isn't it a fact that you are in fact part of a small minority who reject socialism?

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How much exactly are you paying in taxes? From the tone of this conversation, you better be making at least a million a year. I very rarely have to pay much taxes.
Well that helps explain your attitude. Someone has to pay for all the government freebies. You do get that, right? The general idea here is that bestowing an unearned benefit upon one man at the expense of another is immoral and a violation of rights. Just because it is costing you next to nothing, does not make it a moral neutral. There are people who, unlike yourself, do have to shoulder a large tax burden so that others can have a free ride. It is perfectly reasonable for them to desire that their burden not be increased. You want open boarders, eliminate the social safety net....first.

That would be a blessing.

Howso?

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From the tone of this conversation, you better be making at least a million a year.

How does the tone of the conversation have anything to do with the amount of money he's making or paying in taxes? I'm not in agreement with him as a whole on the issue, but at least I understand he's talking about the principle of the matter, not the concrete amount (which is simply arguing over "inches of evil").

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Howso?

The Repbulican party is disgusting.

How does the tone of the conversation have anything to do with the amount of money he's making or paying in taxes?

It was a stupid comment, that added nothing to the argument, and should not have been said. The point of it was: How much is this really going to cost you? He's talking about the effect on him, so I'm interested to see what his stake is in all of this. In other words: How much money would this guy save by not opening the borders; or, phrased alternatively: How much would he lose by opening the borders? Since the whole conversation he and Jake have been stating that they're going to lose massive amounts of money, I wanted to know what we're talking about here. I wanted an estimation of the effects of opening the borders on their pocketbook. Are we talking $1, $10, $100, $1000, $10,000, $100,000 or what?

Well that helps explain your attitude. Someone has to pay for all the government freebies. You do get that, right?

Yes, of course. Just that it's mostly suckers who pay taxes. Howard Hughes hardly paid a tax in his entire life. Most smart people pay very little in taxes as well.

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Yes, of course. Just that it's mostly suckers who pay taxes. Howard Hughes hardly paid a tax in his entire life. Most smart people pay very little in taxes as well.

Right. The 3 trillion+ / year is coming in from all the stupid people like myself. How exactly we are producing that 3 trillion, while being such imbeciles that we can't even cheat the IRS is of course a mystery.

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But I'll dispell the argument on principle before you even make it; immigration is not a right's violation. As such, rational men should not be prohibited from the freedom to act to preserve their lives.

Ayn Rand elected laissez faire capitalism (which includes the right of people to move freely) to be her ideal political system precisely because it is the only system in which there are no conflicts of interest between rational men. For you to borrow those principles and dismiss my arguments in a political system which has plenty of conflicts of interest based on them, is absurd: I'm sure you can think of a technical name I am yet to fully understand for that (I'm guessing floating abstraction).

I believe you will have to agree with this: In the absence of a political system which fully recognizes rights, Objectivists should derive their guiding principles from Ayn Rand's ethics, not her politics. At the same time, they should work toward establishing such a political system, in a prudent fashion.

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Sounds like an ideal situation to me. Please tell me why you would pay taxes into our current system if you didn't have to?

I wouldn't. But, and I also would not use any more public services then the ones I can't avoid.

Let me get this straight. You've seen this happen before, to be generous, several times. But help me make the leap to "I saw this happen so many times" to "This happens every time."

Grammatical error. I meant to say every time that I have seen.

They can't work legally unless they fake their identity. In order to make a living, they have to resort to illegal measure. There's nothing wrong with that. I would do the same. If you say you wouldn't, you're lying.

To work, maybe. To steal someone else's money, never.

How much exactly are you paying in taxes? From the tone of this conversation, you better be making at least a million a year. I very rarely have to pay much taxes. A thousand, at most, two thousand a year. You need to consult a financial advisor and get that straightened up.

That explains a lot about your position. If you pay a thousand a year you are making less than $20,000 a year unless you have a boat load of dependents. If you were making even $40,000 a year you would understand the nature of the graduated income tax and be paying at least $12,000 a year.

The nature of your question is entirely inappropriate. How much I make is not anyone's business. I'll say this much though. My current projection is that the raise in capital gains tax that Obama wants will cost me around $15,000 and force me to change my entire investment strategy. That amount excludes my income tax, property tax, social security, medicare, medicaid, sales tax, as well as the 50% tax on any profit I manage to make as a business. It also excludes the omnipresent inflation "tax" which costs everyone 11% a year in buying power whether they realize it or not.

I'd love to have the contact information of an accountant that can make me pay next to nothing, legally. My guess is that it would be like the one they busted in greeley, co recently that had all of her customers(thousands of illegal immigrants) getting more money back than they paid by lying on their forms.

That would be a blessing.

I didn't realize you were a fan of socialism. Now the nature of the discussion makes more sense. People who make more can afford to pay and have nothing to complain about, right?

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I should revise this statement to say income taxes, that way I exclude sales and property taxes.

Why exclude all the money states have to pay for the upkeep of another countries citizens. Especially in our southern border states which mysteriously have more problems with the cost of immigration than other states.

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So, would it be fair to say then that you support the following idea; if the government has institutionalized one form of rights violation, it should also institutionalize another form of rights violation to minimize the damage of the first one? It seems to me that would be penalizing the innocent here for the sins of the guilty. Yea, that's justice.
I came late to this conversation, so if this isnt your position feel free to correct me. Are you saying that a restrictive immigration policy, or our current immigration policy is a violation of individual rights? Does a non-citizen have a right to emigrate to this country? It seems to me that they do not.
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Allow me to point you towards this article by Harry Binswager in Capitalism Magazine where he makes an excellent point in answering to arguments similar to yours, as well as this article by Andy Ryan on the subject of immigration. Both contain solid arguments (Binswager being the most solid) that you should consider before deciding that non-citizens do not have a right to immigrate (citizenship at this point resting primarily upon the accident of birth).

I came late to this conversation, so if this isnt your position feel free to correct me. Are you saying that a restrictive immigration policy, or our current immigration policy is a violation of individual rights? Does a non-citizen have a right to emigrate to this country? It seems to me that they do not.
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Does a non-citizen have a right to emigrate to this country? It seems to me that they do not.

In my earlier post in this thread about immigration, I linked to this artilcle by Binswanger where he says:

Entry into the U.S. should ultimately be free for any foreigner, with the exception of criminals, would-be terrorists, and those carrying infectious diseases. (And note: I am defending freedom of entry and residency, not the automatic granting of U.S. citizenship).

An end to immigration quotas is demanded by the principle of individual rights. Every individual has rights as an individual, not as a member of this or that nation. One has rights not by virtue of being an American, but by virtue of being human.
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