This paper will discuss whether it is ethical to compulsorily stop migrants from entering and settling in the US or not. First, the paper will look at Huemer’s argument on the migration issues. Although many believe that it is important to keep away immigrants in order to maintain any nation’s integrity and culture, Huemer argue that it is not right to bar immigrants from entering into the United States. He argues that immigrants do not bring economic hardships for existing citizens as most countries belief. Secondly, this paper will discuss what some critics about these arguments reason and later answer these critics of behalf of Huemer.
Huemer, in his paper, argues that it is not ethically right to deny immigrants to enter into a country. He assumes that immigrants are ordinary people escaping persecution or economic hardship from their country and want a new society that they want to live in. First, he argues that migration limitation is at any rate a prima facie abuse of immigrants and potential refugees. He then examines the common explanations used constraining immigrants and shows that none of them proposes a credible foundation to justify not accommodating, which leaves the immigration restrictions unjustified (Keeley 695).
According to Huemer, most theoretical approaches are too contentious to be used as a safe foundation for reasoning. Most of these theories have no proof that they are correct and should not be relied on. Although he does not say that such broad theories are false, he aimed to rest deductions only on commonly-shared ethical insights regarding very precise cases. His methodology follows the well-established tradition of applied ethics and proposes to apply it in the issue of immigration.
In his argument, he shows that restricting immigrants is just but a prima right violation as prima facie abuse is any act of the sort that disturbs somebody’s rights. He gives an example that murdering a person is prima facie human rights abuse. Although under ordinary conditions, killing a human being violates his or her right, special circumstance can change this judgment. For instance, euthanasia and self-protection killing may not disturb rights. Thus, killing someone who is innocent can be justified since the victim’s right may be overshadowed by other moral deliberations (Guskin and Wilson).
It is, therefore, clear that harmful coercion can be sometimes justified especially when it is essential to protect an acquitted individual against injurious intimidation. In fact, there are circumstances when harmful coercions are defensible for the need to remedy stark economic discrimination. Most arguments for limiting immigration, according to Huemer, are economic. Most argue that immigration is likely to take jobs from Americans and may lead to lower wage rates since most immigrants are willing to take lower wages than American workers. However, economists agree unanimously that cheap labor has positive effects on economics. He claims that in certain industries, migrants are unreasonably probable to toil. In such industries, established workers find themselves in a competition that they are not comfortable with (Miller).
Critics
Critics on Huemer’s argument say that any sensible country has to regulate immigration if it is to account for usage of its facilities. Take for instance the absorption capacity of public primary school and health care system. Huemer seems to mean that there should be no public money for such facilities. However, every country invests public money in these facilities and it is unimaginable that the public funds should stop being invested in such amenities, no what how Huemer may argue. It is, therefore, irresponsible for anyone to consider adopting such arguments (Guskin and Wilson).
Milton Friedman pointed out that it is impossible to have an open immigration and a welfare state. Even if it is a right for everyone to migrate to anywhere, it is entirely impracticable to have an open immigration that ignores their existence. Increase the number of low-earning people in the country is likely to increase pressure in dealing with the social welfare programs (Ortega and Peri).
Allowing immigrants to enter the country freely is impractical since it ignores national security implications and issues. Although Huemer agrees that it is important for all the countries to protect themselves against terrorist, he fails to explain the exact way that we should use to deal with this. For instance, a pew poll in 2006 reveals that up to 61 percent of Nigerian Muslims are confident that terrorist like Osama are good people who are doing the right thing in the world affairs. These figures and believes are troubling and require a lot of regulation. It is, therefore, important to treat immigrant from these countries differently and should be screened well before allowing them to enter into the country (Guskin and Wilson).
If all possible immigrants are given a right to enter the country without questioning, it is very hard to control terrorist from entering the country. It is, therefore, hard to justify Huemer’s argument and still restrict terrorist groups from entering the country. An example is the case of Israel and Arabs countries. Although life might be far much easy in Israel as compared to Arabs countries and most people may be willing to migrate and live in Israel, which is prosperous and democratic, Israel still has the right to keep them out. If Israel fails to do so, it will eventually cease to exist. Although Huemer’s argument seems to overrule such cases, Countries like United States, Israel, and others have enemies and need tight security that can only be achieved through restriction of immigrants (Guskin and Wilson).
Letter to the critics
Huemer’s argument seems to handle most of these critics, and whichever one may look at it, immigrants are more beneficial than destructive and the US policy is fundamentally unjust. Barring immigrants from entering into the country just because they were born somewhere else is not right. It imposes some clear and serious harm on those people giving dubious benefits for others who were born in the right geographical area.
Although most of these countries have enough regulation that hinders immigrants from entering the country freely, still, instances of terrorism are widely reported in those countries. This clearly shows that barring immigrants from entering into the country is not a solution to the terrorism problem (Huemer 429-461).
It has also been clearly shown that immigrants have more positive effects on a country than negative effects. Immigrants bring cheap labor in the country which allows the government to spend extra resources that could have used to pay workers to develop more social amenities. Although immigrants compete with the locals for jobs, local people who have been in the country should use the availability of cheap labor to do more business.
Work Cited
Guskin, Jane, and David L Wilson. The Politics Of Immigration. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007. Print.
Huemer, Michael. "Is There A Right To Immigrate?". Social Theory and Practice 36.3 (2010): 429-461. Web.
