Immigration

One of the most serious forms of discrimination in our society is our immigration policy.  In just about every other area of life we are concerned that some people enjoy advantages due to "accident of birth".  In this area we sometimes go too far.  The term "privilege" is used to describe advantages that are not the intentional result of our laws.  For example the idea that health care should be a right and not a privilege.  I don't know of anyone who suggests that the legal ability to purchase healthcare should be restricted to a hereditary elite.  In fact our government actually takes steps to provide healthcare for the poor.

The word "privilege" should be used to denote those instances where the law actually intentionally promotes inequality by awarding different legal status based on accident of birth.  This is indeed the case with our immigration policy.  Our government treats people who want to come to this country and work like criminals.  We don't limit the number of people who were born in our country who get to stay here and work.  Our laws discriminate on the basis of the location of birth.

This discrimination is used to intentionally promote inequality.  To say that Latin Americans on the whole tend to be poorer than citizens of the U.S. is to make a glaring understatement.  This statement is so obvious that not even the most ardent supporters of our immigration policies can maintain it.  Indeed they don't.  Their idea is that allowing more Latin Americans to work in our country will depress the wages of U.S. citizens.  That's possible, but there is much more evidence that preventing them from crossing the border reduces their wage.  Thus by preventing a crossing our government is taking from the poor because some people suspect that will increase the wages of people who are on the whole more wealthy.  This is at best an inefficient way of helping the rich.

Some people have pointed out that liberal immigration policies are not exactly the best way of helping the poor.  People in Africa are much worse off than Latin Americans.  There are two problems with this argument.  First liberal immigration policies are not a way of helping the poor.  Illiberal policies are a way of harming them.  I don't support these policies on the basis that we have to do something to help Latin Americans, but because we had better not do anything to harm them.  Second, if we are concerned that the assistance that we give to others be fair, then we should make sure that we don't help anyone in our own country.  If Latin Americans are better off than Africans, citizens of the U.S. tend to fair even better.

As for those who suggest that a bilingual nation is not a successful one, I'm sure that the citizens of Canada and Switzerland will be disappointed to find out that they live in failed states.