Lux Lucet

Ruth and Naomi Leave Moab, 1860, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872).

Among the more frustrating aspects of the immigration debate is that, at least as far as immigration and related issues are discussed in the mainstream press, it is not a debate at all.

In general, reporting on immigration issues takes the form of a lecture, in which proponents of keeping and/or expanding the current immigration/refugee/aslyee/migration system are posited as the defenders of all that is just, right and holy, heroically fighting against nativist, racist, xenophobic bigots who complain that current immigration laws do not serve the interests of the American people.

This sort of reporting often has a Kantian undertone to it, by which I mean that in many cases immigration to the US is explicitly or implicitly presented as, on the one hand, a right to which is due to the entire non-American population of the world, and, on the other hand, a duty owed by American people to them. The notion that US immigration policy should serve the interests of the American people – a point that Donald Trump explicitly made part of his immigration platform – is considered beyond the pale of polite discussion. Further, anyone so foolish as to attempt to argue that the interest of the American people should be considered when making immigration policy is immediately scorned and dropped into Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” from which there is no escape.

There is a second annoying aspect of the immigration debate, the tendency of immigration proponents to commit the informal logical fallacy known as appeal to pity. An appeal to pity is where one argues that you should accept his conclusion, not because of any sound logical reasoning requires that you accept it, but because you feel sorry for him. One example of this sort of argument runs, “If this man is given the death sentence, who will take care of his children?” (Norman Geisler, Come, Let Us Reason, 96). And how many times have we heard this sort of thing from immigration enthusiasts? “You can’t deport X, because you’re breaking up X’s family!” But feeling sorry for someone is not a sound basis for making immigration policy. For example, one can always reply, “Yes, but X should have considered the possibility of deportation before electing to enter the US contrary to American immigration law. No one made him violate the law. He chose to do so. Therefore, the breakup of his family is his own fault.”

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