Leave Americans in Mexico Be by Jacob G. Hornberger March 11, 2007 There is a big immigration problem that has been growing year after year. An increasing number of American citizens are moving to Mexico, and some of them are even becoming undocumented workers. Even worse, they are refusing to assimilate and are even insisting on retaining their U.S. citizenship. Six years ago, ...
I Lift My Sword above the Bolted Door by Samuel Bostaph December 1, 2006 Emma Lazarus had better stay in her grave if she knows what’s good for her. Why do I say that? Well, the blackhearted villainess deliberately contributed to what is now known as “the immigrant problem.” When she wrote her sonnet “The New Colossus,” and donated it to be auctioned off as part of the fundraising to build a pedestal ...
U.S. Immigration Debate Is a Road Well Traveled by Michael Powell November 1, 2006 They were portrayed as a disreputable lot, the immigrant hordes of this great city. The Germans refused for decades to give up their native tongue and raucous beer gardens. The Irish of Hell’s Kitchen brawled and clung to political sinecures. The Jews crowded into the Lower East Side, speaking Yiddish, fomenting socialism, and resisting forced assimilation. And by their sheer ...
No Immigration Trouble at the Check-Out Counter by Scott McPherson September 22, 2006 To hear anti-immigrant types and their spokesmen tell it, any intelligent American only needs to look around to see all the trouble that immigrants cause us. A heterogeneous society just won’t work, they say. Too many problems with language differences and clashing cultures. And then there’s the burden on the ...
Conservatives and Immigration Control by Bart Frazier July 31, 2006 To most people, the idea of open borders seems like a radical idea. And of the people most vehemently opposed to it these days, conservatives top the list. But if a run-of-the-mill conservative were to take the philosophical underpinnings of his politics into account, he would find that he too ...
Independent Migrants Have Rights Too by Sheldon Richman June 2, 2006 You’d never know it from the recent public discussion, but the people disparaged as “illegal aliens” — in fact they are independent migrants — have the same natural rights to life, liberty, and property that Americans have. As long as they violate no one else’s natural rights, they should be free ...
The Meritless Language Argument by Scott McPherson May 10, 2006 Anti-immigrant types often use the language argument to make their case: that without a common language, people will never be able to get along and prosper. I couldn’t help but think of this recently when my wife and I decided to get some much-needed work done around the house. I’m no handyman, ...
Speaking Spanish and Assimilating by Jacob G. Hornberger May 10, 2006 I’m always intrigued by people who complain that Latino immigrants who don’t learn English aren’t “assimilating” within American society. Consider my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I was practicing law in the 1970s. The jury pool for judicial trials consisted of citizens whose names had been taken from the voter ...
The Immigration Debate We’re Not Having by Scott McPherson April 28, 2006 As the nation finds itself embroiled in a debate over immigration, we hear the standard arguments for and against. Those favoring a more liberal approach to immigration warn of the economic consequences of turning away low-cost workers. On the other side, we’re warned that immigration itself “costs” too much — ...
Leave Immigrants and Their Employers Alone by Scott McPherson April 24, 2006 A basic tenet of a free and open society is the right of everyone to try to better his own life. That’s why millions of people come to the United States every year looking for work. For that same reason, people hire them. With mid-term elections on the way, “immigration reform” is ...
What Do You Mean “We”? by Sheldon Richman April 19, 2006 To say the least, there is tension between the ideas that we live in a free society and that government may determine whom we may sell to, rent to, and hire. This is the real heart of the immigration debate. Who should decide such things, free individuals or the state?
A Free Market in Immigration by Jacob G. Hornberger March 31, 2006 Once again, the federal government is proposing immigration “reforms” to address the immigration woes that confront our country. The proposals in Congress include extending a fortified “fence” (for some reason, government officials shy away from using the word “wall”) along the Southern border, criminalizing illegal residency, criminalizing assistance given ...