The Economic Argument Against Immigration is Pretty Gross

The economic argument against immigration is especially disgusting.

You might think cultural arguments about keeping a country “pure” or safety arguments claiming all immigrants are criminals are more offensive.  But let’s examine what the economic argument against immigration really means.

The idea of forcibly preventing individuals from crossing a border in order to give an economic advantage to those on the other side of the line is barbaric when you ponder it.  Immigration restriction for the purpose of “protecting jobs” really means the violent prevention of people born in certain places from trying to earn a living.

Imagine you want a certain job.  So does your neighbor.  Would you slash his tires to keep him from getting to the interview?  Would you build a wall around his house preventing him from leaving because he might compete with you in the market?  Would you shoot him if he tried to scale it for the chance of landing the job?

If you knew a person living in horrible conditions, whose children may well die of an entirely preventable disease, and they just need a decent job to be able to afford better environs for their family, would you feel proud for sending armed thugs to follow that person around and ensure they never left their crappy neighborhood to apply for jobs elsewhere?  Even if it meant grinding poverty and possible sickness and death for the family?  Would you cheer and say, “Yeah!  I’m protecting my job opportunities!”

If you support immigration restrictions that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Economies are best served with open competition.  No one thinks forcibly shutting down competitors or collaborators is a good move or morally permissible…unless those competitors and collaborators happened to be born in certain places.

Can you think of more blatantly bigoted behavior?  The belief that certain individuals should be violently prevented from even trying to get certain jobs or live in certain places based purely on the piece of land on which they happened to be born is no less reprehensible than Jim Crow, Apartheid, or any of the other universally condemned forms of legal economic oppression.

Leave aside the fact that immigration restrictions are bad for the economy as a whole, and that far more people in the restrictive country are harmed by being unable to hire or buy from vast swaths of humanity.  Even if it were true that immigration restrictions made native born citizens better off they would be no less disturbing and morally bankrupt.

If I paid armed agents to keep every potential competitor for jobs or customers under house arrest you wouldn’t forgive me if I could prove that the practice helped me economically.  You’d call me a cold-hearted psychopath.  Even if border patrols gave you an edge by keeping some potential competition behind barbed wire it wouldn’t make your advocacy of them honorable.  “Hey look, I can get ahead by keeping this poor person from trying!” is not the cry of an honorable person.  “People who weren’t born where I was shouldn’t be allowed to apply for jobs!” isn’t a belief to boast about.

All arguments against the free and peaceful movement of people are bad.  Arguing it’s to protect your economic interests reveals a level of moral bankruptcy that is truly unsettling.