Bishop: The Morality of Borders – A No Safe Space Forum at Brown on Friday
Thursday, February 15, 2018
At the root of the debate over immigration is the question of whether borders, as we know them, are defensible.
Not to go all conspiracy theory on you, but this issue is highly entangled with the philosophical debate between weak and strong “cosmopolitanism” David Miller (who speaks at Brown University this Friday, the 16th at 5:30 in the LIST auditorium) distinguishes the weak variety to which he adheres as equal moral concern for all humans beings; compared to the strong notion that we have a duty to see that equal treatment is afforded to all human beings. The logical conclusion of the strong cosmopolitanism, as argued by some, is some kind of world state – dare I say – a new world order.
And don’t think this isn’t what the values confounded neo-cons have in mind when they trot about the middle east in support of abstract borders drawn by outside powers and touting regime change to usher in liberal order for those who have suffered under the corrupt reign of religious or secular strongmen. And yet they profess surprise, or perhaps accept as the exception that proves the rule, that their beachhead for democracy in the Middle East, Iraq, considers the liberal democratic order to provide for figurative or literal genocide for Iraqi Christians.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThis doesn’t strike me as some kind of problem because I prefer Christians, but because it suggests that there is not a plausible world order short of coercion; simply put, world order is not liberal. Some set of people must be made to change their values in order to facilitate what this ‘order’ entails. Somebody will have to conform to someone else, whether that by forcing the religious to accept apostates, or apostates to accept religion or everyone to become secular humanists.
We can certainly recall that conservative patron saint Edmund Burke was required to conform to the English Church in order to participate in political (and associate economic) life. There is nothing new under the sun and the pressures were the same when messages took 80 days to circle the world as 80 milliseconds. There simply is no reason to think that by increasing the size of the polity to encompass the entire planet that pluralist accommodation will magically blossom. It won’t.
Borders are liberating
Borders are the way these differences are accommodated. They are, generally speaking, liberating, as they provide for the culture of those within to flourish without coercing a conformity from those outside. The degree of homogeneity within the borders varies and the extent of pluralism is itself a part of the culture. This isn’t just a question of religious or political outlooks; Americans like cars, Europeans like trains. In some societies, differing from the norms is less acceptable or actually forbidden, but the utility of borders has meant this is addressed not be invading others’ territory in the name of pluralism but rather by recognizing a “right of exit”. The worst of dictatorships vividly reject this right as was on display only months ago when North Korean soldiers shot one of their compatriots who raced across the demilitarized zone. And it is manifest human understanding that making a country a virtual jail is wrong.
But borders create a paradox as the “right of exit”is not matched by a “right of entry”. Joseph Carens who is the strong cosmopolitan compliment to Miller in tomorrow’s colloquy at Brown suggests that this is the moral shortcoming that undermines the legitimacy of borders, at least as exclusionary barriers. Indeed the “right of exit” gained currency after the holocaust and the realization that refusing entry to jews effectively trapped them in Hitler’s Germany.
It does seem right that refugees ought not be turned away as they flee violence and oppression. That doesn’t mean that states cannot take security into account in admitting people. Even the pro immigration Washington Post debunked the widely circulated claim that not one refugee resettled since 9/11 has been arrested on domestic terrorism charges – not least because the Boston Marathon Bombers came to the United States on a claim of asylum in 2002. In Europe, refugees participated in the planning and execution of the most deadly terrorist attack in French history in 2015. These aren’t necessarily examples that support broad rejection of refugees. The risks of harm to American citizens from refugees is fleetingly small, but in a culture where we are taught that one grain of lead or asbestos – even one grain of sand -- is a deadly risk, and much of what we use every day is “known by the state of California to cause cancer”, is there any wonder democratic accountability on the inside of our borders errs grossly on the side of caution?
Even if we were to teach risk analysis, though, accepting a duty to shelter refugees is different than a duty to permanently incorporate them, especially on their own terms. Indeed, Miller notes that riots in ethnic enclaves within France early this century and the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe has created a rejection of the multi-cultural tradition. The point of borders as circumscribing a distinctive culture demands a certain conformity within even as it does not impose that culture without. The French egalitarian tradition is actually at the root of the burqa ban there.
Economic Refugees
But Carens sees not only a duty to shelter refugees but states the strong cosmopolitan case for the acceptance of economic migrants, likening the geography of one’s birth to a feudal system little different than being born a peasant or a noble. The difficulty with the idea that one could erase those distinctions is that affording equal treatment to all humans doesn’t imply just the folks who happen to make it to America. It is equally feudal to say anyone in America is on the gravy train but everybody left in a hellhole somewhere, you’re on your own.
Lant Pritchett argues strongly that a dual system, a caste of sorts, that does not envision working migrants as citizens in waiting is appropriate: “The idea that we wouldn’t help a peasant trying to eke out a living on the side of a mountain in Nepal by letting him work in the United States, just because we have to, if he comes to the United States, endow him with all the rights of U.S. citizens – I think that moral calculus is backward. “
While Carens does acknowledge that the normative view is that states do get to control who enters and the conditions under which they can claim citizenship, he suggests that long tenure in irregular status should infer a right to citizenship. His point is that but for the most heinous crimes there is statute of limitations so why would someone who has been in the United States sometimes for decades still be thought of as illegal?
The Calderon Case
The highly watched case of Lilian Calderon gives an indication of how this might be an unworkable standard. Arriving in the United States at the age of 3 with her family and under the umbrella of her father’s asylum application, it took some 12 years before that application was finally denied. At that time Calderon was 15 but she exercised various appeals and attempts to regularize over the next 15 years, including applying for DACA status that was also denied for lack of evidence of living continuously in the United States. It would be absurd to suggest that the country that afforded her such extensive process was morally prohibited from carrying out the result because the proceedings stretched out so long.
After all that, though, there is a certain inevitability to her claim to regular status since she has married a citizen. But it is quite frequently the case that those without permanent residents status, even folks who will clearly meet the standard, are returned to their country of origin to carry out the application process. This is certainly an approach meant to disincentivize illegal entry and not to reward ignoring removal orders. Still, on the surface, the incident may undercut the representation that the Trump administration prioritizes the removal of dangerous criminal aliens. But with no federal appointees on the ground in RI, it remains unclear whether Trump has anything to do with these recent events. Indeed, the extent to which they cut against his leverage to create a grander bargain on immigration, one has to wonder if local career immigration officials were almost deliberately caddish in this affair.
This is a morally and politically conflicted issue that demands decisions not be made based on high profile cases but by working through the moral and democratic imperatives. The Political Theory Project at Brown that is sponsoring this event is one of few campus institutions that eschews the demands for safe space in favor of serious discourse. In this context they uphold an ante-bellum campus tradition where Brown was the only Ivy college that actually allowed campus debate between advocates of slavery and abolition. Other schools banned the topic as too evocative of passions.
No one interested in the issue of immigration will want to miss this frank discussion and an admirably balanced piece by the New Yorker’s Kalefa Sanneh is good homework beforehand encompassing the work of Miller and Carens as well as significant immigration economist George Borjas.
Brian Bishop is on the board of OSTPA and has spent 20 years of activism protecting property rights, fighting over regulation and perverse incentives in tax policy.
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