This Blog is Pro-Immigration*

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*With caveats. See below.

Yes, you read the post title correctly.

I've been pro-immigration for as long as I can remember. Initially my views came out of my commitment to libertarianism - small l and big L.

The libertarian position on immigration is both utilitarian and rights based: The utilitarian argument is that, all thing being equal, free movement of peoples benefits everyone. That doesn't mean it will benefit every single person at every moment. But in the long run more people will have a greater chance of being better off than if it were restricted. In essence, the libertarian argument for the free movement of peoples is the same as that for the free movement of goods and services, otherwise known as a free market. 

The rights based argument is that people have a prima facie right to travel to or from wherever they want, and to live wherever they want (at least within the boundaries set by their own financial resources). Thus, again all things being equal, the state should not interfere with that right. If freedom doesn't at least include the right of free movement, it's not clear what it does mean.

Ironically it was a British Labour politician from the first half of the twentieth century, Ernest Bevin, who gave one of the best rough definitions of freedom I've ever seen.

Freedom means being able to get on a train at Victoria Station and go wherever you damn well want without giving an explanation to anyone.

I like that.

And I would add to it: if you want to bring your family and a few suitcases along for the ride and then, upon arrival, decide to stay, that's okay too.

I can't count the number of times I have been called a racist or a fascist or "against diversity." Whatever my other faults, those things are not among them. Diversity, as to peoples and cultures, should be one of civilization's highest values. And Chicago, where I currently live, is a wonderful example of it. So is (or was) London, where I lived for two years, or Boston, where I grew up.  One of the reasons I'm against Islam is because it's one of the most anti-diverse forces in existence.

But I'm jumping the gun.

When I became a Catholic seven years ago, I was happy to discover that my pro-immigration sympathies were confirmed by my new faith. And I'm not referring to the post-Vatican II highly-politicized "liberal" Catholicism, but the real thing.

In Catholic tradition, one of the Four Sins that Cries to Heaven for Vengeance is "the plight of the alien." That's right, in general, supporting people who wish to better their lives by moving to a new country is commanded by God. Or so I would claim, based on my understanding of the traditional position. 

I'm serious about the implications of this. I don't think people have the right to, say, insulate their profits, income or status by lobbying their national government to bar immigrants from competing with them. Nor do I think the state has the duty or right to bar immigration on the grounds of protecting ethnic or cultural "identity," simply for the sake of it.

Christ put people first, not nations or governments.

If you disagree, that's fine. I'm not making a systematic argument here. I'm just laying out my position.

However, here are some caveats or rather, additional considerations as to why being "pro-immigration" does not mean being in favor of completely unregulated or open borders in all circumstances and at all times:

1. The state has the right and responsibility to make sure immigration is orderly. I suppose if there was a risk of disease or similar, it should do what is necessary to address that. Such was famously the case at Ellis Island earlier in this country's history. It is also not an overly burdensome imposition on liberty for the state to in some way track or register who is coming in.
2. The provision of state provided "welfare" complicates things. If someone wants to come from China and, say, open a restaurant (with their own money) selling americanized Chinese food, then that's fine. But if they come from China and are then provided with free medical care, schooling, welfare benefits and the rest, perhaps out of a fund which, say, I've been paying into for my entire life, that may not be fine. People have a right to travel but not a right to be subsidized by others upon reaching their destination. In many historical cases this consideration has been a moot point. If the welfare benefits are small enough and/or the new immigrants are "hard working" enough, it doesn't really matter. But it's always going to be an empirical question as to whether immigrants "put money in" or "take money out" of the state coffers or the economy as a whole. If the answer is negative, then that may have consequences for how "open" immigration should therefore be.
3. Immigration should not be a vehicle for state aggression - obvious or implicit - or individual aggression. States should not be able to dump "undesirables" or criminals on their neighbors. More obviously, immigration should not be used as disguised warfare. Thus, France and the Low Countries had no obligation to welcome Nazi "immigrants" from Germany in 1940. And that would apply whether the "immigrants" were wearing uniforms and driving tanks or coming with families and suitcases. In the same way, criminals have no absolute right to travel to practice their criminality. And this would apply whether they are being supported by a particular state or are simply "freelancers." Which brings us to 4, or, as it were, the elephant in the room:
4. Supporting tolerance and freedom is not a death pact that should allow freedom and tolerance to be destroyed by others. Being pro-immigration flows from one's commitment to tolerance and freedom. But by the same token, if there is good evidence that immigration will have a negative effect on those values - because, say, a critical mass of immigrants of a particular group or among those who profess certain beliefs are either indifferent or hostile to them - then that's a prima facie reason to restrict immigration, at least for that group. Let's continue this discussion outside of the numbers.

I'm obviously taking about Islam - not Muslim people per se but Islam as an ideology.

If I thought Islam was simply about worshipping a God whose name started with "A," wearing a hajib and eating sweets for Eid, then I wouldn't care one way or another. Undoubtedly this is how many Westerners perceive Islam. Unfortunately, their perception is wrong.

Islam is a lot more than a few quaint customs. The goal of Islam as an ideology - as explicitly expressed in the Koran, the collected sayings of Muhammed and Islamic history and tradition - is to instantiate, by whatever means necessary, Islamic rule on everyone - a rule that would be intolerant and unfree.

To put it mildly.

And there is little wiggle room with, as it were, the nasty bits of the religion. Islam claims that the Koran was dictated directly by God. And Muhammad's status as God's prophet gives his pronouncements a permanent validity second only to God's. If you try to jettison the bad parts - particular pronouncements of God or Muhammed - you're essentially saying that Islam is false. A "reformed" Islam wouldn't be Islam.  

Some people believe that since the values of an open society - tolerance, freedom and the rest - are obviously (so they believe) a sort of historical end point for social evolution, then even if there are those who "may not quite be there yet," living within an open society will cause them to assimilate to those values or at least assimilate close enough to them.

I used to think that.

I don't anymore - at least when it comes to Islam.

It might be true with really small numbers. More to the point, if the numbers are small enough, it might not be noticeable that assimilation is not happening. And of course if the numbers are small enough, it might not matter anyway.

But as we're now seeing in Europe, and if we had been alert to it, as we could have already seen in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, Islam doesn't assimilate away when brought into contact with other sets of values. Instead it defends itself and if possible, pushes back as hard as it can the other way.

It may lie passive for a while, especially if the numbers are small or if it is targeted by, say an aggressive nationalism or secularism as in Turkey, but the ideology itself doesn't change. And the current resurgence of Islam in Turkey after generations of quasi-repression is a good example of that.

Islam can't change. But can Muslims change? Certainly many have. Millions of Muslims all over the world have become Christians or atheists or Muslims-in-name-only who eat sweets for Eid. The problem is that for a number of reasons the general trend seems to be in the other direction.

And this is just as true for Muslims in majority non-Muslim countries. For example, polls show that among Muslims in Europe, it's the younger generation that is the most "extreme" when it comes to support for sharia and all the rest. Muslims in Europe aren't assimilating; they're gathering strength.

Islam is one hardy meme. It has a built in defense mechanism. After it "takes you over," if you then succeed in expelling it, the meme tells other Muslims to kill you.

For anyone who really values tolerance and freedom, restricting Muslim immigration is a no-brainer. Those who support Muslim immigration have put themselves squarely in opposition to the values of Western Civilization, unwillingly or willingly.

They're not pro-freedom. They've become de facto enemies of it.

A plaque inside the Statue of Liberty contains these lines from the poem "The New Colossus":

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Liberty isn't going to lift her lamp for those who want to stifle our freedoms. And neither should we.

Immigration should be supported.

Muslim immigration should not be.