-We begin today’s rattle with an interesting story about an Indian-or Muslim, depending upon PR needs of the open borders squad-athlete who was ushered into this country by our very own Senator Chuck Schumer. Unfortunately, this gifted sportsman is also a sex offender. Perhaps this isn’t quite as bad as having an alien interning for your office who is also a registered sex offender, but it does make you question the collective wisdom of our Democratic friends in Congress. Maybe we shouldn’t be taking their advice, vis-a-vis, controversial immigration decisions made by the Executive branch.

-In a reminder that there are actually rational people living in The People’s Republic of Vermont, the voters of Rutland have just turned out their incumbent mayor, Chris Louras, after he attempted to deluge their town with Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq. While ignoring the public’s deep discontent with our government’s refugee resettlement programs-when not imputing racism and bigotry to Americans who express reservations about these schemes-is the norm, even the alternative weekly was forced to concede the enormous political consequences of this decision.

-For those of you who were wondering whatever happened to the thousands of unaccompanied minors who were allowed to enter into this country, wonder no more. According to an in-depth backgrounder from the Center for Immigration Studies, our government has absolutely no clue what it’s doing. While over 80 percent of their sponsors are illegal aliens, 44 percent of the UACs in question were ordered deported. Have the vast majority of these children been deported? Of course not, silly!

-You may ask yourself, “Why is this important?” It’s a good question. After all, it’s not as if these individuals will bring brutal Central American inter-gang warfare to the placidity of our nation’s suburbs, right? Well, I have some bad news for you on that score. It turns out that Latin American gangs, including MS-13, one of the most prolific and ruthless criminal networks in the Western Hemisphere, has actually established a pretty firm beachhead in our own backyard. Naturally, almost all of these gangbangers are criminal aliens. In an ironic twist, the moniker of the man who made an abortive attempt to unify the Mara Salvatrucha within the United States is, you guessed it, Dreamer.

-For those of you who think Europe’s approach to immigration is any less self-defeating and preposterous than the United States, I give you France. A nation where municipal authorities in Calais are attempting to prevent thousands of migrants from recreating the notorious refugee camp known as The Jungle. The biggest proponents of turning The Camp of the Saints into reality are, of course, other Europeans who believe Western civilization is uniquely evil. The ostensible plight of migrants from the third world is simply a cudgel with which the Gramscian left-with the help of corporate bean counters-can beat native Europeans into submission.

-After all, what are a few dozen, or a few hundred, honor killings in the grand scheme of things? Is the systemic dehumanization and murder of girls in nations which were responsible for the idea of religious toleration and freedom of conscience too high a price to pay for erecting the beautiful mosaic? When bad whites are saying intemperate, obnoxious things about people who are off-white, doesn’t that negate their entire philosophical worldview?  Even if that perspective is confirmed multiple times every single day?

-Everyone knows that the real reason millions of Muslims across the world support ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar jihadist networks is because there isn’t enough inclusion in Hollywood casting decisions. See, the real villain isn’t Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It’s those bastards who refused to green light an all-Muslim reboot of Star Trek!

-The cognitive dissonance at work in the mind of an an open borders leftist must be overpowering. They want to live in a high-trust, quasi-collectivist techno-utopia-along the lines of something created by Gene Roddenberry-yet simultaneously support policies which make this already far-fetched goal virtually impossible. The mentality of a social justice warrior in high dudgeon can be found in this VICE piece, which laments the role homeless shelters have been playing in the deportation of migrants. The traditional liberal concern for the working class and the poor is discarded when it conflicts with the categorical imperative, i.e. preserving diversity. The spiritual hollowness and intellectual vapidity of this type of leftist ‘thinking’ was brilliantly and caustically skewered by George Orwell nearly a century ago. It’s good to know that some things haven’t changed all that much.

-I’d like to leave you on a good note, so here’s some refreshing news to come out of Austria. 8 Iraqi men have been convicted of the gang rape of a tourist. Unlike the Middle Eastern cab driver in Halifax who was, to all intents and purposes, high-fived by a Nova Scotia judge for raping an unconscious passenger, these rapists were actually given (relatively) stiff prison sentences. What’s more, we’ve discovered that these horrific incidents actually constitute an anomaly within the Islamic immigrant community.

Migrants and refugees from other countries expressed concern that the crime will make Austrians hostile toward all newcomers.

“Eight people raping a woman — that’s honor-less! Such a thing doesn’t exist in our religion,” Burhan Akbas, a migrant from Turkey, said.

“When such people come here and screw up like that, then everybody will think that Chechens, Afghans, all refugees from war areas are all the same,” Mansur Salamou, an asylum-seeker from Chechnya, said. “But it’s not like that. For example, the majority of us — we also cause problems, commit crimes. But no rape! Only criminal assaults and robberies.”

See, Europeans?! You only have to worry about being assaulted and robbed by the millions of North African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants making their way towards Europe. What a relief.

Addendum: In order to grasp just how destructive mass immigration, in concert with state-enforced multiculturalism, is to social capital take a look at this British poll. As you’ll notice, people living in Northern Ireland-the part of the UK which has been riven by sectarian conflict for over a century-trust their neighbors more than those living in a post-English London. Food for thought. 

One of the chief misconceptions about my immigration views is that they’re born of willful intransigence. The conceit that my political philosophy was shaped years ago-true, to a large degree-and has been unyielding in the face of overwhelming evidence which logically refutes it-completely baseless-is surprisingly widespread among my critics. The truth is that I’m actually desperate to be persuaded, to be convinced that open borders is somehow a desirable-or even workable-state of affairs.

Admitting that you’re wrong, especially about sincerely, long-held convictions, can be psychically devastating for some individuals. One need only read David Horowitz’s disturbing memoir Radical Son to get a sense of how traumatic reevaluating your core ideological beliefs can be to a human being. That said, I am not by nature an ideologue. My identity and my sense of self worth are not wrapped up in the outcome of a particular domestic or international debate. Although not a consequentialist, I do accept reality as it is, which is why I find the intellectual defense of mass, 3rd world immigration to the West so utterly unconvincing.

I want to be persuaded that I’m wrong,  but over the past 2 decades I’ve yet to encounter an even minimally persuasive argument explaining why I am. The most compelling defense of open borders I’ve heard was offered by Julian Castro, the son of a ’60s Chicana militant whose children have been able to profit from the political cachet of faux multiculturalism and our country’s drastically altered demographics. Empty suit though he is, at least he had a rudimentary understanding of the issue being discussed, unlike almost every open borders libertarian I’ve tried to engage on this subject. To cite just one example of the fundamental ignorance they’re operating from, the writer David Marcus routinely extols the beauty of Ellis Island immigration in cliched essays, despite being blissfully unaware of the fact that almost all non-white immigration was prohibited during this halcyon period of American history.

Yevgeniy Feyman is a much more informed interlocutor, yet I came away from his discussion at The Irish Exit this past week with my beliefs, vis-a-vis immigration, fundamentally unchanged. Although an expert in health care policy, Mr. Feyman has a keen interest in the subject of immigration, which he believes should be unfettered. Echoing many of the same arguments used by open borders advocate Bryan Caplan-whose work he referenced-he asserted that there is an ethical and utilitarian case for unrestricted immigration to the West, neither of which I found terribly convincing.

One of my main problems with the latter argument was his insistence upon using gross domestic product as a proxy for economic growth and wealth creation, something that is genuinely perplexing coming from an ostensible proponent of free markets. According to Feyman, economists have postulated a 60% growth in GDP if Western nations completely opened their borders, while a 140% increase would result from global immigration restrictions being completely removed. Even if we were to accept these fantastic claims, it’s far from certain that this would be a good thing for our economy. Even the thousands of largely illiterate, unskilled Somalis imported to the interior of this country collectively boost our GDP. However, I’m sure that serves as scant comfort to the taxpayers forced to support their intergenerational welfare.

Contrary to Feyman’s assertions, immigrants use welfare programs at a greater rate than natives, as well as previous generations of immigrants. This was true in 1996 and it’s true today, despite the meteoric rise in American natives’ exploitation of the social safety net. The only reason the disparity between the 2 groups isn’t greater is because there are a host of programs to which illegal aliens are debarred, a distinction which would be erased were amnesty to be enacted as it’s currently envisioned. The idea that you can’t simultaneously take advantage of welfare programs while working is another myth promulgated by open borders advocates.

What’s more, even though most immigrants come to the United States at the peak of their earning power, one-eighth of the immigrants to this country are over the age of 55! In other words, less than a decade from retirement. Although most of these immigrants will never collect Social Security checks, as the speaker pointed out during his talk, they will still be eligible to take advantage of SSI, a program that is hemorrhaging money, shows no signs of being reformed, and whose costs will continue to soar well into the future.

Feyman seemingly praised the mid-90s efforts to “fence in” welfare use by legal immigrants, efforts now categorically rejected by the presumptive Democratic nominee it should be noted, even as he acknowledged that these attempts at reducing the social and economic costs of immigration had largely failed. Even so, he insisted that these barriers would need to be reintroduced under his proposed scheme of open borders. Why welfare restrictions would be more viable in an electorate with tens of millions more unskilled, welfare-dependent, enfranchised immigrants than it was during the Clinton administration was a question that remained unanswered.

The subject of crime proved similarly elusive, as the crime rate of 1st generation immigrants was touted as definitive proof that open borders would be a panacea, even as Feyman conceded that 2nd generation immigrants had a crime rate identical to, and in some instances exceeding, that of Americans. In a remarkable feat of rhetorical jujitsu, this unpleasant fact was used as a data point IN FAVOR of unfettered immigration, proving as it does that immigrants are assimilating to American culture. Why we should be comforted that foreign gangs which were heretofore unknown in the United States are proliferating, and targeting Americans for extermination, is another question that begs to be answered.

Furthermore, the astronomical crime rate among illegal aliens was only briefly alluded to-and dismissed-during this lecture. Even if you ignore the incalculable human cost of our government’s sanction of criminal aliens, the fiscal cost is staggering. While 2 billion dollars might seem like chump change to a federal government that burns taxpayer wealth at a clip which would make a Saudi prince blush, it’s an oppressive burden to the states and municipalities which have to bear nearly the entire bill. This doesn’t even touch upon the fact that nearly 37% of federal prison sentences in Fiscal Year 2014 involved criminal aliens, let alone the impact of criminal immigrants overseas.

Interestingly, the health care cost of having such a large immigrant population was never broached, despite it being-along with the education-the largest economic burden this group imposes upon state and local governments. A burden which will only increase as the population of immigrants-both illegal and legal-expands, as the rapidly collapsing state of California illustrates.

But even if all of these economic and social metrics supported Yevgeniy’s assertions-and, as I’ve tried to illustrate, they do not-he would still be wrong from a philosophical standpoint. For his proposals are not consonant with liberty as its commonly understood, and they’re certainly not pragmatic, by his own definition. They would eliminate the ability to freely associate and to discriminate, despite these being inherent features of both libertarianism and our republic as it was traditionally conceived.

It’s not surprising then that the only political philosopher he invoked during his lecture was not a libertarian in any sense of the word, but John Rawls, a man whose ideas are the antithesis of those espoused by the Founders. His emphasis on the difference principle and the egalitarian case for opening our borders to the developing world demonstrates the utopian nature of this cause. The idea that inhabitants of third world nations are entitled to the West’s wealth-and that Western societies have no right to deny them-is a popular notion among open borders libertarians, and finds its most ardent advocate in the form of Bryan Caplan, a person who, a la Kevin Williamson, would rather see Americans die than deny the wishes of hundreds of millions of foreign nationals. Call it the Make-A-Wish Foundation for the global village.

The hermetic nature of the discussion among open borders advocates can be seen in the comparisons made between immigration restrictions and government-imposed segregation during the Jim Crow Era. This was another trope invoked by Mr. Famin in order to defend the idea of open borders, one which has its roots in the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which was enacted on a wave of specious comparisons between the struggle of black Americans for civil rights and the desires of foreigners in the third world to relocate to the United States. While correctly citing Robert Putnam’s study demonstrating the negative impact multiculturalism and open borders have on social cohesion, civic trust, and private, communal associations, from that he extrapolated that opponents of open borders must also support segregation along color lines.

There are so many flaws in this analogy that it would be difficult to enumerate them all, so I’ll highlight one of the most glaring. Namely, while Americans have Constitutional, civil rights to equal protection under the law, there is no comparable right for non-Americans to immigrate, settle and exploit the benefits extended to American citizens. It bears repeating that the men who created the framework for our system of government were deeply skeptical of the sorts of free immigration schemes proposed by the likes of Caplan et. al.

Another fundamental problem with this chain of reasoning is the arrogant assumption that the cultures of North America, Europe, and Australia somehow need moral improvement-provided, of course, by an unceasing stream of migrants from the third world. Beyond the obvious paradox at work in this formulation, there is the ahistorical nature of this assertion. It presumes that we don’t already have ample evidence from numerous countries that third world immigration to the West is destructive, not simply eroding the public’s trust in its leaders-which is a good thing-but erasing the very capacity for self-governance.

But even if there were no empirical evidence to support our position, the burden of proof would still be on individuals like Yeveniy Famin to prove that their stance is correct. When someone makes extraordinary claims on behalf of an untested idea that will dramatically alter the status quo, it’s not incumbent upon his opponents to prove a negative. It’s up to him to demonstrate that his idea will result in a positive improvement for individuals and our society. When I brought up the case of A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant who gave us the world’s first Islamic bomb, it wasn’t merely a gotcha question intended to embarrass the speaker or a misguided invocation of the precautionary principle.

There is actually ample evidence that the experiment with Muslim integration in The Netherlands has been a complete failure, and that the cumulative impact of this monumental social change has been decidedly negative for that country and its inhabitants. My point was simply that the adherents to open borders dogmatism couldn’t present a narrative that emphasized a corresponding good that’s resulted from widespread Middle Eastern and North African immigration to Holland. The retort that there are native-born citizens who’ve helped appalling regimes acquire nuclear weapons isn’t quite the devastating rebuttal that its opponents believe it to be. Just like the “there are American scumbags” aphorism, it presumes that just because evil exists we must do nothing within our power to limit our exposure to its most baleful consequences.

This line of reasoning would dictate that a landlord who currently has tenants that are scofflaws and destroy his property allow prospective renters who pose the same threat to live in his building, based upon a rigid devotion to equality. The logical extension of this can be found in Germany, where paying tenants are being evicted in order to make way for refugees, i.e. invaders from the Global South that Angela Merkel, the socialists, and Greens are cultivating as Germany’s new polity.

Open borders is a terrible idea, from both a consequentalist and natural rights perspective. When and if all societies are based upon mutual consent and non-coercion, then by all means, invite whomever you want to live, work, and possibly exploit, your self-contained civilization. I have no problem with Bryan Caplan et. al. inviting downtrodden Haitians or Yemenis to live at his expense, but I vociferously object to them externalizing the costs of their philanthropy to those, like me, who do not share their utopian ideals.

Just a reminder that tomorrow night the Irish Exit will host Let’s Talk About Open Borders, a discussion of an issue that impacts us all. You can find out more about the event here, and purchase your tickets here. Is a borderless, multicultural society an atomized dystopia devoid of social capital? Or is it the economically dynamic nirvana envisioned by its advocates? Or is it, perhaps, some strange amalgam of both?!

Find out the answers on Tuesday, as you eat some delicious finger foods and swill some beer in (relative) luxury. Until then, take a look at my examination of  immigration, as it’s been portrayed in popular culture, from this ancient, pre-Trump essay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E_brownjr.jpg

While most of us would see intense wealth stratification, large pockets of third world poverty, and cratering academic achievement as poor indicators of future prosperity, the governor of the nation’s largest state begs to differ. 

Asked on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” about two negative indicators — the state’s nation-high poverty rate and the large number of Californians who are unemployed or marginally employed and looking for work — Brown said, “Well, that’s true, because California is a magnet. 

“People come here from all over in the world, close by from Mexico and Central America and farther out from Asia and the Middle East. So, California beckons, and people come. And then, of course, a lot of people who arrive are not that skilled, and they take lower paying jobs. And that reflects itself in the economic distribution.”

Ah, the philosophical sophistry that politicians will indulge in the name of political expediency. Yet another benefit of the beautiful mosaic.

Diversity is our strength, even when it’s our greatest weakness. The experience of Australia isn’t unique, something the ostracized  Frenchman, Swede, and Norwegian can attest to, when they’re given the opportunity. Contrary to popular, i.e. elite consensus, mass immigration has not been an economic boon to ordinary Australians, despite an emphasis upon skilled immigrants which doesn’t currently exist in American immigration policy, and would not be the norm even with the cosmetic reforms of the Gang of Eight bill.

Prime Minister Gillard was right to oppose the Big Australia policy, and her dramatic policy reversal will only spell more misery for the people who voted her party into power, as well as everyone else who doesn’t get to externalize the costs of open borders or depress the wages they would otherwise have to pay their employees. Multiculturalism might be a strength for those who get to use it as a cudgel against competitors and political opponents, but for the rest of us it amounts to a raw deal.

The eternal lure of migration and the appeal of the immigrant story writ large is something that Hollywood knows how to exploit with some degree of panache. American popular culture is filled with stories of exile and struggle and the Horatio Alger path to success that we presume most immigrants to this country want to emulate.

From the cartoonish charm of the Russian mouse in Feivel: An American Tail, to the glamor of New York City embodied in director Jim Sheridan’s coming-of-age story, In America, to the much more inaccurate-bordering on propagandistic-open borders fantasy Under the Same Moon-which is purportedly based on a true story-Tinseltown realizes that this subject has an enduring appeal among a public that sees itself as coming from immigrant stock.

Perhaps the most accurate portrayal of this subject is, ironically enough, the exaggerated, tale of Anglo-Irish conflict in 19th century New York depicted in  Martin Scorcese’s The Gangs of New York. Notwithstanding the temporal compression, conflation of certain historical events-and invention of others-and the slightly absurdist portrayal of “Bill the Butcher,” a marginal figure in the American Nativist movement and successful bare-knuckle boxer, as the WASP equivalent of Moqtader al-Sadr, the movie nevertheless conveys some elemental truths about the subject that are missing from other films that try to address the emotionally freighted topic of immigration. Whether it’s the sedulous exploitation of Irish newcomers for political and material gains by Boss Tweed, or the greatly ambivalent attitudes native Americans-in this case, New Yorkers-feel towards the boats streaming into our city’s harbors, the film captures a highly complex, volatile situation that we see even today, over a century and half after the events depicted in the course of the film.

The changing internal dynamics of the city, and by extension, the country, are sketched out over the course of the movie, whose plot-line spans two generations. And while the dramatic arc of the film captures some deeper truths that are absent from the maudlin presentations of other immigrant-focused cinematic works, it still suffers from Martin Scorcese’s  irrepressible desire to draw parallels to the situation we face today. Right now we have a comparable wave of immigration-although, the actual percentage of the population that is foreign-born is larger than it was in the mid to late-nineteenth century-and with it a large number of immigrants forced to cope with the challenges of adapting to their new country.

Unfortunately, there are several drawbacks to drawing analogies between the large, successive waves of immigration that occurred in the nineteenth century and the immigration that we’ve seen since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, as well as subsequent amnesties, e.g. the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. While the reasons someone might emigrate remain remarkably similar, e.g. seeking political refuge from a hostile regime, or perhaps greater economic opportunity and mobility, there are several consequential differences between the immigrants of today and our ancestors.

The tools of assimilation that bound first, second, and third-generation immigrants to their adopted country have largely been done away with, and the negation of English as the default common language in official proceedings has meant that communication among Americans has gradually, but inexorably, attenuated. This, in turn, has frayed the social bonds both among and within communities, something even the liberal sociologist Robert Putnam-the acclaimed author of “Bowling Alone-has conceded, however reluctantly. The speed of communication with and travel to the immigrants’ homelands has made their ties to their adopted country even more tenuous than it might otherwise have been. This is to say nothing of the technological revolution that has made the skills offerred by many immigrants-especially those from developing countries-superfluous, if not detrimental, to functioning in our society, or the vast social welfare state that, while not a primary inducement, does offer tangible disincentives that did not exist in previous generations.

The problem with the nostalgic, glossy, Hollywood interpretation of this issue is that all of the aforementioned problems are swept under the rug, and we are not afforded the opportunity to debate whether or not a nineteenth century immigration policy-implemented at a time when our nation’s interior was a vast, sparsely settled breadbasket and not an economically depressed rust belt-makes sense in today’s twenty-first century world. Sadly, that debate will not be engendered by our current crop of directors, screenwriters and producers, who seem to be stuck in amber.