According to Objectivism, the government exists for one and only one purpose: to protect individual rights. Individual rights can be violated only by the initiation of force (in any of its forms). Among other things, this includes protecting individuals from physical force initiated against their body, property, life, and liberty. This also includes protection against contagious medical disease.
Also relevant here is the possibility of hostile foreign groups, e.g., terrorist groups, with all the disaster they can perpetrate against the innocent. This principle of rights–protection applies to everything the government does and thus defines the purpose and scope of valid immigration laws as well.
If a person is an accessory to a violation of rights, that also constitutes a crime. If a private property owner, for example, were to allow bank robbers onto his property and knowingly harbor them, the government would have every right and responsibility to enter that property, to retrieve the criminals and even to prosecute the owner of that property for harboring known criminals, that is, as an accessory to those crimes. If the government were to ignore the property owner’s harboring of such criminals, it would have failed in its responsibility to protect everyone’s rights.
Similarly, if the government were to ignore the criminal actions of immigrants to this country, it would in effect be harboring violators of rights and failing in its responsibility to protect individual rights, i.e., to protect individuals from the harm that would otherwise be the result.
The government has a responsibility to protect the lawful residents within its jurisdiction against all initiators of force, including those who threaten the initiation of force, along with all those who would harbor or protect them. It is a crime to issue a credible threat of violence; if the government were to ignore such threats, it would fail in its responsibility to defend against rights violators. For a national government to allow known criminals or terrorists, or those who advocate criminal behavior or terrorism (e.g., crying “Death to America” as Iranians routinely do), into its jurisdiction, it would similarly threaten the rights of those already in the country. If it did not deport recent immigrants who had violated the rights of others, or who threaten to do so, it would likewise fail in its responsibility to protect individual rights.
Still, there are many self-styled “Objectivists” who advocate precisely such a dereliction of government’s responsibility to protect Americans from foreign threats–those who advocate completely “open borders” and who oppose the deportation of even criminal aliens. They advocate abolishing all immigration law entirely–and they do so in the name of “Objectivism.”
To cite statistics indicating immigrants are less likely than others to commit crimes would be a logically fallacious use of statistics. If even a single criminal could have been screened out at the border by the government, but wasn’t, it would have facilitated whatever crimes the criminal committed thereafter.
Most crimes are committed by a small minority of any population; the fact that most people do not commit crimes is no justification for ignoring criminality. Moreover, that same minority who are criminals in any such population account for most of the crime committed. On September 11, 2001, a mere 19 visa holders slaughtered 3,000 innocent Americans. They represented a minuscule percentage of immigrants. To ignore any terrorists or any criminals based on statistics about the group to which they belong would be irresponsible, a dereliction of the government’s responsibility to protect individual rights, and would represent a deadly threat to all Americans.
It is true that the immigration of peaceful, law-abiding individuals is a benefit both to the American economy and to American culture. Immigrants such as Andrew Carnegie and Ayn Rand have been an enormous benefit to each one of us. It does not follow that the government should fail to protect us from those immigrants who do represent a threat of violence. Obviously, not all immigrants could offer the enormous benefits of a Carnegie or a Rand, nor are all immigrants of benefit to us, indeed many of them represent a grave physical threat to Americans.
Immigration law is an essential element enabling the government to fulfill its responsibility. However, such laws cannot be used indiscriminately to bar all potential immigrants. While many who seek to immigrate do pose a danger and should be excluded, others represent an enormous potential value and should be allowed to enter. The proper scope and sphere of immigration law is precisely that of any other rational moral law.
Today in America it is nearly impossible for most peaceful law-abiding people, even from civilized countries, to enter and obtain legal residency. Arbitrary and strict numerical limits have been set by Congress on the number of individuals granted legal residency in the United States. Furthermore, there is a legally fixed limitation on the percentage of immigrants permitted to enter from each country. Currently, the total number of pending applications for legal residency exceeds 34 million and the backlog of pending applications even for those who meet specific employment or family exceptions exceeds 11 million. Applicants can expect wait times ranging from ten to thirty years.
This backlog is not the product of a proper screening out of threats, but the strict and arbitrary numerical limits placed on immigration indiscriminately.
This situation certainly calls for significant legal reforms, but it is not the screening out or deportation of criminals and terrorists that is the root of this problem. Rather, the problem is the absence of an objective standard for legal admission into the United States.
It is precisely in order to protect the rights of the law-abiding that the government must screen out those who represent a threat of physical force to those within the country.
Now, another point: lawful immigration should not be confused with either citizenship or the right to vote. When immigrants seek citizenship, a still higher standard must be applied by requiring them to agree to America’s constitutional system with a demonstrated understanding of that system.
The United States government cannot protect the rights of those outside its jurisdiction and shouldn’t be expected to. However, it must protect the rights of all those within its jurisdiction. This implies a border which is enforced by the government for the purpose of protecting the rights of those within the country. It follows that our government at the border, including airports and seaports, should screen out all those who represent a threat of physical harm to Americans, including those foreigners who advocate violence such as jihadists or communists.
Morally speaking, it is not enough to screen out potential threats at the border. Recent immigrants who have committed crimes, or who have demonstrated that they represent a threat of doing so, must be deported.
Individuals convicted of crimes deservedly lose certain rights. These rights may include more than merely loss of the liberty to walk around un-incarcerated for a specified period of time. Following conviction, a criminal can be placed on probation with any number of restrictions of their liberty reasonably related to the crimes they have committed. After being released from prison, a convict can be placed on parole as a condition of his release and similarly be monitored and regulated.
Should a potential immigrant currently on probation or parole in a foreign country be allowed into ours? Or should our government assume the responsibility of supervising criminals from abroad? Or would advocates of open borders simply give such migrants means to escape supervision altogether by evading their criminal histories?
Even after the period of parole or probation, there can be ongoing legal consequences of a criminal conviction, including the loss of the right to possess firearms, to serve on juries, and to vote, among other things. It can affect the ability to obtain a government job. Certain crimes, such as serious sex offenses or terrorist activities, can carry lifetime consequences, such as registration with local law enforcement. When arrested for a new criminal charge, the court can take into account a person’s criminal history when deciding what bail to set, indeed, whether any bail is warranted, and, if convicted, what punishment to impose.
Would proponents of open borders impose all of these same secondary consequences on those convicted in foreign countries, and, if so, how could this be accomplished without screening for criminals upon entry?
These are just some of the consequences of a criminal conviction. Private individuals and companies can take into account criminal history before deciding to employ a convict. Laws passed in recent years restricting the use of criminal histories (i.e., “rap sheets”) by private employers are themselves a violation of the employer’s rights to employ the person of their choice (whether immigrant or native).
Rather than deal with all of the risks–and the complex consequences–of an alien’s previous criminal behavior, the government is acting within the scope of its responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens by simply excluding anyone who has demonstrated a threat to individual rights.
One need not be a determinist to know that the best predictor of future conduct is a man’s previous conduct. We simply acknowledge that character matters. This is why it is reasonable for “rap sheets” to be a life-long concern–and why it is a necessary part of a government’s function to keep track of criminal histories and to exclude or deport those who possess one.
It is vital to recognize in this context that many nations of the world define such basic crimes as murder and rape very differently than under American law. Some places are in a state of near anarchy and do not keep or collect data on criminals as the United States does.
This means that criminal border screening must include an active process of investigation that examines the individual’s previous conduct, not merely the willingness of a foreign country to be rid of them or to have them subjected to criminal charges.
Were there to be no screening for immigrants at the border, nothing would prevent another country from systematically expelling their own criminal populations into the United States. It would treat those who committed crimes abroad more permissively than we treat domestic criminals. It would subject the American people to all of the dangers that the secondary consequences of a criminal conviction are designed to prevent.
For immigrants, the loss of rights which accompanies a criminal conviction should include the loss of the right to remain in the United States. Coming from different legal and cultural contexts, their permitted entry should include a promise by the immigrant not to violate American law, and if that commitment is violated, the government must remove the threat. Those who lose this right must be deported as criminal aliens to their country of origin, just as almost every other nation on earth deports Americans who commit crimes within their countries.
By requiring a promise to obey our existing laws, the government is not imposing any additional “permission” to travel freely that is not currently imposed on those already here.
In order to effectuate such deportations, state and local governments should be compelled to cooperate with federal removal efforts. Today, we are witnessing the grotesque spectacle of state and local governments actively protecting convicted criminals from deportation by political authorities, judges, governors and mayors in so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions.” Most recently, Mayor Mamdani of New York has evicted immigration officials from Rikers Island (the location of New York’s most famous jail) in a move designed to protect specifically criminal aliens. This has reversed the government’s proper role of protecting individual rights into the role of being aiders and abettors of rights violators.
Were the government to fail to prosecute and incarcerate rights violators, it would fail to protect the lives and property of Americans. Were it to permit criminal aliens to remain in the country, it would likewise abrogate its responsibility to protect the victims of force and violence and become, instead, the protector of perpetrators of coercion and violence.
If the government were to ignore the criminal histories of those seeking to enter the United States, then it would be affording criminals rights greater than those of legal residents who have committed the same or similar offenses.
If the government were to allow the immigration of those who openly advocate the violation of American law, or the overthrow of the government itself, then it would be evading the stated predisposition of those immigrants to place our legal system itself in jeopardy.
Similarly, if the government were to ignore the potential for spreading infectious diseases, then it would be subjecting the legal residents of the United States to physical danger.
Federal agents who enforce current immigration are genuine law enforcement officers no different than local police or F.B.I. agents. That local police enforce many laws that violate rights rather than protect them, e.g., laws against drugs, gambling or prostitution, does not alter that fact.
The F.B.I. also often acts as a right protector, enforcing laws against kidnapping and organized crime. This is true even if (as I believe) the F.B.I. is itself unconstitutional. Moreover, the Supreme Court is also an important part of our constitutional system.
That immigration authorities are enforcing a law badly in need of reform does not alter the fact that ICE officers are valid agents of law enforcement and must be treated accordingly.
The fact that local police will sometimes use excessive force in doing their difficult and dangerous jobs does not invalidate the criminal and civil laws they are charged with enforcing. Likewise, such incidents by immigration agents, even if that description is accurate, does not render them a new “Gestapo,” as some have claimed.
When it comes to the need for legal reforms, in any area, physical resistance to officers enforcing even unjust laws is not the solution–until and unless another American Revolution becomes morally warranted (e.g., when a true censorship is imposed). Ayn Rand vehemently opposed both the military draft and the Vietnam War. Nonetheless, she condemned as “hoodlums” the “protestors” at Columbia University against those same things in the 1960s, comparing them to the fascist street thugs of the 1930s.
Students of Objectivism who oppose any border enforcement, or who advocate that there should be no deportations, whatever, are simply ignoring Objectivist political philosophy.
It should be noted that there is no “Objectivist” position on the proper nature and scope of immigration law, and that this is my own application of Objectivist principles to the topic.
Objectivism and Immigration Law: A Two Part Series:
- Part I: Objectivism Applied to Immigration Law by James S. Valliant
- Part II: The Campaign Against ICE by Leonard Peikoff
