Framework:
Definitions
Natural rights: Rights that are inherent to all individuals and do are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government (i.e. life and liberty)
Rightful ownership: Moral right to control something at will
Burdens
An unjust law can be identified by its infliction of
structural violence. As such, in order to be justified, or preferable to inaction, a government restriction must meet the following criteria:
(a) Such a law must not
unjustly harm a person or group of people.
(b) The net effect of this restriction must be positive.
Voters should use these criteria for two reasons. First,
human rights are fundamental to any moral system and should be protected. Second, a government policy that fails to provide for the
common good no longer has a justification to infringe on liberty. I will argue that a restriction on the majority of would-be immigrants fails to meet either criterion, though if it fails to meet even one of them, it is unjust.
1. Prima Facie Right to Immigrate:
I will discuss natural rights and give a few examples of natural rights that are violated by immigration restrictions. If a prima facie rights violation has no sufficient justification (i.e. the good does not outweigh the bad), or said rights violation is severe enough as to violate human rights or severely harm someone’s quality of life, then the policy violating this right is unjust.
Citizens vs. Noncitizens
- P1: If there exists no morally significant difference between two groups of people, both groups have the same natural rights.
- P2: There exists no morally significant difference between citizens and noncitizens.
- C1: Hence, citizens and noncitizens have the same natural rights.
P1 follows from
moral equality, which is an integral part of human rights.
P2 is a bit more controversial, but it’s not too difficult to establish. Clearly, a person’s moral worth is not determined by their place of birth. And the distinction between citizens and noncitizens is a legal distinction, not a moral one. Saying that different rights ought to be afforded to citizens and noncitizens is essentially saying, “The government classifies Group A as having more rights than Group B, hence the government ought to classify Group A as having more rights than Group B.” It’s
begging the question.
Black men in America were not granted citizenship until 1868, yet they were still morally equal to white men and had as much of a natural right to use public spaces as white men did. Despite not being classified as citizens, they had the same natural rights as citizens.
The caste system in India, which discriminates based on lineage, is unjust. When the Indian government prevented people of certain castes from applying for particular jobs, this was unjust. Citizenship based on lineage is not a sufficient justification for restricting employment or the right to access public spaces.
Collective Ownership vs Unowned Spaces
I will refer here to rightful ownership (i.e. the moral right to act as if one owns a particular plot of land). I will distinguish here between collectively owned spaces and unowned spaces. I will argue that most public spaces in America, such as sidewalks, fall into the latter category.
Collectively owned spaces are those that belong to a group of people, usually an organization. These would include things like condos, where duties and ownership are designated by contract.
Unowned spaces or are those that do not belong to a particular group of people, such as the
high seas. While it might be morally justified for an institution to regulate actions on the high seas, such as by preventing human rights abuses, no particular individual or group owns the high seas, and everyone has a prima facie right to use them.
Criteria for Ownership
For something that is unowned to become collectively owned, certain criteria must be met. Suppose 100 different authors simultaneously come up with the same plot for a story and write books that are very similar. This idea does not belong to any particular individual, and unless all of the authors collectively copyright the concept, the idea exists in the public domain. Even if 99 of the authors wish to form a coalition and copyright the idea, one dissenting author has the right to share the idea with others and allow them to use it.
For something that is unowned to become collectively owned, everyone using it must agree to some kind of contract. If some group (even the majority of people on Earth) used force to prevent people in England from shipping supplies across the Atlantic Ocean, for example, this would be unjust.
Public Spaces in America
Note that public spaces in America do not fit the criteria of collectively owned spaces. No contract or agreement to restrict immigration has been signed with 100% agreement of all people using public spaces. There will always be some holdouts.
Furthermore, collectively owned spaces imply certain rights, while unowned spaces imply others. If a space is collectively owned, the majority of people living there have the moral right to create all sorts of restrictions. If joint owners of a private space vote to ban certain speech or certain clothing, they are justified in doing so, since that space belongs to them.
But in public spaces in America, people do have individual prima facie rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. For restrictions on freedom of speech to be justified, this must be because the speech itself violates the rights of others (such as by inciting violence). Even if 90% of people in America wanted to restrict freedom of speech for the remaining 10%, this would be a prima facie rights violation. This indicates that most public spaces in America are unowned (no one group or individual is justified in controlling them prima facie), rather than collectively owned (wherein the majority are justified in passing whatever restrictions they want).
If I live in an unowned space, I have the prima facie right to invite others there, and others are not justified in infringing on this right. Furthermore, anyone has the right to access an unowned space. Hence, restricting the rights of immigrants to use most public spaces, such as sidewalks, is a prima facie rights violation.
Fence Analogy
Note also that when an action is an infringement on liberty, it is still an infringement on liberty when the government takes said action. Taxes are an infringement on liberty, for example, and must be justified via net benefit. If a tax was excessive and made people worse off overall, it would not be justified. Similarly, if a tax created widespread structural violence and forced people into poverty, it would not be justified.
Suppose Person X owns a house and wishes to invite family members over. However, some person or group of people builds a fence around their house and prevents Person X’s family members from entering. They say to Person X, “Of course you are the rightful owner of your house, but we are the rightful owners of the fence surrounding your house. So others have no right to pass through our property to enter yours.” Clearly, blocking off access to Person X’s property is a prima facie rights violation.
Similarly, even if the US government were the rightful owners of public spaces, preventing immigrants from passing through public spaces to rent apartments or work at businesses would still be an infringement on liberty and therefore a prima facie rights violation.
Freedom of Association
Individuals have the prima facie right to associate to protest, worship, or for any other reason that does not involve violating the rights of others. However, if governments designate the places where each person lives as separate countries and prevent individuals from traveling between them, this violates the prima facie right to freedom of association. People in modern-day Mexico and people in the modern-day US have always had the natural right to freedom of association, and immigration restrictions are a prima facie violation of this right.
Right to Protest
Freedom of speech and protesting are natural rights that do not depend on immutable characteristics such as race or place of birth; individuals are morally justified in protesting in public spaces so long as they do not violate the rights of others, regardless of government edicts. Even if the US had passed a law 100 years ago preventing peaceful protesters in America from standing on sidewalks in big cities, this would be an unjust law and peaceful protesters would still be justified in standing there. Similarly, the US claiming this land hundreds of years ago and restricting immigration does not override the natural right of foreigners to access these public spaces to protest.
Right to International Adoption
Clearly, it would be unjust for the US government to ban Americans from adopting children in other countries. So it follows that individuals in the US have a natural right to help those in foreign countries achieve a higher quality of life, even if this requires those individuals to come to America. Therefore, employers in the US have a natural right to hire people from other countries who need a higher income in order to improve their quality of life.
2. Benefits to Immigrants from Moving to US:
Immigration confers many benefits onto those who enter the US. In denying entry to would-be immigrants, the US government is directly harming them, to the point of severely affecting their quality of life. If people in other countries are in danger of death or poor health due to poverty, then preventing their entry to the US constitutes a human rights violation. I will discuss economic effects as well, but it’s clear that the effect on immigrants makes my proposal a net positive.
Economic Opportunities
Net gains per worker from highly loosened immigration policies would be
tens of thousands of dollars per year, just in terms of increased income. Use of public services, which we will discuss later, are a net benefit—they cost the government money, but they are beneficial to the immigrant using them. And due to
economies of scale, the more people that use a public service, the cheaper that public service becomes
per person since some costs are fixed. As there is no morally significant difference between citizens and noncitizens, this is a net positive.
Increase in Life Expectancy
Most would-be legal immigrants come from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Due to poor economic conditions, each of these countries has an average life expectancy about 7 years lower than that of the United States. Hence, allowing an immigrant into the US will on average raise their life expectancy, and the life expectancy of their children, by about 7 years. Immigration actually
boosts average US life expectancy, so the benefit is likely even greater than the figure I just gave.
3. Effect on Economy:
For the sake of argument, I will discuss the effect of immigration on the economy strictly from the perspective of US citizens. Immigrants are often poor when they enter the US, largely because they come from places with less opportunities. But immigrants don’t stay poor, because they seek employment and rapidly begin contributing to the economy.
Marginal Benefit
An
analysis found that the efficiency of migrant workers generally does not depend on which migrants are selected. The
net fiscal cost of admitting one unskilled immigrant, when accounting for all long-term effects, is only -$13,000, the calculated difference in the cost of services they use and what they pay in taxes. This may seem like a net negative, but we must also account for the value of goods and services
produced by each immigrant over their lifetime. The contribution to GDP by an average US citizen is
$70,249 per year. Even if each unskilled immigrant only produces a tenth of that amount (and average immigrant salaries are much higher than 1/10 of the average citizen’s salary), then an average unskilled immigrant adds $7,025 to GDP each year, or $140,500 over the course of 20 years. Essentially, the average unskilled immigrant contributes far more value in goods and services than they receive from the government. Furthermore, immigration
increases the value produced by native workers.
Wages
The direct effect on wages from significantly increased immigration would be
small and would not be a net gain or net loss regardless. If wages go down, workers make less, but goods and services become cheaper to produce. And this initial direct effect would be outweighed in the long term. According to the National Research Council, immigrants increase the efficiency
and wages of native workers overall due to
complements in production. And immigrants are
80% more likely to start a business than those born in the US—in the long term, this will drive wages back up (although again, a wage increase or decrease is not really “good” or “bad” in terms of net effect.)
What a buncha yapping about morality and law.. take a quick snicker break..
Oh right.. the break happened a year ago.. my bad.
Well, the morality does deal with what should be done. Personally, I dont believe in morality. I believe in selfishness. I believe that a man must do everything to gain pleasure, even if everyone else dies. Of course, when it comes to debates, you might wanna learn about all those different standards of morality.
This looked to be a very promising debate at first. Interesting, controversial, and relevant subject, no forfeits… but then I read it. Yet another debate which hinged upon a technicality. In this case, the use and meaning of one word: ought. So, a sovereign nation, the US in this case, “ought” to relieve the suffering of anyone in the world who wishes to enter its borders because of the moral obligation implied by “ought.” How very disappointing…
I understand. I disagree, but understand 🤣
I'll note that I actually did mention the Thomas Paine argument. The point of the argument, as far as I could tell, is that it's morally right for a government to regulate people. That's fine, but it doesn't actually tell me why this specific type of regulation at this level is morally right. It tells me that a government must regulate, which as far as I can tell, a government would do on either side of this debate. That's the point I said was non-unique. The same holds true for that divine right of kings (again, the point being that a government should govern). I don't actually see a specific mention of the Federalist Papers, but I did touch on the Constitution (in that is/ought issue). Maybe I missed a couple of points of legal theory, though I think I covered the majority of your argument in some way, shape or form.
As a general rule, telling me that the government cannot do something isn't going to convince me on an "ought" resolution. It's an effort to engage in an inherency argument that aims to establish that there are barriers to action. Valid as those points may be, on an "ought" resolution, my focus is on whether the changes should happen, not whether they can. Otherwise, you could never debate big shifts in policy. If there are barriers to action, then part of debating an "ought" resolution is assuming that, in some way, shape or form, those barriers can be dealt with. It's fine if you want to argue that the process of removing those barriers is net harmful, and that's an argument I would have considered pretty strongly.
Thanks for explaining. I understand where you are coming from now.
I don't agree, but at least I understand. I think I established good standing, based on Thomas Paine, divine right of kings, the Federalist Papers, the U.S. Constitution, and other longstanding legal theory, on how rights were violated, which weren't mentioned at all in your RFD, but hey, that's the fun of these. People take away what they think was the better argument.
At the end of the day we were discussing a legal, not moral issue. Should the GOVERNMENT do something. But I guess I wasn't super clear. The answer was they could not so they should not.
At any rate, I'll admit this isn't my best debate. I didn't notice the time constraints and was super busy (I just started a substack right after I accepted doing the debate). That is my fault.
Savant, I would love another debate sometime with longer time constraints on another topic if you're up for it. It was fun!
To be clear (since I didn't really mention it in my RFD), I don't think the "Burdens" section actually covers much in the way of actual burdens. What Pro's doing there is presenting a framework for his argument, i.e. legal rights ought to be afforded in cases where refusing to extend them to certain groups results in structural violence. That's a clear statement with regards to what Pro believes suffices as an "ought." You argued that that "ought" wasn't sufficient reason to extend a right, effectively arguing that Pro's framework was insufficient to meet the burden he took on for this debate. The trouble is two-fold, and I did mention this in my RFD: one, I'm unclear by the end of the debate how high the bar is for someone to demonstrate that a moral harm is sufficient to engender a right, and two, I don't see a competing moral framework aimed at establishing what should be the standard for a right. Instead, I see a legal basis for establishing a right, which I think Pro effectively countered and showed why the moral basis supercedes it, and I see a moral basis for why regulations should exist, which is non-unique.
So when you talk about it not being fair "for you to have to justify PRO'S is as an ought when he doesn't justify it himself," I'm not sure I understand the problem. Pro had to present a framework to establish why the number of legal immigrants coming into the US should increase. There was an equal burden for you to establish a similar framework or some other distinct reason why increasing their number would be a negative. I think you did a bit of the latter, but Pro did enough to confound that and pushed me to focus on the absence of the former, and I found that convincing. You had to give me a reason to uphold the status quo as better with some kind of framework supporting it. I didn't see you actually supporting the existing system as better policy from some moral or philosophical perspective. Maybe I'm wrong and you can point to places where you did just that. If that's the case, then I encourage you to do so. I'm not demanding responses to Pro's case, but I am trying to find offense for your side of the debate, and I think I detailed all the problems I saw with the offense you provided.
The description says:
"BoP is shared equally. Pro argues that a system in which the government grants entry to more immigrants is preferable to the status quo. Con defends the status quo as preferable to Pro’s proposal."
I fail to see why I have to respond to PRO in order to win the debate. I just have to establish why the status quo is better. I was not graded on this criteria at all and only graded on how I responded to someone else.
I don't think it is fair for me to have to justify PRO's is as an ought when he doesn't justify it himself. I feel like I was given unnecessary burdens that PRO did not have in your assessment. Byrden of proof for PRO's position is on him. I do nit have to accept his arguments if he did not establish them himself.
Just like with Oromagi, it feels as if you ultimately just said "one guy's argument matters and the other one does not, even though it adequately responded to the qualms."
But thank you for your vote.
Thanks for voting!
Thanks for the reminder, be spending much of the weekend on this.
Bump
Thanks
Remind me in a week in case I blank on this. Will get to it.
Please vote if you get the chance!
Yeah Australia is a nice place.
Australia?
You cant name your country the same as the continent it is located in! 🤬
Well... how many of them actually have "America" in the title?
"America means “the United States.”"
Nice, roasting all non-US countries in America.
Done!
Welp... I learned something new today. We can make it immigrate AND emigrate so it is fair to both of us.
I didn't know immigrate was a word 🤣
Done. Although I think they mean effectively the same thing in this context.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immigrate
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emigrate
May seem grammar nazi-esque. But the truth is I don't want to write "emigrate"and then lose the debate on a silly technicality 🤣
Immigrate means “come to live permanently in a foreign country.”
I am pretty sure the word is emigrate, not immigrate.
In which sentence? Emigrants allowed into America? Or emigrants allowed to leave America?
Sure. Just one thing. Change immigrate to emigrate and I'll accept.
Everyone agrees with this the argument is typically over whether America should have secure border.
Democrats say no and Republicans say yes, but both sides want increased legal immigration
Yes, just the amount. I'm arguing that we raise the quota (let in more immigrants); you argue for the status quo.
So we are arguing purely over the amount of immigrants?
I would be arguing we should not raise the current quota and you would be arguing we should?
Or I am arguing we should lower the quota and you are arguing we should raise it?
Otherwise, if you want, we can use a different definition.
How about we define the "Status Quo" as the immigration quota in the US as of the end of September 2023 (ignoring changes since then)? You would argue we should keep or decrease that quota, I argue we increase it.
How do you define the Status Quo, because immigration execution changes regularly. They always increase or decrease the amount, change which types of immigrants, they allow and from which countries, etc.
Basically I am arguing that your point is moot because they regularly change the amounts of immigrants anyways.
Lmk if this format works for you