More Freaking Immigration

Remember when I said I had no patience for immigration debate? Well, I still don't, but I keep having these views on it, so without debating, I will present another one. This is not a debate. This is nothing resembling a debate.

All those people who think it should be really hard to become citizens, raise your hands. I thought so. No one raised their hands, because no one reads this blog. But if there had been a lot of people reading, there is a fair chance that some people, maybe even a lot of people, might have raised their hands. And that's just dumb.

Why, you ask?

Well, because we let deadbeat jobless leaches on the taxpayers become citizens every day. Every minute, in fact. And we don't require anything from them. We don't give them a probationary period. We don't make them pass a test, even a simple one. They need to have one item of documentation. I'm sure you can see what I'm so cleverly hinting. If not...

We let any baby born in the US be a citizen, no questions asked. And I'm not bringing this up to decry the practice of pregnant mothers crossing the border to give birth. I'm bringing up a different point.

For instance, did you know that the Catholic church doesn't consider you to be a full member until you are confirmed, usually at around age 13? For some Anabaptist sects of Christianity, it's even worse; you can't even be baptized until you're an adult. I can't speak to other faiths, but suffice it to say that not everyone immediately allows entry to the sacred rolls simply because someone is born.

But I'm not arguing that people should be unable to be citizens by birth. Far from it. I'm simply pointing out that we have no way of knowing whether or not a person will be a citizen who adds to the community and enriches the nation when they are born. So why should we expect any differently from immigrants?

Sure, some immigrants will turn out to be deadbeats. They will leach off the taxpayers like giant sponges. Some babies will doubtless grow up to do likewise. So where's the difference there? In fact, I think it's probably safe to say that native-born citizens use up more than their fair share of resources. We would still have poor people even if we closed the borders to everyone, including rich immigrants who came here solely to found universities and give to charity.

The argument goes that if we allow just anyone to be a citizen, we will open our doors to the poverty-stricken people of the world, and they will overload the system within hours. See, the problem with this thesis is that citizens don't get free money. We have to pay for it (see my spirited defense of taxation as a means to provide money to the government), and if you become a citizen (in fact, even if you don't become a citizen) you will have to pay for it too. Maybe we give out too much money to people who give back nothing in return. That's a debate for another time. But in any case, the addition of millions of taxpaying citizens will hardly cause less money to be given to the government.

If we make it easy to become a citizen, and hard to employ people for slave wages while paying no taxes on their income, I don't see the house of cards collapsing. Maybe it will, but maybe it would have anyway.

If you disagree, maybe we should go the other way and make citizenship a privilege to be earned. Maybe all adults should need to take a citizenship exam to become citizens. Maybe we should deport people who don't work for a certain period of time. Since I don't regard being a pundit or being rich as working, there would be a lot of idle rich people setting sail for Europe, while educated, working poor people would be left in the US. I can't see that house of cards remaining stable.

As always, I am offering two wildly opposed options in the hope that people will see just how ridiculous certain points of view really are. The whole thing is not black and white. But seeing in shades of gray is reserved for debating, and I already told you that this wasn't a debate.