Originally published at The Catholic Thing
Some people say immigrants have a right to immigrate. Others insist that countries have a right to secure their borders. When the issue is framed in these terms, it is nearly impossible to craft any compromise. Many Americans believe that rights are absolute; they are “trumps” on any cost-benefit analysis. If I have a right to own a gun or a right to publish pornography, then this right outweighs any utilitarian analysis of the social costs of people exercising that right. The government would need a “compelling interest” to restrict that activity, and that restriction would need to be highly specified, not too broad or general. So, on this view, the right to immigrate outweighs the social costs of taking in a host of immigrants; although, by the same logic, the right to police one’s borders outweighs any suffering of those denied entry to the U.S. There must be a better way of discussing the challenge of immigration.
