≡ Menu

Alex Tabarrok on Immigration

This 2000 talk (to some debaters) by my colleague Alex Tabarrok – brought to my attention by my colleague Bryan Caplan – deserves to be highlighted in its own post here at the Cafe.  It’s truly outstanding.  Here’s Alex’s conclusion:

I understand the purpose of the talks over the next couple of days is to help you prepare for debates. In those debates, I understand, that regardless of your actual views some of you will take the pro-immigration side and others the anti-immigration side. That is fine and appropriate. Whichever side of the debate you speak on, however, I would ask you at the end to of the day to ask yourself where lies the Truth. And please remember that this debate involves the lives of real people, often desperately poor people who seek only to come to this country to make for themselves and their family a better life. I would ask you also to take morality seriously, and ask yourself by what right, by what moral theory is it justifiable to place heavily armed guards at the border to capture, imprison, and sometimes kill these people? If you do, I think you will find that no moral theory can justify such a monstrous social policy.

Comments