By Deepa Majumda
In these times of global migrations, impelled by the dynamics of the global economy, what we need are not only proper laws, but also ethics. Indeed, we need laws to regulate mass transfers of people, but also an ethics of immigration. For, like the home, the nation state must be protected. Yet even this protection, unless regulated by ethics, degenerates into raw ethnocentrism. In a world where demand and supply pull like invisible levers, attracting and exchanging the flow of workers for the flow of commodities, man’s free will and moral consciousness are the only refuge against raw exploitation. For the Invisible Hand is purely utilitarian … it is amoral to its core. Like a machine, it is indifferent to the weal and woe of mankind.
Where do we begin with this ethics of immigration? Should it start with fears of demographic extinction … should it lead to virulence against the hapless immigrant, whether legal or otherwise? Of those who cross borders illegally, how many are aware that they are breaking the law? And why are they crossing borders in the first place? Here in America, the reaction to illegal immigration from Mexico is an odd mix of ethics and naiveté … the naiveté of those who have never known hunger. On the one hand Americans insist that if you are going to enter their land, you must obey its laws. Despite the harsh tone of this sentiment and the harsh laws this has led to, this remains a generous attitude. Americans are not saying “Do not enter our land … America is only for Americans” but rather, “If you are going to enter you must obey our laws.” Yet this attitude is a naive confusion of the moral with the legal … caused by oblivion as to the despair of the truly destitute … an oblivion characteristic of those who have never known real hunger. The assumption here is that all immigrants can read and write, that they are not driven to immigrate, but rather choose to do so, that they are aware of the latest laws, that they have enough resources to make sure they obey the laws … and finally, that when they break the law, they do so willfully. Therefore, in the eyes of American critics, if the immigrant is illegal, he is also immoral. He broke the law knowingly … not by error. His intent was to deceive. To the privileged, who have never known real hunger, the moral ceases to be the author of the legal. Rather, the legal gives rise to the moral. This approach to immigration ethics takes the heat off the real culprits … namely profit hungry employers, willing to break the law by hiring illegal immigrants at offensively low wages, unacceptable to any citizen.
The ethics of immigration should begin therefore, not with finger pointing and violence towards those who are the results of the utilitarian dynamics of the economic scenario … namely, the immigrants themselves … but rather towards the employers profiting off their back breaking labor. We do not know why they enter illegally, nor what drove them to leave their homelands. Nor can we begrudge them their hard labor … if anything, this is something to admire. In this Age of Commerce, which has revived the businessman from a feudal vassal to a heroic innovator, it is unscrupulous businessmen who are selling their nations to the highest bidders … all for the sake of money. If they refused to hire illegal immigrants, the influx would stop naturally … non-violently … immediately.
And yet, there are some ethics that even the most destitute and desperate of illegal immigrants ought to follow. Simple virtues like gratitude to the adopted nation and respect for its rule of law are marks of the good citizen, whether literate or illiterate. The immigrant therefore is obliged to bear allegiance to the adopted country, to the extent of not trying to take over, nor planting the flag of his nation of origin, nor breaking the laws of the new land. And yet, amidst the mindless hostility he is often surrounded by, what else can one expect of the illegal immigrant, but the fierce homesickness, wistful nationalism, and the brandishing of a lost identity … All this leads sometimes to attempts at demographic conquest. How can the native protect himself from this homesick-hostile outsider, without being inhumane? And how can the immigrant blend in and assimilate, without losing his soul? Only by sharing in a common humanity governed by conscience. For, conscience alone enables us to transcend the narrow tribalism that thwarts a moral community.
But this is along term solution. In the short run, the onus of the problem lies with employers willing to hire illegal immigrants. The wrath of the citizenry should be directed at them … but with non-violence of course.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])