Exposing Anti-Migrant Fallacies
There are numerous arguments xenophobes make against immigration — or more precisely against certain kinds of immigrants. Rarely do I find they want to stop all immigrants. After all no one wants to build a wall on the Canadian border — but those people look like us so they are okay.
Some of these arguments are merely mistaken — based on false premises. Some are just daft, moronic or stupid — those based on false logic. Others are just mean-spirited and openly hateful.
A stupid argument is just logically false. My favorite is the one arguing the individual’s grandparent or great-grandparent migrated to America legally so why don’t those damn migrants today do the same thing. It assumes no differences in the law or the situation of the immigrants.
My great-grandparents were all immigrants to the United States — though one family line arrived in North America in 1633. Every one of them did so legally. How was that possible? First, let me recount what they did. They saved money up for a boat ticket, except for the branch that walked across the border from Quebec. They got on the boat. They got off the boat. They filled in some forms with the immigration people and then walked out to their new life. No one can do that today. The people who come closest to doing this are, in fact, “illegal” immigrants.
People stupidly assume the law has not made life immensely more difficult for migrants than it did 50 years ago or 75 years ago. My immigrant ancestors (there are no native Americans only people who immigrated sooner than others) didn’t have to queue up at a consulate and hand in massive reams of documents meticulously filled out. They didn’t pay high filing fees they couldn’t afford or have to schedule “interviews” with embassy officials who couldn’t fit them into the schedule for months, if not for years.
They didn’t even need a passport — no one did. People just traveled the world and settled where they wished — except in a few countries that were considered dictatorships or authoritarian in nature. My ancestors merely boarded the first boat they could and got off in America. No immigrant today can do the same under the current labyrinth of legislation.
Any legal system of immigration will allow some people into the country — that is a given. That some get in doesn’t mean that others have the same chance of getting in if they simply follow the rules. This is particularly true for immigration since the rules are not the same for everyone. The government has created hundreds of special categories applicable to only some people. That your mother got in is not a guarantee that other immigrants could do the same thing.
To assume all immigrants today have equal opportunities to immigrate is false. And to assume today’s immigrants can enter legally just as easily as yesterday’s immigrants is totally false. The logic is bad. The premise is correct — immigrants in the past did get into the U.S. but the conclusion — that immigrants today can do so just as easily — does not follow.
Another argument that is just silly is one saying some immigrants do something bad therefore reducing immigration is a good thing because it prevents bad things from happening. For instance, an immigrant might kill someone therefore preventing immigration saves lives.
No doubt preventing immigration might save some lives. So would preventing births. Mandatory birth control will prevent any new murderers from being born. But of course there is a cost as well. The anti-immigrant debate tends to look only at the debit column and not the credit column. In the bridge collapse in Minnesota a few years ago an immigrant rescued dozens of children from the trapped school bus. There was the case of the small child who was rescued in the desert by an illegal immigrant who sacrificed his chance to finish his journey to America by staying with the child until the authorities arrived. Not long ago a small child climbed onto a fire escape in New York City and fell several floors to the ground below. Two immigrants together caught the child saving its life.
Cutting immigration will cost some lives and save others. Unless there is some indication immigrants are far more likely to be killers (and there isn’t) the argument is bogus. In fact, the criminal justices stats show the opposite: migrants, both with papers and without, are less likely to engage in criminal violence than the native born citizen.
Every restriction can be justified on the basis of saving one life or preventing one crime. If every American were in prison or under constant surveillance by Homeland Security there would, no doubt, be fewer crimes. But such arguments are routinely rejected, with good cause, in areas impacting directly on most Americans. That the same rejected logic is then used against migrants is indicative it is not logic that persuades people.
Many of the arguments against immigration are invented statistics that the xenophobic campaigners like to spread around like manure in a field — and the smell isn’t much different either. One argument is immigrants don’t contribute to the economy but are a drain on it. In fact we covered that topic several times. One study looked at the question of immigrants and found they pay more in taxes than they consume in benefits. In other words they are subsidizing the native born.
The tottering Social Security system is subsidized by “illegal” immigrants who find social security payments are deducted from their wages but are unable to collect the benefits for which they are paying. The funds collected from these immigrants goes into an “earnings suspense file” the government keep and these funds are growing by $50 billion year. Former chief actuary for Social Security, Stephen Goss, said “about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes.”
The result is immigrants are subsidizing social security benefits received by millions of Americans. Mr. Goss said that because “illegals” don’t collect, but are paying in, they are cutting the loses the system experiences. As the New York Times reported: “without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system’s long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.”
One tax agent who helps immigrants prepare their tax returns says that among his clients many return to Mexico when they become elderly to live off their savings. “I can’t recall anybody over 60 without papers,” he said. They work and then retire with the earnings they made during their working years while simultaneously subsidizing the retirement of native-born Americans.
Then there is the bogus crime issue. The claim here is immigrants are apparently inclined toward crime way out of proportion to their numbers — well, technically that is true but the inclination is against crime. Immigrants commit fewer crimes on average than do the native born.
Some tirades against immigrants actually invent statistics. Any negative claim about immigrants, no matter how absurd or dishonest, is spread around with great delight by some. Yet these claims are false. They are lies someone intentionally concocted knowing the bigoted mind is prone to believe such claims simply because they confirm the prejudices of the believer. The bigot, however, never questions his own statistics but reports them as confirming what he already knew without evidence.
The claims against immigrants don’t stack up with the evidence. That people continue to make them, in the face of contrary, has to cause me to wonder what their real motivation might be. When I see some of the hateful claims being distributed, filled with bogus statistics of the sort the Klan would disseminate I can only conclude there is more than a hint of bigotry involved. When this concern never seems to materialize into actions taken to stop immigrants who are white my suspicions are aroused even further. But typically, if I read the material the anti-immigrant groups send around, all my suspicions are confirmed and rank prejudice is typically the main motivation for such beliefs.
The migrant is prejudged and held guilty for things he has not done but for things he is assumed he will do at some point in the future. This prejudgment is then supported with bad logic or dishonest statistics. That looks like prejudice to me. Not every single opponent of immigration is a racist but every racist I’ve met has been an opponent of immigration. More importantly, the percentage of racists among the anti-immigration crowd is far higher than among the general population. The link between racism and anti-immigration views is not 100% but it is substantial.
Photo: The illustration is of a publication from over 100 years ago lamenting how migration was ruining America. For most Americans that would be referring to their grandparents or great-grandparents. In other words you are the people the anti-immigrant crowd a hundred years ago was warning America about — you are the threat they imagined.
Your support to fund these columns is critical, visit our page at Patreon to make a $10 pledge. If you wish to pledge another amount per month you can do so at this link — anything starting from $1 and up. All of it helps especially now.
