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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2395 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I was discussing US politics with my wife, as one does, and immigration laws came up. I briefly told her about sanctuary cities, and in response she asked why anyone would support that. I had no answer.

I googled a bit and got some very bad answers, so I’m turning to the motte.

Can the motte provide some pro-sanctuary arguments, and some pro-illegal immigration arguments in general? Consider that you’re giving these answers to a none-American from an ethno-state that enforces its immigration laws, and generally frowns on immigration to it from different ethnicities.

Sure. I think it's really mostly that illegal immigrants are viewed by many, especially on the left, compassionately—that they are here seeking a better life, forced by the harshness of their local conditions—and so, accordingly, they see attempts to deport them as undesirable and morally objectionable.

I think America thinks more favorably of immigration in general than many places, due to the history. Apart from the black population, almost the entirety of the US is descended from those who chose to uproot their lives and moved here, whether 400 years ago or in the last generation.

And there is, of course, this well known piece of propaganda which further supports sympathy:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

|

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

(This references the statue of liberty.)

So pro-immigration sentiment, at least, when it's legal, is not uncommon. Additionally, a common metaphor for the US is a melting pot—taking people from everywhere and assimilating them.

Also relevant is that, under our current system, there are many more who want to be here than are able to get the visas. Hence the illegal immigration. (Our current policy of substantial illegal immigration and little legal immigration is silly and bad.)

But I think it really just comes down to that illegal immigrants are made out to be objects of compassion, and deporting people is mean. And then, it's more virtue-signalling in many of these places than something with serious reprecussions. Before the increase in illegal immigration under Biden and the political stunts pulled by the Republican governors, many of those cities were seeing negligible amounts of those people, and so it didn't really cost them anything. (Why is it harmful to have them in your city? Well, they often use public resources. You have to put them somewhere. They usually can't work legally, though I'm pretty sure there are plenty of illegal immigrants in fields like landscaping, working illegally.)

Alright, I can see where they come from then. Would you say that in practice, the people who support sanctuary laws etc. are also in support of open borders? I think that’s what we’re having issues with, squaring how someone can support un-enforcement of immigration laws but still not being in favour of letting anyone in. It seems like the practice is opposed to the theory.

I think a major aspect of the dynamic with sanctuary cities comes from the US's peculiar system of distributed sovereignty. In our system, it is the states rather than the federal government that are sovereign, and while less legally supported, there is also a long tradition of local officials, who believe they hold an independent responsibility to their constituents regardless of what the feds or state are telling them to do, refusing to enforce orders from on high. The federal government has very little authority (and even less practical ability) to directly enforce its will on intransigent local officials, unlike in, e.g., France, where your local mayor is a federal employee answering to Paris (my knowledge of French politics is woefully underdeveloped, so forgive me if this isn't actually accurate). It's not uncommon for city councils and county sheriffs to refuse to go along with state or federal policy they believe to be unconstitutional or illegal (immigration, guns, and drugs are the most common issues, but far from the only ones).

They usually lose when push comes to shove, but it requires significant effort and political capital on the parts of higher officials, and complaining about the other party holding you back with their intransigence tends to be more useful politically than playing hardball with federal funds or sending in the FBI.

Hmm, I'm not sure. That's a good point.

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