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The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

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Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
@TheChrony
Print Issues

When the system’s not perfect, it’s morally right to allow illegal immigration

The recent immigration protests have forced me to contemplate the morality of our nation’s laws regarding illegal immigrants. According to the census bureau there are an estimated seven million illegal immigrants in America, so this issue clearly affects a lot of people.

First of all I want to point out that none of us chose to be born into America. Yes, I know our country’s great and I’m glad to have been born here, but nobody gets to pick where they are born.

We did nothing to earn the honor of being born Americans and we didn’t earn the privileges we enjoy here. It is completely arbitrary where we are born-we could have just as easily been born in Mexico without sufficient means to become a legal US citizen. Then how would we feel about closed borders? Consequently, I feel that anyone born in a foreign country has just as much right to be here as we do.

But we’re not just talking about immigration, we’re talking about illegal immigration. Just as much as foreigners have a right to immigrate to America, so do we have the duty to protect and preserve the welfare of our nation and our way of life.

Some would say that the United States is a life raft that can only hold a limited amount of people. Well, let us say that there are twelve people adrift in the middle of the Atlantic and they can only survive by hopping onto a life raft.

Tragically, this life raft can only hold six people, and it has already reached its capacity. The people drowning to death certainly have a right to life, but at the same time the people already on the raft also have a right to life. What is the moral thing to do? To allow more people onto the raft one-by-one until it sinks?

Probably not, right?

Still, I don’t think that’s quite the way it works. I don’t think that illegal immigrants have such a profoundly negative impact on the economy. They perform jobs that many others would not do.

A lot of laborers complain that “they steal our jobs!” I’d like to see the evidence for that claim. Has anyone actually seen an illegal immigrant “steal” a job they wanted? I haven’t.

Moreover, it’s actually impossible to “steal” a job. No one is naturally entitled to employment, they are only entitled to work insofar as an employer thinks they will be an asset. If an employer thinks that an illegal immigrant will do a better job than someone else, then it is the latter person’s fault for not making himself indispensable.

Finally, it would cost ridiculous amounts of money to find and expel all of the illegal immigrants already in America. It would cost so much money that it makes the very notion of doing so laughable.

It would also cost far too much money to police every inch of the border 24 hours per day with enough manpower to actually catch all potential illegal immigrants.

This is ultimately the reason why I don’t think we will ever-or should ever-try to put a complete halt to illegal immigration. We should use our tax dollars to improve the quality of life of everyone in this country before we try to use it to kick people out.

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