Immigration, Emmigration and Illegal Immigrants - Update

This week I learned the difference between "immigration" and "emigration." Turns out it is entirely a matter of perspective. "Immigration" refers to people moving into a country. "Emigration" refers to people leaving a country. The person doing the moving does both, simultaneously.

So, from the perspective of the people living in the country that you are departing, you are emigrating. From the perspective of the people living in the country that you are entering, you are immigrating. From the perspective of everyone else, including yourself, you're doing both.

For some reason, this kind of conceptual paradox fascinates me.

At any rate, I've decided that we shouldn't allow people to complain about "illegal immigration" anymore. We should instead ask them to clarify their objection. Are they objecting to the illegality of the presence of these people? Or are they complaining about their presence itself?

I've done this a few times. Each time the response was, "the illegality." I then explained that the law distinguishes between crimes constituting serious moral wrongs, and crimes that are solely the product of regulation. The former are called Malum In Se crimes. The latter are called Malum Prohibitum crimes

Murder, rape, and robbery are examples of Malum in se crimes. Malum prohibitum crimes, to the contrary, are crimes in which there is no intrinsic wrong being done, but society nonetheless feels it has an interest in regulating. Immigration - or emmigration for that matter - is precisely such a phenomenon. There's no better example of a malum prohibitum crime than an immigration violation. It is not morally problematic for people to move around. But we, for sound public policy purposes, need to keep track of where people are. So we regulate and keep track - as best we can.

Normally, non-violators don't get too worked up about malum prohibitum violations - "just pay your fine and get on with your life" is the general attitude. And that, in fact, has been proposed as a solution for illegal immigrants to become legal immigrants. But immigration is very different for millions of people, including the two I spoke with. They consider it a very serious offense - even when I explained that it was not.

The reason for this is obvious - their real objection is the presence of these people. They don't want them here.

Remarkably, the two people I talked to did not see themselves as wanting to keep people out, at all! They did not recognize the source for their strong feelings about the topic. That's because we've allowed them to talk about "illegal immigrants." Collapsing the two concepts into one classification allowed them to express their latent hostility as moral outrage regarding the importance of obeying the law. And it allowed them to do this without noticing what they were doing.

Well, no more! Enough with the "illegal immigrants" argument. I want people to break it down for me.

Joe H.

Update: My wife disagrees with my analysis. She noted that she does not want to keep different kinds of people out - Hawaii is the most intergrated mixed race place in the United States. People here don't think much about racial and/or ethic differences - which is admirable. Her position is that it is unfair to allow those who came in illegally to stay, while those who followed the rules and attempted to enter legally are kept out.

That's a fair point - but I'm hard pressed to think that justice for the law abiding foriegner is on many people's minds when they complain about illegal immigration.