Jason: “I may also…
Jason: “I may also protect my legitimate interests through other means — as in prohibiting criminals from entering the country. It’s impossible, after all, to protect your land day and night while still making a living, and the task of the government is likewise made easier if criminals are screened out at the border. … The only groups I have advocated deporting are criminals and terrorists. These people have no right to be here, because criminals have fewer rights than the rest of us.”
Do you think that the government would be within its moral prerogatives to use similar “screening” procedures to keep criminals, terrorists, etc. from moving from, say, Ohio to Michigan? From Detroit to Ann Arbor? After all, insofar as it succeeded, that would materially improve my safety a lot more than stopping criminals from moving from Tijuana to San Diego.
There are two different aspects to immigration policy: border patrol and internal policing. Suppose that someone who is not, in fact, a criminal, a terrorist, the bearer of a dangerous disease, or anything of the sort, doesn’t want to deal with immigration paperwork and somehow skirts your border patrol. Suppose that she stays at my place while she works for a willing employer who doesn’t care about her immigration status. Should she be arrested and deported if she is found out? Should I be forced to do “screening” for her immigration status before I give her a place to stay? Should her employer be forced to do the same?
What kind of crimes do you have in mind when you say that “criminals” should be stopped at the border and/or exiled from the country? Do you think that U.S. citizens who commit similar crimes should also be exiled, or prevented from re-entering the country if they leave it? If not, what makes the difference between the two cases?
Anticopyright.