If you are even slightly familiar with current affairs you are no doubt aware of the humanitarian disaster that is Venezuela. After the election of socialist Hugo Chavez as president in 1998, the country was slowly and agonizingly plunged into economic, political, and social hell as destructive economic policies, political repression, human rights violations, compulsive money printing, and total disregard for the rule of law took a country that was once the wealthiest in Latin America to one that is now among the poorest and most dangerous.
Venezuela has among the highest rates of malaria cases, kidnappings, hunger, and corruption in the world. Its current inflation rate has actually eased to merely 927% after being 1,638% last year. You read those figures correctly. Its people suffer from chronic shortages of food, medicine, and basic goods. IF you have access to real money (i.e. US Dollars) you can get whatever you want, but only elites and folks who work for the precious few foreign businesses left can obtain them. The unemployment rate is close to 50%. Crime is rampant; the police are corrupt, and the jails full of political prisoners. If there was ever a poster child for what socialism unleashed can do it’s Venezuela.
The Governor of Texas sent 50 migrants from Venezuela who had crossed the border into the US to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The move has set off a social media and news frenzy across the political spectrum with Democrats and Republicans finger pointing and grandstanding using terms like decency, morality, and political “pawns”. Speaking as someone who has actually been to Venezuela- when it was merely bad and not nightmarish as it is now- I cannot help but be appalled by how badly everyone here is missing the point.
NONE of those folks who were sent to the Vineyard are suffering or are having their human rights violated. That was happening before they got to the United States. Whether or not they are living in a shelter on the island or in a refugee holding facility in Texas they are much, much better off than they would be back home, like most immigrants from Latin America who assume substantial risks to try to get to US soil. Once here, Venezuelan immigrants are not granted the same protections as Cubans, despite the fact that the regime they live under is as bad, if not worse, than Cuba. We are in the midst of a desperate labor shortage. Every one of us should be welcoming to these people who have risked their lives for freedom and opportunity and understand what they are trying to do. Nobody seems to understand this. Near as I can tell, virtually no one among US political elites is seriously defending the Venezuelan regime any longer. Even Sean Penn and Danny Glover are now conspicuously silent about what’s going on down there. If Republicans really hate socialism and Democrats really care about the plight and suffering of people in the developing world, both sides should agree to grant asylum to Venezuelan immigrants when they reach the United States. Martha’s migrants are actually lucky. Give the millions still stuck in the hell of Chavismo some hope. Open up our borders to those folks, and frankly many more, and end the myopic, counterproductive political games.
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Sep 21 2022 at 5:50pm
Well, I try—but I still have a lot of questions about the situation.
This strikes me as a reasonable summary of the big picture; kudos to Lynch.
That said, the fact that people experienced suffering or human rights violations in the past does not render them immune from ALSO experiencing suffering or human rights violations in the present. For example, if people in TX kidnapped these asylum-seekers to send them to MA, that would violate their human rights—prior human rights violations notwithstanding.
Moreover, these asylum seekers presumably have an asylum proceeding in a court somewhere—probably in TX. Shipping them to MA might impede their ability to pursue their claims, potentially resulting in them losing their asylum claim and getting returned to their home country. Lynch makes it clear that this would cause these people to suffer, and potentially to endure a violation of human rights. This would seem like a pretty harsh result for a political stunt. But given that we still haven’t reunited all the immigrant kids and parents separated at the US border, we know that harsh results pose no obstacle to political stunts.
For what it’s worth, I don’t see any problem in principle with people (including state agents) sending other people to other states, assuming the travelers give informed consent. And if doing so puts political pressure on people who seem unsympathetic to the challenges of managing immigration, this offends me not. Whether immigration be a boon or a curse, why not share it?
In this instance, however, DeSantis implies that we should regard these people as a curse, and this view stigmatizes these people and arguably valorizes bigotry. I oppose these messages, so I sympathize with those who object. But I also acknowledge that people such as DeSantis have a right to promote views I find anti-social.
zeke5123
Sep 22 2022 at 11:43am
This seems like a bit of misrepresentation. I don’t think DeSantis believes these particular migrants or all migrants are curses. What he is saying is that in the South because of the mass influx of people and the requirement for local welfare services to be provided to these people that there is a big strain on public resources. That is, one could be fine with 200K of migrants but not okay with say 2m (or pick your number).
Now whether he is right? I don’t know. But that is the problem with a welfare state.
Monte
Sep 21 2022 at 7:57pm
While immigration law is in bad need of reform, an unconditional open borders policy is too venturesome, IMO. A rigorous vetting process is critical to our national security in light of the world’s current state of affairs. This process can (and should) be streamlined, but those who unequivocally endorse it, as open borders Grand Marshall Bryan Caplan does in his book, fOpen Borders: The Science and ethics of Immigration, fail to account for the gaps.
For example, economists usually consider only market interactions, ignoring most other socio-political and cultural impacts. They also tend to be concerned only with spurious measures of total welfare, seemingly indifferent to their distributional aspects (ie. the damage that immigration can have on many segments of the native population). Prof. Caplan, in particular, suffers from that fatal conceit: The belief that only “experts” should be deferred to, even though the vast majority of economists surveyed have demonstrated, at best, a rudimentary understanding of the complexities of immigration and its long-term detrimental effects.
I’ll end with this rather foreboding quote by Teddy Roosevelt:
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. …The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”
Matthias
Sep 21 2022 at 10:02pm
Does your opposition to migration also apply to migration between eg the American states?
Monte
Sep 21 2022 at 10:36pm
That’s a good question, albeit a tricky one. 😉
If we accept the premise that in a homogeneous culture (one whose citizens uniformly embrace it’s constitution and the values and traditions that it protects), then those values and beliefs are shared and pervasive and a dominant set of cultural beliefs exist, ensuring that the character and integrity of the nation is preserved. That being the case here in the U.S. (at least, for the present), I’m not opposed to intra-continental migration.
In a more heterogeneous culture (one with open borders), many different values and beliefs are held by diverse populations. This, by definition, is a multicultural society. Multiculturalism inherently suffers from high levels conflict and cultural erosion, among other things.
Mactoul
Sep 22 2022 at 2:41am
Caring for preservation of character and integrity of the nation is decidedly a pre-liberal Or an illiberal concern. So, your objection will not even register with Prof Caplan.
For the citizens may decide to evolve the national character themselves and the state would have to engage in pretty illiberal methods to preserve the historic character.
Monte
Sep 22 2022 at 4:05am
Any objections, even from those vastly more qualified to speak on the subject than me, fail to register with Prof. Caplan and his unshakable belief in open borders, so I’m not concerned with that.
You may be right, but open borders is, I believe, the surest way to fast-track an evolution (or devolution) towards a more dubious national character or cultural identity.
Monte
Sep 22 2022 at 2:13am
Just to be clear, I’m opposed to illegal immigration and open borders. I fully support legal immigration and conditionally open or controlled borders
Knut P. Heen
Sep 22 2022 at 8:05am
That is how you run your household, not how you run a country. “We only let in nice people” does not work because someone has to define nice, and they will define it in a way you don’t like. Your nice people will be illegal and your bad people will be legal.
Monte
Sep 22 2022 at 11:24am
Naughty or nice is totally irrelevant to the point of legal vs illegal immigration. I don’t care if it’s Mother Teresa and the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, we have to have a viable system for vetting and controlling the flow of people at our borders. Otherwise, we’ll have a tragedy of the commons. I’m in agreement with Herman Daly’s take on the issue:
“The USA is… a country of law(s), or at least strives to be. Illegal immigration falls outside the rule of law and renders moot all democratic policy deliberations about balancing interests for the common good.”
vince
Sep 23 2022 at 12:37pm
A country is a collection of households. And even a household is not in complete agreement and who should be invited. They make rules.
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