Realities that Should Alter the Liberal View on Immigration

This piece appeared as a newspaper op/ed in late December, 2024.

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Having concluded that my efforts to have some impact on today’s conservatives were futile, I turned my attention to the Liberal side, and recently published here “Liberal America’s Contribution to this Catastrophic Victory of Fascism.”

In addition, with the Conservative side having gone off the deep end, it seems imperative that Liberal America be especially sound and sane, and make as few mistakes as possible. One shift that seems important is in how (many) liberals think about Immigration.

The main liberal attitude toward immigration is characterized by considerable compassion for the people who come to America looking for safety, or simply for a better life. (I myself have always resonated to the words inscribed at the Statue of Liberty: ““Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And then, “I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

(I’ve also recognized that immigration needs to be under good and wise control, for the sake of the society. But I’ve never felt hostility to the immigrants, even those who enter illegally. In their situation, might I not do the same thing?)

Ideally, we could all agree on a policy that gives adequate weight both to compassion and good will and to the need to maintain social health and stability.

But the human world is never the ideal we might imagine: while some people might be able to bring goodwill to the immigration issue, it is clear that immigrants arouse different feelings in many others. Some people feel threatened by the arrival of people who are different from themselves – religiously (as in 19^th century America’s “Irish need not apply”) or racially (as in the “Chinese exclusion act” later in 19^th century America) etc.

We might want it to be otherwise. We might wish that for a society in which everyone grows up feeling comfortable with differences, and feeling goodwill toward people seeking asylum or a better life. But whether there will ever be such a society, we are not there now. And the evidence is that – even in wealthy, free, and humane societies – the fears and anger that immigration can trigger can play a destructive role in society.

Liberals of the Emma Lazarus mindset need to pay attention to that evidence.

Not just in the United States, but in nations around the world we have witnessed how immigration (at least of some kinds, and of some magnitudes) results in a society moving toward Fascism.

The right-wing in France has gained in power over the years by harnessing anti-immigrant feeling in the French electorate. It was immigration that enabled Orban in Hungary to replace the still-new Hungarian democracy with his supposedly “soft” sort of fascism. So also in Germany (where the influx of Syrian refugees strengthened the most Nazi-like party since WW II). And the Netherlands, where the immigrant population has been involved in violence.

Even Sweden – with its longtime reputation of being a model of “social democracy” – saw somewhat fascist forces come to power as a result of real problems with immigrants.

Fascism knows how to exploit people’s fears and hostilities to get their support—since fear and rage (and a lust for power) are at the heart of the Spirit of Fascism.

Worldwide the past two decades, Democracy has been under sustained attack from fascistic forces. And there is no issue today more crucial than whether Democracy can beat back this threat.

For the sake of protecting the heart of liberal values (like Democracy and the Rule of Law), Liberal America should not push liberal values on immigration beyond the point where it feeds the power of Fascism in America.

In its battle against Fascism, the pro-Democracy cause serves both the human good and the prospects for the human future. Not only is Democracy more conducive to human fulfillment (how do you think it feels to be a “citizen” in today’s Russia), and more just, but it enhances human civilization’s chances for survival:

• Our survival is threatened by war among nuclear powers, and it is the clear record of Fascism that it sets the world at war (Hitler in 1939, Putin in 2022), and it is the Fascist Regime in Russia that has been rattling his nukes to threaten the world. Fascism makes that form of civilization’s self-destruction more likely.

 

• Our survival is threatened by our damaging the biosphere — on which we depend for our own survival – through things like climate change. Fascists sometimes relish their role in destroying nature – like Bolsanaro in Brazil with his assault on the Amazonian jungle, a.k.a. “the lungs of the world.”

It really doesn’t get any bigger – in terms of consequences for the human future – than the beating back the forces of Fascism. Looking at immigration in isolation means failing to see how immigration is affecting the most important issue on the planet today.

It is often recognized that without Democracy, none of the other issues we face will be dealt with rightly.

Sometimes the less consequential value must be sacrificed to protect a far larger value.