Keep America’s Borders Open
On April 11 in Dallas, I participated in a debate on immigration that was sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and The Free Press. The proposition was “America should shut its borders,” and columnist Ann Coulter and Compact magazine cofounder Sohrab Ahmari defended it. The Young Turks‘ Cenk Uygur and I opposed the motion, while The Free Press‘ Bari Weiss moderated.
The full video is currently only available to Free Press subscribers (a monthly subscription costs $8 a month; go here for details), but I’m happy to share video and a lightly edited transcript of my opening statement, with relevant links embedded.
I went second, after Ann Coulter, and a few of my comments below directly respond to her opening remarks and require a bit of context. She drew a distinction between immigrants and their descendants who were in the United States before 1970 (good) and those who came after (bad).
Most pre-1970 immigrants came from Europe and had entered the country before ultra-restrictive immigration laws were passed in the early 1920s that were explicitly designed to reduce the number of Jews, Italians, and other undesirable groups allowed to enter America. The Johnson-Reed Act completely banned immigration from Asia (including India) and sharply limited newcomers from Europe based on their country of origin. Under the new law, for instance, just 4,000 Italians were allowed to enter the country each year, down from an average of well over 200,000 in each year of the preceding decade. Jewish immigration plummeted by 80 percent.
National origins would remain the basis of U.S. immigration law until 1965, when those quotas were abolished and replaced by a system that emphasized family reunification and labor force needs. Along with Sen. Philip Hart (D–Mich.) and Rep. Emanuel Celler (D–N.Y.), Sen. Ted Kennedy (D–Mass.) was one of the sponsors of the new legislation. Since 1970, the vast majority of immigrants have come from Latin American countries, especially Mexico, and Asia.
The following transcript has been edited for style and clarity.
I’m the token libertarian on the panel, and I know that means you probably think I’m going to talk mostly about economics and drugs. And you’ll be right, I am going to talk most about economics and drugs tonight.
In 1902, the nativist publication, Judge, which I’m pretty sure Anne Coulter had a column in, ran a cover image showing a giant horseshoe magnet suspended from a rope titled “American Prosperity.” And then all sorts of stereotypically “bad” immigrants—Chinese coolies, fez-wearing Turks, weird people who were probably Persian, French actresses (!), bomb-throwing Italians, Russian peasants, European-looking people who were just carrying bags that said filth on them—were being sucked into the magnet. And the caption of the magnet on the cover of this Judge issue just said, “The only bad feature of our prosperity.”
We’re a nation of immigrants, but we have never, ever, ever been comfortable with the ones currently streaming across our borders. So it’s fascinating to hear Ann talk about how the Jews were pretty good as pre-1970 people. Jews were locked out of this country to such a degree that millions perished during the Holocaust because they couldn’t emigrate to America, inclu
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