The perils of anti-immigrant sentiment

By Mitchell Blatt
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, May 10, 2015
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Mounted Baltimore Police in riot gear watch as demonstrators march through the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, May 2, 2015. [Xinhua photo]



Sessions often claims that an increase in the supply of low-skilled labor hurts low-skilled American workers. But America's immigration problems are not just on the low-skilled side. There are not enough high-skilled immigrants allowed into America either. According to a Brookings Institute study, there are three times more job openings in science and engineering fields in most large metro areas than there are people with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

Put aside the economic argument, though, and there is still a matter of philosophy that resonates regardless of economic details. The government shouldn't be in charge of guaranteeing every citizen a job. Every person is an individual, and individuals should be in charge of themselves as much as possible.

Companies should hire the best employees. The idea of competition is not only central to capitalism and economic development, it is an immutable fact of human life. All things being equal, each individual pursues what he or she determines to be his or her rational self-interest.

Sessions seems to agree with these precepts in certain circumstances. He voted against bailing out the financial industry on the grounds that it was too much "governmental intervention in the economy," even though having let all those banks fail would have hurt the middle class and lower class -- indeed, people of all classes. He voted against all efforts to stimulate the economy through government spending, and he supports cutting welfare. When it comes to spending money to help those he claims will be hurt by immigration, he is uniformly against it.

In 2004, he introduced a welfare reform bill called the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone Act. Sessions says welfare recipients need to be more responsible, so why shouldn't the same standards apply to workers? Why shouldn't jobs go to those who work hardest, regardless of race or country of birth? Why shouldn't immigrants have those chances?

What is it about welfare, free trade, and immigration that bring about the ire of self-proclaimed proponents of the free market who are really protectionists? Sessions may have let it slip in a statement he released explaining his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Act. I can't vouch for the accuracy of his claims, but it is interesting that he calls on one country by name: "The 'living agreement' provision means that participating nations could both add countries to the TPP without Congress' approval (like China), and could also change any of the terms of the agreement, including in controversial areas such as the entry of foreign workers and foreign employees."

China-bashing is an industry in American politics. Politicians argue by turns that China is taking America's jobs, taking America's land, financing America's debt or -- if not financing America's debt – trying to make the dollar tank.

Maybe the language of free market exceptionalism that certain conservatives voice is just for show. Maybe they only believe it when their favored constituencies are prospering. Maybe they only want to highlight the good parts of it.

But a valid philosophy is valid regardless of circumstances. If competition is both morally and economically right, then it is just as right if the beneficiaries of that capitalist principle are foreign-born immigrants and foreign entrepreneurs who benefit from trade deals.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

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