7/12/21

By Josh Rubin

I was recently asked why it is that the United States has so much trouble getting its immigration policy right. It seemed to the questioner that we were failing, no matter what the party in charge.

It seems that way to me, too. Here we are, hoping for relief from a presidential term of extraordinary cruelty, and we find ourselves looking at policies that are still causing great suffering. Expulsion of people creating massive camps beneath our southern border, hungry and exposed. Children in tents huddled by their dusty bunks, losing track of who they are, and why they are alive.

The truth is, it will not change until we acknowledge that our immigration policy is based on the wrong premise. We are trying to prevent people from coming here. And that cannot be done.

We cannot stop the sea from rising. And we cannot stop migration. People will move when they need to, because the will to survive is mandated by our nature. And if the place we live cannot sustain us, whether because of climate change, or predatory economic and political practices, we will take shank’s mare, take to the road, and obey the mandate of our nature. And nothing—nothing will stop us.

So, as long as our policy is based on finding the best way to keep people from coming, it will fail. And as it fails, there will be great suffering. There is room inside the premise of migration prevention for a range of reactions, some more sympathetic than others. But ultimately the premise is wrong, and doomed to failure. And it inflicts great pain.

Finally, there needs to be a paradigm shift, one that will not be easy for many people to accept. We have to stop thinking about the best ways to prevent people from migrating. We have to stop thinking about the best ways to keep people out, and start thinking about the best ways to let people in.

Painting by Melissa Bowen Rubin