Should we sacrifice the citizen to save the city?

1) Let’s take as a given that at the lower end of the economic scale, at least a small number Americans are hurt by the presence of millions of low-wage illegal workers, most of whom have entered the country since the 1986 “regularization.” For example, I’m thinking here of the formerly middle-class construction and meatpacking jobs that paid over $20 an hour with benefits in the 1970s (equivalent to well over $30 an hour today) that now pay $8 or $9 an hour with no benefits, mainly due to the presence of illegals.

2) Let’s also take as a given that the law of supply and demand works, and that an increased supply of low-skill, poorly educated laborers will make it less likely that the plight of American workers at the bottom of the scale can ever be effectively addressed. Again, the 1986 regularization of illegals is instructive. We’ve certainly seen no surge in wages or unionization since then.

3) Then let’s take not as a given but as a likelihood that some form of amnesty for illegal migrants will draw in many more. Again, look at 1986.

Taking all this into account, if we grant amnesty or earned legalization to illegal migrants, aren’t we sacrificing the citizen (the perhaps small number of Americans directly hurt by the past 20 years of large-scale illegal immigration) to save the city (exercise broad compassion for illegals and realize some small overall economic benefit for the American economy)?

Didn’t these Americans—even though they are a small and fairly powerless minority, and perhaps especially because of that--have every right to expect that our border and immigration laws would be enforced (even more so after 1986) so they could compete on a level playing field in the labor market? Like the Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, these Americans had every right to expect the law to protect them as well as it protects the rest of us.

The country failed in the 1940s, and we risk failing another subset of Americans now, though they’re much less visible and identifiable.

To think of it another way, put it in the framework of eminent domain. If a city needs to build a new airport but neighborhoods have to be torn down to clear the way, the homeowners are compensated for the loss of their property but also for the loss of their rights to that property. Here we’re depriving certain Americans of their rights--to secure borders and a fair labor market--but without the compensation.

There are powerful utilitarian arguments for amnesty/legalization, with compassion, practicality and even a weak economic appeal all on that side of the equation. The compassion argument is especially strong. The pro-amnesty side can point to the many millions of illegal workers who would otherwise endure great poverty in Mexico and Central American without access to the U.S. labor market. How, they ask to great effect, can we deny them that chance?

It's a good, legitimate question. It reveals a broad, enlightened and admirably all-embracing regard for global humanity.

But it's also selective. It doesn't account for the much smaller but equally legitimate interests of American citizens who have rights and pay a direct, heavy, unacknowledged and never-to-be-compensated price for the enlightenment and compassion of others. The pro-amnesty side makes a compelling case, but it needs to own this inconvenient fact as well.