Legitimizing the Debate on Illegal Immigration

Don Boudreaux on immigration:

There is a legitimate debate over how open America's borders should be. But that debate today is far too soiled by those persons who think that merely calling "illegal" immigrants "criminals" settles the matter. It does not. "Illegal" immigrants are "criminals" only because government policy declares them to be -- in the same way that persons openly practicing Christianity or Judaism in Soviet Russia were "criminals" only because government policy declared them to be.

The contours and specifics of this policy are precisely what is at issue in the debate over how widely open U.S. borders ought to be. This debate should be on the economics and the national-security issues raised by immigration; it should not be confused by the confusing (and often self-serving) application of the term "criminal" to persons who come to America without Uncle Sam's permission -- permission that is very difficult to get.