Why Should We Restrict Immigration?

5 Why Should We Restrict Immigration? Bryan CaplanConsider the following thought experiment: Moved by theplight of desperate earthquake victims, you volunteer to work as arelief worker in Haiti. After two weeks, you re ready to go , when you arrive at the airport, customs officials tellyou that you re forbidden to enter the United States. You go to theAmerican consulate to demand an explanation. But the officialresponse is simply, The United States does not have to explainitself to you. You don t have to be a libertarian to admit that this seems like amonstrous injustice. The entire ideological menagerie liberals, con-servatives, moderates, socialists, and libertarians would defendyour right to move from Haiti to the United States. What s so badabout restricting your migration? Most obviously, because life inHaiti is terrible. If the American government denies you permissionto return, you ll live in dire poverty, die sooner, live under a brutal,corrupt regime, and be cut off from most of the people you want toassociate with.

my life, and I gave my informed consent, then your action is not just morally permissible, but praiseworthy. Nevertheless, my thought experiment does establish one weak conclusion: immigra-tion restrictions seem wrong on the surface. To justifiably restrict migration, you need to overcome the moral presumption in favor of open borders (Huemer ...

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