Last semester, my 102 class went to a talk given by Dr. Hidalgo on immigration law. Reading his paper gave me a deeper understanding to what he was explaining in his talk. I thought Hidalgo’s distinction between “doing” and “allowing” was very interesting. When thinking about moral arguments and dilemmas, especially ones concerning immigration, I agree with Hidalgo’s point about our moral duty to disobey the law if the punishment for us isn’t to the same standards as the consequences for others if we do follow it.
Another point I found particularly interesting was his argument for the revisionary view. He used an example of a woman named Linda, and gave two different examples of her moving from Chicago to LA, and then Chicago to London. He argues that the restriction of her moving not only infringes upon her rights, but the rights of the people in that city who would associate with her. By “conscripting” citizens to comply with federal law, through prohibiting them from hiring unauthorized migrants or not reporting them, the government is effectively restricting the rights of their citizens as well. I thought that argument was interesting, because within the issue of immigration, you rarely hear about the rights violations of citizens, only the migrants.
Dr. Hidalgo’s argument is interesting, as it shines a light on other explicit harms against immigrants. The idea of conscripting citizens to create spaces that are not safe (and are particularly targeting) for immigrants not only ethically harms these migrants, but also forces a moral dilemma on the people in that city. It introduces the question of how much our morals should influence law, and should the law be followed when the law contradicts our personal ethics?
In my PPEL seminar, we read a piece that talked about how resident non-citizens, and even non-resident non- citizens (ex. people at the border) should have the right to vote. I see a a lot of parallels between this article and the one I read for my PPEL class. One of the voting arguments is that these “non-citizens” should have the right to have a say in the laws, if they are coerced to abide by them. Hidalgo’s piece stated that citizens should reject/disobey immigration law if it is unjust. This is a similar argument compared to the one from my PPEL class; if the laws are unjust, citizens should have a right to a say (PPEL/voting article), and if they do not have a say but they negatively affect them, there is a right to disobey the laws regarding it (Hidalgo).