Why Should We Restrict Immigration‪?‬

Consider the following thought experiment: Moved by the plight of desperate earthquake victims, you volunteer to work as a relief worker in Haiti. After two weeks, you're ready to go home. Unfortunately, when you arrive at the airport, customs officials tell you that you're forbidden to enter the United States. You go to the American consulate to demand an explanation. But the official response is simply, "The United States does not have to explain itself to you." You don't have to be a libertarian to admit that this seems like a monstrous injustice. The entire ideological menagerie liberals, conservatives, moderates, socialists, and libertarians--would defend your right to move from Haiti to the United States. What's so bad about restricting your migration? Most obviously, because life in Haiti is terrible. If the American government denies you permission to 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 to associate with. Hunger, danger, oppression, isolation: condemning you to even one seems wrong. Which raises a serious question: if you had been born in Haiti, would denying you permission to enter the United States be any less wrong? (1)