Another such penalty is deportation, which is effectively exile, a penalty we impose for no other crime. The Democrats must proceed from the starting point that, in almost all cases, deportation is both cruel and unnecessary. Even deporting those who commit violent crimes is a visceral punitive reaction that does nothing to either rehabilitate the individual or protect the people they might go on to hurt in their country of origin. To the extent that the Democrats must make concessions based on fears about “public safety,” any policy must be aimed at whittling down the categories of people to whom deportation applies.

Another oft-cited public-safety concern is cross-border smuggling. It may make sense to keep some investigative units at the border, as long as these are focused on cartel-related violence—as well as the serious problem of human trafficking for the purpose of forced labor—and not on terrorizing irregular migrants. Any such measures should be coupled with the acknowledgement that U.S. drug policies contribute significantly to violence in source and transit countries, and with disinvestment in the drug war. Continued decriminalization of drugs in the United States will also reduce cross-border smuggling.

More ambitiously, the Democrats should also put forward legislation that creates an ongoing avenue for unauthorized immigrants to regularize their status after they enter the country. This is not quite “open borders,” since it still acknowledges a distinction between authorized and unauthorized entry and requires people to make themselves known to the government, but it would certainly be a big improvement. A new status, something like “new resident,” could be created, carrying the same labor rights and benefits as U.S. citizens and offering an eventual bridge to a green card.

Protesters in Orlando, Fla., join nationwide May Day rallies in 2006 as part of “the day without immigrants,” in opposition to so-called immigration reform legislation. (Photy by Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

To the question of whether new immigrants will hurt U.S. workers, Democrats should seize the opportunity to talk about what’s already hurting U.S. workers. Currently, little effort is made to ensure that anyone has access to wage and labor protections. ICE’s 2018 budget for its enforcement and removal department was $4.8 billion, while the Department of Labor’s 2018 budget for its wage and hour department was $280 million. We spent 20 times the amount chasing unauthorized immigrants than we did chasing unscrupulous employers. What if, rather than putting resources into preventing unauthorized immigrants from entering the workforce, we put resources toward ensuring that labor standards are actually enforced for all workers?

Ultimately, Democrats must commit themselves to the principle of absolute equality between all human beings, regardless of their birthplace. A Democrat who truly believes in this principle will make it her tireless mission to see that it is enshrined in our laws and our practices.

What About the Welfare State?

Some progressives may balk at the abolitionist approach because they believe that open or nearly open borders are incompatible with the welfare state. This problem causes fewer moral conundrums for libertarian and pro-business open borders advocates like the Cato Institute, which envisions immigrants serving as a tier of secondclass citizen without access to public benefits. To be fair, some immigrants might prefer to be second-class citizens in the United States rather than struggle in their home countries, as libertarian economists frequently point out. And it would certainly be morally unjustifiable to oppose immigration because we disliked the sight of comparative poverty in our own country and preferred that it simply exist somewhere else, even if it were worse.

However, there is no real reason to presuppose that the welfare state could not encompass more residents. In raw numbers, “balancing the budget” on the ambitious public programs the Left wants to implement, even if we don’t take into account new immigrants, is a challenge. Current welfare spending (when we include Medicare and Medicaid) adds up to roughly $1 trillion. Some additional monies can be reallocated from areas like military spending ($716 billion in the 2019 budget), corporate subsidies (estimated at $110 billion) and, indeed, ICE ($7.6 billion). We can also consider the possibility that, in a world where all workers earn a living wage, fewer people would need certain kinds of benefits—such as the $6.2 billion annually that subsidizes Walmart’s low wages.

Still, the reality is that all of the Left’s proposed social programs— for expanding housing, healthcare, childcare and education access—will require a massive increase in spending, with the costs of additional immigrants being a marginal increase. Progressives generally propose to accommodate these new budget items through greatly increased redistributive taxation, and adherents of Modern Monetary Theory would suggest anxieties about the negative economic impacts of a large deficit are misplaced.