On Immigration

On July 23, 2018, I became a United States citizen. This occasion has caused me to ponder the issues of citizenship and immigration in greater detail.

In the wake of my new citizenship, someone asked me, "Now that you've gone through the whole process, how do you feel about people coming over here illegally?" I responded noncommittally due to timing issues, but my real answer is this: Illegal immigrants are some of the people who've suffered most, who are most desperate, most hardworking -- and for these reasons, they are some of the people who most deserve our compassion.

On a fundamental philosophical level, I reject the concept of nations entirely. The specific sovereign governments and borders on Earth today have little concern for human well-being; they are historical artifacts based on arbitrary geographical features, backwards violence, or pure happenstance. The more we discover about the nature of reality, the more the morally and socially questionable borders become.

Astronomy, for instance, has shown us our insignificance in the universe. There is a deep existential futility in trying to delineate the exact boundary between between two specks of land on a hardly larger speck of dust, floating through a cold and endless cosmos. Meanwhile, biology has revealed our deep genetic ties to one another. We are, in a very real sense, all members of one big evolutionary family; be we from Uganda or Peru, our common heritage is encoded in every cell of our body. And with the advent of commercial air travel and the Internet, all the places on this once-vast globe are suddenly much closer together.

These scientific advancements allow us to transcend our ugly tribal history. The perspective they provide is clear: We are all citizens of a global community, we are far more alike than we are different, and we are far better working together than apart. With our knowledge, it is no longer justifiable for us to cling to the in-group/out-group mentality of our evolutionary past. Consequently, my most moral scenario is one in which "immigration" as a concept becomes obsolete because we all consider ourselves members of the single, united nation of Earth.

Though this philosophical position may not be feasible right now, it's still important. It is the lens through which I view topics pertaining to immigration. I support most steps that can peacefully move us toward a more cooperative, cosmopolitan, global society, and away from borders, tribalism, and nationalism. Immigration is not easy; this is something I know firsthand. I want to live in a world where it is.