As immigration becomes a hotter topic, four Hillsdale College professors gathered to discuss the policy’s reform during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society and Hillsdale College Debate April 9. Courtesy | Google
Four Hillsdale College professors clashed over immigration reform during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society and Hillsdale College Debate Team April 9.
The panel featured Associate Professor of Economics Charles Steele, Associate Professor of Economics Abel Winn, and Professors of Politics Kevin Portteus and Thomas West, who shared competing visions for addressing America’s immigration challenges. The debate team compiled questions for the discussion and moderated the event.
Winn proposed a novel shift in immigration policy that would put sponsorship decisions directly in the hands of individual Americans.
“I believe, fundamentally, that who immigrates to the United States and how we decide or how we select them, should be left to the American people in the most literal way possible,” Winn said. “The basic idea is, if you are a United States citizen, you will have the right to invite or to sponsor any immigrants — subject to constraints like you can’t of course be a criminal or a terrorist.”
Winn was referring to a policy proposal by economists Glen Weyl and Eric Posner called the Visas Between Individuals Program.
Under the proposed VIP system, American citizens could personally sponsor immigrants in exchange for a portion of their future earnings, Winn said. Sponsors would have complete discretion in selecting immigrants based on factors like economic potential, cultural compatibility or humanitarian concerns. They could even choose to waive any financial arrangement for cases they deem worthy of charitable sponsorship.
“The people who constitute the citizens of the United States are the people for whom this regime exists,” Portteus said. “The Constitution already provides for determinations about who should be let in and who should not be let in.”
The United States exists as a collective sovereign entity, not just a collection of individuals, Portteus said. As such, the American people should have a unified voice in immigration policy through our constitutional framework.
“Dr. Portteus, as you mentioned, immigration should be collective. I guess my big question is we’re a country of 330 million people, we span a continent. It’s difficult to imagine us doing anything collective in that sense,” Winn said. “Why not look at us more like a gated community where all of us are inside the gate, all of us have property rights over our part of the gated community, but we still get to invite in individual members of the community?”
Portteus said immigration policy should be viewed through the lens of national sovereignty rather than domestic policy. He pointed to the Constitution’s Define and Punish Clause, which grants Congress the power to address violations of international law, as the foundation for federal immigration authority.
West said contemporary non-European immigrants and their descendants are increasingly voting on the left, diverging from traditional American values.
“We have 91 million people who are immigrants or offspring of immigrants living in America today,” West said. “The correlation between immigrant generations and voting on the left continues up to the present day. This is a generational continuation. What we have today is a whole new variety of immigrants who are not from Europe at all, therefore have much greater divergence from the older American way.”
A nation requires more than just legal agreements to bind its people together, West said. People need shared traditions, ceremonies and cultural bonds to create genuine community.
Since 1965, most U.S. immigration has come from nations without strong democratic traditions. West said. These non-Western countries historically have no tradition of liberty.
“It makes sense to have people come into your country that support your ideas,” Steele said.
When asked about the correct number to allow to legally enter the U.S., Portteus said given current circumstances, the only practical policy in the short term is a complete moratorium on immigration.
Steele had a slightly more nuanced opinion. He contrasted Lily Tang Williams, a Chinese-American activist and politician known for her fierce criticism of communism based on her experiences in Mao’s China, with Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-M.N., a member of the progressive “Squad” who frequently advocates for left-wing policies in Congress, to illustrate his views on selective immigration.
“So, what’s the right number? If we’re talking about Lily Tang Williams — a million of them,” Steele said. “If we’re talking about how many Ilhan Omars — zero.”
