The GOP's immigration protectionists

These are common questions many of us will ask internally, particularly when we find ourselves in “at-risk” jobs or industries. While such a reaction is only natural, we should be careful that we don’t sell ourselves away to such base sentiments, which can basically be reduced to, “Why do I have to share my job with Jimmy?”

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Keep in mind that, on the conservative side, these same folks would be delighted to see new creators and competitors go up against Silicon Valley start-ups or Wall Street banks. Such “threats” are, in fact, opportunities for new growth and creativity. If adjustments need to be made, the moral response is not to give way to envy-induced territorialism, but to get ourselves back on track and think of new ways to contribute and create alongside and on behalf of our neighbors—old and new alike.

Indeed, once we get past our short-sighted notions of entitlement and self-preservation, we find the Santorum school on immigration more suited to Ehrlich’s doomsday prophecies than the ponderings of Buckley or Burke. Humans are assets, fashioned in the image of God with creative potential and unbounded relational capacity. All is gift, and we are all destined to be gift-givers in God’s grand economy of all things. We are made to build and innovate, share and collaborate, and immigrants of whatever skill set from whatever country or political system are born with that same creative capacity.

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