What is Postliberal Immigration Policy?

Proponents of mass immigration that see it as as a panacea to economic and cultural malaise ignore the damage done to the common good.

Over the last few decades, mass immigration patterns have created conditions that have eroded the common good of the United States, thereby causing strains on both established populations as well as immigrants who are lured to the United States with the promise of a better life. Liberalism’s allergy to authority and its influence on immigration policy has resulted in the rise of structures that erode the bonds of American families. Similarly, the plight of immigrants can serve as a bellwether for the looming social and economic conditions that Americans face as liberalism approaches its inevitable conclusion.

It is important to begin by describing what I mean by mass immigration and to distinguish it from otherwise licit movement of people permitted by just authorities. Mass immigration is the whole movement of people from one country or region to another with little regard for the natural hierarchies of the migrant and host communities harmed by the displacement of people. It is a movement of people at once, a large in number of individuals, though few in families, and short in time scales (within decades, rather than centuries).

Analyses of societal disintegration within liberal democracies have explored various factors of mass immigration, such as economic disparities between the privileged few and the disadvantaged many, social pathologies prevalent among both urban and rural poor, and political divisions among different factions stemming from the legacy of the liberal project. Look at France and the difficulty in integrating mass immigrants into French society. Similarly, a review of the last decade will reveal concerns over growing gang violence in urban centers across the United States that victimize both poor American and immigrant populations, as well as recruit from them. This kind of civic disorder can only lead to the disruption of a country’s way of life.

Many proponents of mass immigration will highlight the hardiness of immigrant communities in these urban areas, commenting on the revitalization of older neighborhoods. Yet, little is ever written about social cohesion within the host country in comparison with waves of immigrants from earlier periods. Equally ignored are the ways that the conditions fostering only material economic concerns erode the capacity for family formation. Of course, these systemic challenges permeate the entire political community, sparing no one from their effects. If the host country can be thought of as the interior of the garment, and immigrant communities are at the fringes, it ought to be a concern that the edges of the social fabric of America are also fraying. The unraveling of the social fabric by a liberal regime does not only affect the host community, but the entire political community as a whole.

In the context of a postliberal regime, the issue of immigration and its impact on the political community demands thoughtful consideration. As a naturalized American citizen originally from Peru, the prospect of advocating for the postliberal project might appear unconventional to readers of this article. Throughout my early upbringing, the concept of American society as a “melting pot” was the norm. Adult immigrants often expressed their gratitude to this country for providing an opportunity to create a “better life.” These narratives are frequently promoted by both right and left-liberals to bolster the idea that liberalism represents the ultimate destination for all human societies. However, a genuine engagement with immigrant communities reveals that these perspectives primarily reflect the character of immigrants and the significant role gratitude plays in their lives, rather than a deep awareness of the political implications of the liberal regime as the inevitable form of political organization.

The issue of mass immigration has generated a plethora of debate. As Catholics embracing a postliberal perspective, our approach to resolving the conflicts surrounding immigration should be characterized by political realism; that is, to accurately account for the costs and benefits of any policy of immigration, we should reject a calculus that treats immigrants as strictly workers with no right to human flourishing, something advocated for by both the mainstream left and right. To achieve this, I will underscore some principles that policymakers should consider to build prudent immigration policies.

The most direct comments on migration in the Catechism of the Catholic Church are contained within the exposition on the Fourth commandment: to “honor your mother and father” is a primary duty, and extending this virtue of filial piety in the right proportion to the political community consists of the virtue of patriotism. This kind of love follows from Christ’s command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. 

Good relationships are fostered and duties are honored within the natural family and these habits are extended to society at large. A society acts with justice and charity to all its members as it models how family “members learn to care and take responsibility for young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor.” It is for this reason that the family is called the “original cell of social life,” and why the “political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially: the freedom to establish a family, have children, and bring them up in the keeping with the family’s own moral and religious convictions.”

It is here that the political community, out of due care for the good of families, must ensure that in times of difficulty, a family has also the right to “private property, to free enterprise, to obtain work and housing, and the right to emigrate.” Still, out of concern for the common good, “public authorities…may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regards to the immigrant’s duties towards the country of adoptions.” These principles set a framework with which to balance the particular demands of justice and charity towards the host and alien. The primacy of the common good figures quite prominently in these statements, over and above mere material economic considerations and individualistic interpretations of liberty.

According to the Catechism, “Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society.” These profound statements convey the family’s dual role: it is both an integral component of society and a reflection of the divine communion shared by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

These principles underscore the fundamental importance of the family as the foundational political community. The family, being the first society, holds a unique position in shaping individuals and society at large. The political authority derives its natural authority from the authority of parents over their children and, as such, should acknowledge and respect the family’s pivotal role. Within this natural political order, hierarchical structures facilitate the diffusion of charity and promote the common good. Both the political community and the family owe duties to one another, fostering a harmonious relationship oriented towards the well-being of society as a whole. Embracing these principles leads to a cohesive and flourishing political community, where the family’s sanctity and significance is upheld, and genuine solidarity and welfare are fostered.

The question is then raised: How ought we consider dealing with the crisis of mass immigration? Aquinas explains the reasons for the kinds of juridical conditions imposed on the class of foreigner that “wished to be admitted entirely to [the hosts’] fellowship and mode of worship” (I-II, Q. 105, A. 3). Aquinas means that ample care must be given to ensure that the religious life of new immigrant families is congruent with that of the political community. The public worship that takes shape in a Catholic society, admittance, or rather adoption, of foreigners must positively take this into account. Of particular interest is avoiding the danger of political and religious usurpation by a foreigner, “since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.” 

Taken together with the principles provided by the Catechism, we can assert that a postliberal policy for immigration must distinguish itself from the liberal (right and left) approaches by:

1. Acknowledging the primacy of the common good of the host country.

2. Ensure the integrity of the society that political authority has responsibility for ensuring the common good.

3. Recognize and foster the virtuous establishment of family formation among the guests (as it should for the entire community).

This approach axiomatically rejects the proposals of right and left-liberals that foster mass immigration, which endangers the common life of American citizens. Attempts at reform by increasing legal immigration with a bad justification, such as the need for more low-skilled workers due to labor shortage, high-skilled workers for industrial innovation, or more perversely, as a means to reduce inflation, aims at creating an underclass that is used, not loved. This primarily concerns considering the consequences for native-born, American workers, who often find themselves without jobs and being unable to provide for their own families due to these policies.

To understand this example further, we must pivot to the reference frame of an immigrant living in America in 2023. The same problems faced by the American people by the top-down imposition of a liberal order plague immigrant communities and families. The impact of liberalism’s disruptive force is particularly pronounced on immigrant communities, mainly because our families tend to have fewer material resources and assets compared to well-established American families or descendants of earlier immigrant communities. This economic disparity amplifies the challenges faced by immigrants, making them more vulnerable to the destabilizing effects of liberal policies. 

The soulcraft of high school and university historiographical and moral formation of the 1990s aimed at popularizing moral relativism in matters of nation-building by a disintegrated academic formation as well as the formalization of liberal sexual ethics. This tendency to foster a self-created life distinct from one’s own parents and grandparents may appear to some to be a mildly harmless experiment among established families. However, when “Latinx” students come home from their first day and mouth off at Abuela for her expressions of piety, someone is going to have some explaining to do. This may seem like a ridiculous but harmless behavior among the extended family of establishment right-liberals, but it is a serious problem when social contagion begins to affect the ability of families to establish roots in their new home.

Political realism demands that one take into account the true cost of mass immigration. The true cost has to be centered on the capacity to form not a worker underclass, but rather, when the conditions are justified in the common good, on the capacity to create opportunities for healthy families to be established and enjoy the blessings of liberty, and to freely participate in the goods of a healthy political community. Right-liberal attempts at justifying more immigration to resolve issues of cultural malaise are founded on the false premise that a people “yearning to breathe free” from foreign lands will also more industrious than American workers.

This mindset creates a short-term solution at the risk of creating a long-term problem. An asset-less, immigrant worker class with little of value outside of their industriousness is incapable of working for a living; it is simply working for work’s sake. This results in no real incentive to increase wages, creating the kind of pressure that, most concerningly, harms the wages of American workers. A postliberal framework corrects this error by honoring the arrangements of the natural family, seeking judicious decisions that allow for integration to occur at a time scale conducive to long-term harmony. We can be generous to some, but not all. This means eliminating mass immigration, legal and illegal, to preserve the common good of American society.

My one appeal to naturalized American citizens is to reconsider whether the permissive policies that brought you here in the first place come from a genuine love of who you are and where you come from, or if you can see that the liberal regime desires your servility. You will find that the same people who now wish to increase the number of immigrants from abroad are not interested in your family’s capacity to set down roots. As one example of the liberal regime's intrusion into your family life, you should note that the very schools that offered a purported value-neutral education in the middle and late 20th century are now engaged in stripping your parental rights. Especially for Catholic parents, the value proposition of many public schools in generally “blue” states is significantly tainted when the risk of alienation from one's own nature is celebrated and coerced by the state. A postliberal political program may be the only way to foster the legacy that you worked your whole life to pass on to your children and grandchildren.

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