Illegal Immigrants to Sue for Minimum Wage Grievances
May 30, 2007
Do illegal immigrants have a right to file suit in U.S. Courts? It sounds awfully far-fetched to me, just as a matter of reason.
Now, I’m on record as opposing immigration laws - but I’ll hand it off to Don Boudreaux at cafehayek, who discussed recently the substantive difference between malum in se and malum prohibitum:
Looked at differently, to call “criminal” those persons whose only offenses are merely malum prohibitum is unfairly and inappropriately to tar them with the scorn and wariness that is deserved only by persons who commit genuine offenses against others.
I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, per se, and I think they ought to be able to seek damages where appropriate. But I also oppose minimum wage laws and labor restrictions, and furthermore, it’s patently frivolous to seek damages resulting from a voluntary agreement, or to try and use the law to strongarm your position.
The bottom line: I think the whole legal/illegal discussion is absurd to begin with. I think anyone who wants to come here and contribute to society ought to be permitted to do so. But I don’t think they should be able to collect anything for this suit.
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You recommended me a book and now I recommend you a little video. While it would be nice to have just anyone who wants to work to come there is only so much land don’t you think?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265&q=immigration+numbers
There’s an awful lot of vacant land in this country not being put to any use whatsoever. As a counterpoint, even in spite of this plague of immigrants, we now enjoy a significantly higher standard of living than anyone, anywhere, ever.
His average immigration rates are a joke: comparing a long time period (40 years of his golden era) where the population was markedly lower, to a much shorter time period where the population is significantly greater. A more relevant metric would be a weighted % of population, over standardized intervals.
Further, immigration in a free economy is bound by a number of factors, not the least of which is opportunity cost. Each additional immigrant reduces the potential gain for others. Additionally, there are few people the world over who have the capacity to come here by any means, whatsoever.
I’ll try and get back to you on this, so wait for that post.
[…] response to a comment yesterday evening warning against anything even approaching an open-borders policy, I’m […]