As an advocate for opem borders, I am asked many questions that test the limits of my position. For example, do you really oppose deportations? Yes, I do. All of them.
First, if you accept common arguments for free migration, then it follows that moving people against their will is wrong.
Even if you believe that migration restriction is justified, deportation is usually morally wrong. Why? Deportation is wildly disproportionate to the offense. Breaking a migration rule is simply not a serious offense on the level of assault or theft. At most, it's an administrative rule used by states to control population flow. Breaking such a rule suggests that fines and other light penalties are in order. Moving someone across the world, possibly to poverty and violence, is definitely "cruel and unusual" punishment.
The skeptics then press me. What about deporting criminals? I too oppose that. First, if someone has served time for their crime, then deportation is simply double jeopardy. They've already been punished. Let them be.
If someone has not been convicted of a crime, then simply prosecute them via the criminal justice system as would any person. Let them pay fines or serve time. I have been asked, what about deportation as the main punishment?
Two responses. First, for most crimes, deportation is wildly disproportionate to the offense, as noted above. Second, deportation for serious offenses, which at least has some face validity, puts the deportation advocate in a very strange position. If someone is really violent, why should they be moved to another place so they can terrorize other people? Why not simply put them in jail in the jurisdiction where the crime happened? That seems a more logical response than deportation
If you are a consequentialist, then you should probably be aware that deportation has very serious consequences for the non-deported. Children loose parents. Marriages fall apart. Businesses go bankrupt. Communities unravel. If you really care about such things, that's definitely a strike against deportation.
Bottom line: Deportation is wrong, let's ban the practice.
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"If someone is really violent, why should they be moved to another place so they can terrorize other people? "
It's not them terrorizing another place, its getting them away from the place they are currently, so they can stop terrorizing said place.
Let's be perfectly honest, participating in a society is something of a privilege, especially if the society (that you are not originally 'from') opened up its borders to you. Once you violate that social contract, society has a right to eject you, up unto deportation. Human movement is a right, but the moment you abuse your rights, they can be curtailed or eliminated.
Rojas accidentally has stumbled into the same mechanics of the arguments that prison abolitionists have used, and those arguments still don't work.
I actually discovered your work because of your appearance in Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration. That book convinced me that open borders is possibly the single most important policy we can enact to drastically improve the lives of countless people. I look forward to the day when this basic human right is respected across the world!