Immigration and the Social Contract

* Re “A Sign of Continuing Anger Among Prop. 187’s Sponsors,” May 6:

The issue of illegal immigration in not about “deep-rooted hate,” as Roberto Martinez of the American Friends Service group falsely claims. Quite the opposite--it is about a deep-rooted love and respect for those things which are essential if we are to live freely under a republican form of government.

Those three things are: the social contract, natural rights and the rule of law.

John Locke’s version of the social contract was the one used by both Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, and the framers, when they drafted the Constitution.

Locke said that when a foreigner or alien enters another country, he is entering a society with which he has no compact. Therefore he tacitly agrees to live by their laws. When one enters a country illegally, he rejects the administration (laws) of that society, and therefore exists outside its jurisdiction. That is to say, he has exited the state of society and entered a state of nature. When he does so, society has no obligation to him.

The natural right involved is property rights. The principle behind property rights is that one is entitled to the fruits of one’s labor.

For the government to provide services to [illegal immigrants] is to take property (taxes) from those who exist in a state of society--citizens and legal residents--and give it to those to whom society has no obligation. Jefferson called this immoral. The rule of law is the cornerstone of a republic. When illegal immigrants cross the border, they not only refuse to give tacit consent to the members of that society, they have rejected the rule of law. Self-governance cannot survive without the rule of law.

Illegal immigration is therefore a fundamental issue. It has nothing to do with race, ethnicity or national origins. It is about loving and respecting those tenets which let us govern ourselves and live free. If we do not preserve and protect the social contract, natural rights and the rule of law, the only possible consequence is totalitarianism.

BRUCE CRAWFORD

Fountain Valley