The Danger of Immigration

On Unity

ICE has ramped up its operation to remove illegal immigrants from the country, and by consequence, social media is constantly bombarded by both clips of their arrests and of those looking to disrupt their work. Evidently, the divide on this issue is severe. While the opposition clearly disagrees with the way in which ICE is carrying out its mission, I find it spirited by a more general idea: immigration cannot possibly be harmful. Thus, ICE’s position is interpreted as intrinsically flawed. This follows from the erroneous, but incredibly common, political notion that immigration is an intrinsic good, something per se conducive to the flourishing of the country. However, that is ludicrous and ignores the most basic of political realities. Immigrants may threaten the well-being of a community, just as they might encourage its prosperity, depending on what the circumstances entail—and most importantly, who is involved.

Given how controversial the immigration issue has become, I want to clarify a few relevant points to hopefully address the inevitable misinterpretations. My discussion is certainly inspired by the American situation, but focused on principles that transcend specific polities and their associated legal apparatuses. Nonetheless, the sentiments to be explored will be of great use when examining the merits of immigration goals set forth by the United States or any other country, for that matter. Next, in the same sense that immigration is not a per se good, it is not a per se wrong, and I will not be arguing such through my immigration analysis. Finally, our world has always been marked by the shifting of people; this is a fact of nature that deserves our serious attention. Unavoidably, when genuinely considering the matter specifically in the United States, one will find that a great number of immigrants have advanced the perfection of this country. This is all to say that immigration flows from natural geopolitical realities and can be very good for society.

It is helpful first to begin with the most obvious example of the sort of immigrants the country does not need: criminals. I am not simply referring to those who have committed minor offenses (although these alone can be problematic for potential immigrants), but severely disordered crimes, including but not limited to murder, terrorism, child sex offenses, and drug trafficking—all morally horrific actions that indicate one is severely depraved. These are not irredeemable people, but as a general rule, should not be trusted and accepted with open arms as immigrants, lest we intend to directly harm the communities they are becoming a part of. Immediately, under these conditions, the notion that immigration is a per se good is dismantled—these sorts of immigrants would pose a legitimate threat to the communities they enter. I will labor little on this point, as I find it easily affirmable and non-controversial.

However, there is more to the immigration issue than simply the worst of people attempting to enter a country. Before we concern ourselves further with this matter, we must first address some of the fundamentals at play in this situation, what we might call the political metaphysics. Man, by nature, is a political animal. He is understood as part of a whole (the political community); when in community, as he tends to be, his nature (what he is) most fully manifests (perfects). This is an inextricably two-sided relationship; the community will influence and dictate aspects of him, and he will play a role in shaping the community. If the community is healthy, then he will be of benefit, but if it suffers an illness, he will reap those effects as well.

Political Society, required by nature and achieved by reason, is the most perfect of temporal societies. It is a concretely and wholly human reality, tending to a concretely and wholly human good—the common good.

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The entire man— though not by reason of his entire self and of all that he is and has— is part of the political society; and thus all his community activities, as well as his personal activities, are of consequence to the political whole.

— Jacques Maritain, Man and the State¹

Furthermore, the political community is not first and foremost the written law but the unified body of people. The community has a moral character, built upon the people that form it. The good man upholds and promotes virtue; he plays a pivotal role in what makes the community healthy. Conversely, the bad man is an animated threat to the community’s well-being. To make this notion clearer, consider a matter as trivial as theft. For a society to have a theft problem, there must be a contingent of people actively stealing, and for people to steal, they must be weak in virtue, most specifically justice. If no one steals, then one couldn’t possibly diagnose society with a theft problem—these matters rest on the state of the people who make up the community. This specific example, as well as all matters of virtue in communities, is ontologically dependent, insofar as the embodied souls and their present state of being are of the utmost concern. In the same way the community might be strengthened by men of good character, it suffers from those of deficient character. The character of the body politic (essentially, the political community) is in no way impervious. If you release groups of people into a population who are not inclined toward justice, nevertheless virtue in general, you will have a body politic strongly defined by the ways in which it is not just or virtuous. As a consequence, we are now considering a transfer of people that negatively impacts the health of society. Immigration, then, can be a real danger, depending on who the people are and the current state of their character.

Up until this point, I have focused on what we might call critical moral considerations of the community; such aspects not only form the basic idea of the political community, but also heavily dictate the ways in which the society is presently well. But there are other ways in which societies exist that are not critical to the moral character of the community, but nonetheless important for the community at large. Bodies of people possess their own history, traditions, language, norms, standards, and other cultural attributes. They vary enormously depending on the people one is examining. Surely, particular cultures may be better at encouraging the moral life than others, but the flourishing of society is not reliant on the presence of these features in the same sense it relies on virtue, which is imperative to a healthy society. Nonetheless, they are defining characteristics of how the body of people manifests and should not be taken for granted.

Moreover, when the communal good is willed, it is done through people with their own culture. Two societies can promote the same virtue but through different means, which are fitting for the political sensibilities of those specific people. This is apparent in the variations among healthy governments and their related processes. For example, Western countries typically share a strong standard of justice, yet exhibit clear distinctions in how those standards manifest. Although they may appear differently, the virtues enable flourishing under differing cultural circumstances.

When individuals, with a note of permanence, engage in united action for a common purpose, there comes into existence a unity that transcends the aggregation of its parts. That is to say, there comes into existence a group-person (a society) that requires the rest of us to recognize not only the individuals, but, as Maitland puts it, “n + 1 persons.” It would “denature” the facts, Maitland says, to pretend otherwise. Every society will depend upon individual persons. This is just what Aristotle and Thomas meant by a unity of order, inasmuch as the members are not reducible to the whole as accidents to an underlying substance. Groups are not ontologically basic in the order of substances. They are basic, however, in constituting a unity that excels parts (members), which are also wholes (natural persons).

What Maitland calls “n + 1” persons means that the group or society, and not just its individual members, should morally count as an agent or a patient. As the bearer of rights and responsibilities, a society can harm or be harmed in the moral sense of the term. We morally harm a society when we fail to recognize its common good and its agency as an “n + 1” person by refusing to give it the proper legal personality or mask. In such cases, we do something more than harm what belongs privately to the individuals; more precisely, we harm what those individuals, as members, hold in common.

— Russell Hittinger, On the Dignity of Society²

The body politic’s continued existence depends upon its continued unity—without it, the people are merely an aggregation of individuals. This is certainly not a sort of absolute unity some may be inclined to, where individuality disappears; such would be just as damaging to the body politic as the loss of unity, ultimately lending itself to totalitarianism, but nevertheless existing in an unhealthy state. Rather, it is more akin to the human body, where each part exists in relation to the whole, while still maintaining its individuality as a part (e.g., the hand). In the same way the human body exists as a distinct whole due to the unity between its parts, so too does the body politic. The sharing of the mentioned strictly moral dimensions and secondary cultural dimensions largely determines the fundamental unity of the political community. However, individuals do not necessarily possess an active unity with any sort of body politic; people exist and are shaped by differing circumstances, leading to incompatibilities that vary in severity. Inasmuch as they do depends on precisely who the immigrants are—some will be more compatible, at the moment of their entry, with a society than others; a proportionate effect on the body politic’s unity is to be expected. Any deterioration in the unity of the body politic threatens its continued existence, a major concern for the political animals it encompasses.

Assimilation is the default response to such sentiments. And while it is a commonly held belief, it’s also commonly misunderstood. By definition, assimilation requires a dominant culture for people to assimilate into. If no dominant culture exists, then either immigrants will exist in strong subcultures, furthering the disunity of the body politic, or will themselves establish the dominant culture—neither is true assimilation. But even with a dominant culture, it is simply not easy to facilitate the inculcation of virtue and the pedagogy of standards. Most immigrants are expected to guide their own education on these matters, a reality not always encouraged—a leading reason some people never really assimilate. For example, someone living in a country for a long period of time who never becomes proficient in the native tongue. This is a problem, as he will be out of place both in the workplace and at general social functions alike. If he is to be good, as he ought to be, it is incumbent upon him to participate in society. This is real work, not easily accomplished, relying heavily on the ability of an immigrant to persevere, among other traits. Once again, as is thematic, we must concern ourselves with the character of the immigrants. Of course, assimilation can be a very good thing when properly pursued, under the right circumstances. The varieties of culture can add a certain beauty to a country, and there is reason to believe that it may advance its strength and health as well; however, all within the bounds of reason, with full consideration of what the body politic can support and who is suitable.

Suffice to say, immigration can be harmful, to varying degrees, depending on the state of the body politic and the prospective immigrants. The ideologues who reduce immigration to an intrinsic good miss the mark (as they usually do). The nature of the danger, if it is to be fully understood for what it is, requires further examination of the circumstances, rooted in the fundamental political realities discussed here. I hope this article made evident not only particular dangers to look out for, but a basic sense of how to approach this issue.

There are many more related concerns worth addressing, but they will have to wait until a future date. Make sure to subscribe.

1. Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 7–8.

2. Russell Hittinger, “The Coherance of the Four Basic Principles of Catholic Social Doctrine,” in On the Dignity of Society (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2025), 14-15.