Statue of Liberty Versus Lifeboat Ethics: A Debate on Immigration

According to a memorable part of the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Consequently, America invited immigrants to come. Yet, there is a manmade concern, “immigration could account for all the yearly increase in population. Should we not at least ask if that is what we want (Hardin, 1974)?” Well! The audacity in Garrett Hardin’s 1974 essay, “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor” is to ingeniously imply concern about the harm immigration causes, but in all actuality exposes the support of partiality to

In 1924 immigration was reduced further to 160,000 a year, and in 1929, immigration was cut to 157,000 and quotas were again reset based on national origins in the 1920 U.S. Census. The rationale was that these laws would ensure the existing ethnic composition of the country and help assimilate the 15 million southern and eastern Europeans who had entered the previous forty years (endillegalimmigration).” Clearly then, Hardin’s alleged concern on the quantity of immigrants entering the United States doesn’t compute with the current regulations imposed already on how many immigrants are allowed to come legally yearly anyway! However, “the door was left open for Mexicans (who even then were desired by employers for their cheap labor) and northern Europeans. As history would show, this legal immigration led to illegal immigration and foreshadowed today’s debate on these topics (endillegalimmigration).” So, America left the door open for illegal immigration per their discretion to capitalize on cheap labor, not as a concern for the “lifeboat” but Hardin’s essay fails to address this important fact as do