The play on words in the title is used to illustrate a problem facing the United States government, United States citizens, and illegal immigrants. Recent estimates describe the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States at between eleven and twelve million individuals. To address issues with some of our illegal immigrants, on June 15, 2012, President Obama initiated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This is an Executive Order easing the burdens of immigration law on some illegal (...) immigrants living in the United Stated. In what follows, I will explain how in spite of there being a right on the part of the United States and nations in general to exclude immigrants and to deport illegal immigrants, the DACA program is actually morally good if not a right on the part of the people in question insofar as they are captives of the will of their parents/guardians who brought them here originally and captives of a system of laws from which they cannot escape without help. In a sense, the DACA program liberates captives and rescues said captives from a legal and moral prison created by all those around them. Rescinding it involves moral turpitude. (shrink)

The play on words in the title is used to illustrate a problem facing the United States government, United States citizens, and illegal immigrants. Recent estimates describe the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States at between eleven and twelve million individuals. To address issues with some of our illegal immigrants, on June 15, 2012, President Obama initiated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This is an Executive Order easing the burdens of immigration law on some illegal (...) immigrants living in the United Stated. In what follows, I will explain how in spite of there being a right on the part of the United States and nations in general to exclude immigrants and to deport illegal immigrants, the DACA program is actually morally good if not a right on the part of the people in question insofar as they are captives of the will of their parents/guardians who brought them here originally and captives of a system of laws from which they cannot escape without help. In a sense, the DACA program liberates captives and rescues said captives from a legal and moral prison created by all those around them. Rescinding it involves moral turpitude. (shrink)

This passage has occasioned, if not proelia, at least divergent interpretations, not to mention instances of tergiversation. In 1910 Cyril Bailey modelled his first rendering of the lines closely on that of H. A. J. Munro: ‘But unless the breast is cleared, what battles and dangers must enter into us in our own despite’; ‘but unless the heart is cleansed, what battles and dangers must then find their way into us in our own despite’. But a reprint of Bailey's translation (...) in 1921 produced the following change: ‘…what battles and perils must we then enter into despite our will’. What changed Bailey's mind? The explanation appeared years later in Bailey's great edition and commentary of 1947. In his note on the passage , he cites objections to Munro's interpretation that had been raised by C. N. Cole and W. R. Hardie. In this paper I will examine these objections and present my own interpretation of the passage, which amounts to a qualified vindication of Munro. (shrink)

How can a nation like the United States of America both have and lack immigration laws? The title here implies a contradiction! Considering the history of immigration law from the 1798 Naturalization Act through the recent controversial executive orders by President Obama, our government has sought to carve out a path to residency and/or citizenship for individuals so inclined. Some of the measures along the way have been exclusionary and even racist. However, recent immigration policies seem to have been attempts (...) to control populations of people flowing into the United States for the sake of equity. Starting with the “Immigration Reform and Control Act” of 1986, laws have been made so that immigrants have inroads to permanent residency and citizenship but the problem is enforcement in both will and deed. Our nation has immigration in theory but in practice? One can not really be clear about what constitutes such a practice given millions of illegal immigrants live and work in the United States. Beyond the legal problem of enforcement, the moral problem exists in the loss of our humanity and the humanity of immigrants living in the United States. Unfortunately, the path to moral rectitude is blocked by a problem of incompatibility. Moral rectitude cannot be accomplished by the status quo. It also cannot be accomplished by amnesty or deportation. A morally tolerable solution exists somewhere in between with some degree of punishment and yet seems, concurrently, too much and not enough. (shrink)