Borderline Leadership\" Discusses the Need for Policy

¶ … Borderline Leadership" discusses the need for policy change regarding immigration. The form of reasoning used in this article is solidly utilitarian. The author urges the White House to take solid steps toward creating "realistic and enforceable" legislation to curb illegal immigration, and the federal government should "tailor the law to economic reality." The concept of economic need is the underlying reason used by the editor to support his view on immigration policy. Furthermore, the author refers to immigrants several times as being "needed" to maintain the American economy. The greatest good for the greatest number, according to the author, would be to change immigration laws to allow for more migrant workers.

However, twice the author slips slightly from his or her strictly utilitarian perspective, as when he or she discusses the high school student illegal immigrants. Referring to a judge's "sensible step of blocking their deportation," the author suggests that permitting the students to stay was a moral imperative. To punish the two students for having crept over the border when they were two and seven years old would have been an immoral decision from a deontological perspective. Similarly, when the author mentions the "hundreds of migrant workers who die each year crossing the desert in search of work," he or she hints that all human beings, illegal immigrants or not, have an ingrained moral right to live and work according to their needs. However, "Borderline Leadership" is fundamentally and overwhelmingly utilitarian in its emphasis on the American economy. In fact, the author's stance on permitting the students to remain in the country is also utilitarian because of the allusion to their being "honors" students on a trip for a high school science competition. By inserting this detail, the author suggests that those two individuals might grow up to contribute to the greater good of the United States economy by becoming productive wage earners.

Illegal immigrants are discussed as having both natural and posited rights: when the author discusses the unwitting illegal immigrant honors students and the hundreds of migrants who die each year crossing the border, he or she assumes the rights of all persons to some form of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are natural and innate. Moreover, even though the high school students did not initially have a legal right to education in America, they do since a judge permitted them to stay in the country. Therefore, the author suggests that all persons have the natural right to education, and that all young people have the natural right to escape the consequences of their parents' errors, or issues that were beyond their control. On the other hand, the author also discusses the relevance of posited rights in relation to the issue of illegal immigration. Technically, illegal immigrants have no posited rights because of their alien status. In fact, the editorial elucidates the essential conflict between natural and posited rights: on the one hand the author asserts that all persons deserve the right to education and on the other hand the author acknowledges that the right to public education must reasonably be reserved for legal residents. The author also points out that American immigration laws help determine the posited rights for all migrants, and that millions of migrant workers would not be considered "illegal" if U.S. laws were changed. Making the law more flexible, assumes the author, would alter access to the rights posited to all legal residents by the American government. When the author urges the creation of "realistic and enforceable" immigration policies, he or she emphasizes the efficacy of posited as well as natural rights.

Furthermore, the author describes the right to American public institutions like education as a positive as well as posited right, noting that the government is obliged to bestow upon all citizens access to education. The author even demonstrates through his or her analysis of the judge's "sensible step" toward the high school students that the American government is obliged to treat all persons with compassion and kindness. Through the judge's decision, the students also possessed the negative right to avoid government censure, interference with their education, or interference with their lives in general. Therefore, both positive and native rights are addressed in "Borderline Leadership." In the editorial, the author suggests that illegal immigrants share with legal residents certain liberties, rights, and freedoms. Suggesting that immigration policies should be changed in accordance with economic necessity, the author urges an extension of both positive and negative rights to immigrant workers.