Hi, maybe I am one of the people who you would say thinks, "Let it be illegal, but let's keep the border-jumpers as our empathy pets." Let me try to explain th

Hi, maybe I am one of the people who you would say thinks, "Let it be illegal, but let's keep the border-jumpers as our empathy pets." Let me try to explain the thinking (which, by the way, has nothing to do with some sort of paternalistic moral smugness, as you seem to be suggesting). With immigration, there is a situation where (at least in my opinion) it is not morally wrong for anyone to illegally immigrate to the US for economic reasons, yet it may be that the US should not allow unfettered immigration. It is true that in some cases a behavior can be morally wrong only because it is illegal (e.g., violating corporate disclosure requirements), but making immigration illegal is not enough to make it wrong because most illegal immigrants have compelling reasons to immigrate and are not doing any clear harm (not shooting border guards to get across, for instance). It is true that, as a general principle, we are better off if we can arrange that only morally wrong behaviors are outlawed because that somehow makes people more respectful of the law, but in the case of immigration, it isn't possible without allowing unfettered immigration, and that may be too high a price to pay. What we can do to improve alignment is to allow anyone who manages to come to the US and remain for a certain period of time (say five years), and perhaps to meet some assimilation targets (like learning English), to stay and ultimately become a citizen. Then it will be more reasonable for law enforcement to aggressively pursue illegal/undocumented people, and the "rule of law" can be stronger.