The right to travel

But what’s particularly infuriating here is that, if they had evidence that Long has done anything wrong, they easily could have arrested him at any point over the last ten weeks when he was in the US. The reality is that they could have arrested him at any time over the last decade because he has lived in three countries with highly US-loyal autocracies: Egypt, the UAE and Qatar. But he was never arrested, never charged with anything - just denied the basic right to travel.

— US Air Force veteran, finally allowed to fly into US, is now banned from flying back home.

Fixing the DHS Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Impact Assessment

We also conclude that allowing officers to conduct a border search of an electronic device without reasonable suspicion would be harmful to civil rights/civil liberties without concomitant national security benefits.

There, DHS. FTFY. For the original, see the Executive Summary of the of DHS review of border search policies. And Wired’s article. And finally, the ACLU has a disturbing map of the regions of the U.S. in which the 4th amendment is suspended. It includes almost all major population centers.

Immigration is the Easy Problem

Over here in the department of punditry, we deal with a lot of hard issues, ones on which the evidence is mixed and the options are all bad. But the immigration issue is a blessed relief. On immigration, the evidence is overwhelming; the best way forward is clear.

The forlorn pundit doesn’t even have to make the humanitarian case that immigration reform would be a great victory for human dignity. The cold economic case by itself is so strong.

— The Easy Problem — David Brooks on the urgent, and blindingly obvious, need for immigration reform.

Considering Others' Interests

But the United States ran an open borders regime throughout the 19th century and we weren’t worse off for it. On the contrary, it laid the foundations for American greatness. Shifting back in that direction—with exceptions for dangerous criminals and other select problem types—over time seems perfectly feasible to me and would substantially increase overall human welfare. Now obviously that doesn’t resolve the question of whether or not, morally speaking, it makes sense to simply not care about the interests of foreigners. But Kaus and I agree that foreign-born people are people, so for my part I’d like to take their interests into consideration.

— What Would Happen If We Let All The Immigrants In — Yglesias argues, rightly, that discussion of U.S. immigration policy should not disregard the interests of those who don’t happen to be born in the U.S.

Income Inequality in America