Obeying The Law

If one person kills another, justifiably from his perspective, and perhaps ours, anticipating that he will never be caught, is he in violation of the rules of society?

If a small and honest entrepreneur decides against filing her income tax form one year because her fiscal position is tenuous at that time and it is unlikely that an audit will follow anyhow, should we look the other way?

If someone enters this country because he is unhappy with life where he is, and correctly determines that things will be better here, yet he does so without ever declaring his act to authorities, is he acting illegally?

Is the assault of a drug dealer a crime that justifies punishment? Suppose a close relative died of an overdose. Does that change things?

All four of the people whom I've described are acting illegally. We may be sympathetic with their motives, but they have all violated our laws as surely as those who act with malice and contempt of society's standards – at least with the standards of the United States. In that respect they are no different from those we designate as “common criminals.”

We all are swayed by “extenuating circumstances.” We all wonder what we would do in a difficult circumstance. We all would consider extending the benefit of the doubt in particular cases to the accused as we would want it extended to us were we in the dock. But by doing so we would be doing a disservice to our country and to our neighbors. We would be saying that only those whom we hate or fear, or who threaten us in some other way, should be subject to our laws and the penalties for violating them.

Yet they're all illegal acts, irrespective of the way we react to them. The violation most debated at this time is that of the “illegal immigrant” who may be a hard-working, tax-paying, generous, and helpful individual, but who entered the country contrary to our laws, or who overstays a legal limit. We're especially likely to be forgiving of the person who is law-abiding and a “credit” to the community. And if he or she has children born here we view it as an assault on “American values” to even suggest an impropriety. After all, we're all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, and the “oppression” of poor immigrants is not “who we are.” In order to legalize their status, however, as is demanded by many, we must either suspend our concept of citizenship or pass legislation making their presence legal from the time they came: the first is an extra-legal ad hoc action while the latter as an attempt at a legal solution to the situation. But both are equally problematic, if not illegal themselves.

How is a protest rally, by well-meaning citizens, designed at forcing the government to look away any different from the decision of a dictator to ignore the corruption of his administration? Both require that we disregard our own laws and their violation by those whose actions we don't wish to punish. And passing legislation that declares that something that was prohibited in the past is now acceptable and a violator has not committed a crime, is an ex post facto law – which is specifically forbidden by the Constitution (Article 1, Section 9). We ordinarily think of such laws as ones that criminalize legal acts retroactively, but, as is noted in the Wikipedia article on the subject, “An ex post facto law (corrupted from Latin: ex postfacto, lit. out of the aftermath') is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of [any] actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law.” And the constitutional prohibition is clear, not a matter of interpretation. No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. There's no subtlety there. Some may view any change as a matter of amnesty, pardon, reprieve, or interpretation, but such a construction is simply a way to pardon ourselves from any responsibility for ignoring the law in favor of a current passion.

Favoring a “current passion” rather than the law, however, permits other actions, of equal doubtfulness, should passions change. And it cheapens the value of our laws in the eyes of those we want to follow them. We'd like mercy and justice to have identical paths, but that's not always the case.

The problem is not a simple one. Besides the consequences for individuals, there are also implications for society, the economy, education, and security among numerous others. It affects the way the world sees us and our status as we condemn lawlessness elsewhere. And it affects the perceptions of those who have “played by the rules,” even though veering from them would have been adventagious. A solution will have to be found, and it will be found one way or another. There are too many people involved. The soution will please many and offend many. It will please the “law-abiding” but illegal immigrants by legitimizing them, while offending those who are truly law-abiding and have waited patiently as they have gone through the tedious steps required by law; it will please those who have protested the current administration's stance, while offending those who favor the maxim of “a nation of laws, not of men” (John Adams).

The solution will be outside of the course we like to believe we take, but, at the moment, it is unavoidable. In order to move on without causing too much additional internal discord – some is unavoidable – a compromise position will have to be reached. And it should include mechanisms by which this or similar perceived disparities can be addressed in the future; ways they can be dealt with without having to violate our own laws

For it cannot be denied that, whatever the good will, the “illegal” immigrants are, indeed, here illegally.