A Moral Case for Welcoming Immigrants
The official launch of Borderless Disruption 🎉
At One Way Ventures, we back exceptional immigrant founders who are building category-defining technology companies with the potential for global reach and impact. This work is driven by our beliefs that:
Technology is a force for good.
Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not.
All people are entitled to equal opportunity regardless of birthplace.
Immigration is a formative, empowering, and entrepreneurial experience.
The resilience and grit of immigrant founders drive their extraordinary results.
With these values in mind, we are launching Borderless Disruption to share our thoughts on the confluence of immigration and technology, and the major developments impacting them with all of you - our community of industry disruptors, investors, and border defiers. You can expect discussion and analysis on business, technology, politics, and society, and how they are shaped by immigrants.
As a preview of what you can expect, we are re-publishing an article from our founding and managing partner, Semyon Dukach, on “A Moral Case for Welcoming Immigrants.”
A Moral Case for Welcoming Immigrants
By: Semyon Dukach
People in tribal societies generally believe that members of their own tribe are inherently more worthwhile than outsiders.
People in pluralistic, democratic societies on the other hand generally believe that all men and women are equally worthwhile, and should have equal opportunities.
Either you fundamentally believe in this notion of universal equality, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation and all other human attributes that are merely accidents of birth, or you don’t.
People born outside a fence constructed long ago along arbitrary, historical lines should not be inherently discriminated against. If they want to come here, they should have exactly the same opportunities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as those who were lucky enough to have been born inside the border. We shouldn’t presuppose that they would be harmful to our society without specific evidence showing that a particular person is a risk to others, such as an actual conviction of a past crime by a reasonably fair court of law. Short of that, anyone should have the right to come here in peace, to work here, and to share in the benefits of living in our society.
Economists generally agree that over time, immigrants entering the country create more value than they consume from public services, and we could perhaps limit services provided to new arrivals until they establish a history of working and paying taxes. But the argument for allowing them to enter should not merely rest on the notion that we expect to eventually reap economic benefits from their presence, or on the notion that we may be enriched as a society by their diversity. Rather it is a basic, moral imperative to let them in, and the value that they may bring to our society in aggregate is just a side effect of an open door policy that we must adopt in order to be consistent with our belief in the fundamental notion of universal human dignity and equality.
We simply have no right to arbitrarily prevent people who happen to have been born outside our borders from coming here or from working here. Perhaps in addition to a criminal background check, we could also make a reasonable attempt to verify that prospective immigrants are willing and able to accept all the responsibilities expected of local adults, such as paying our taxes and obeying our other laws, but if they are then we must accept them without any arbitrary quotas or hard to get visas, because forcibly stopping innocent human beings from coming in peace to live and to work in our land isn’t just, it isn’t fair, and it simply isn’t right.
This is a monthly blog for industry disruptors, investors, and border defiers. To receive Borderless Disruption directly in your inbox, subscribe here:
Of course LEGAL immigrants should be welcome and they contribute greatly to the strength of the nation that receives them. If they are willing to comply with immigration laws to begin with, they are most likely to legally engage in strenghtening the marketplace.
I think what you are doing is very business savvy but somewhat immoral:
Why is it business savvy? Because I am an immigrant with patents in over 20 countries, dozens of scientific papers, and so far, it looks like my drug helps women with breast and ovarian cancer (other types of cancer and non-cancerous diseases of inflammation are on the way). Indeed, investing in people like me, who had the courage to move from one place to another, is a good investment strategy.
Why do I think it is highly immoral? Because if an opposite strategy would be articulated today in the US, “we invest in locals only and immigrants should not apply,” this fund would be crucified with all the might and power of dominant PC outrage and (semi)governmental institutions. Thus, if one approach is free to manifest, and an opposite approach would be discriminated against, I think what you are doing is somewhat immoral under the current political climate. As soon as it become possible to form a fund for non-immigrants only without being accused and attacked, I would not mind becoming an investee or an LP:) But not today.
And, BTW, I think creating something “for immigrants only” is the best way to spark and justify xenophobia.