I confess, being relatively new here, I'm still working though UPB and cannot speak confidently on the topic directly, so please correct any of my assumptions or assertions if they are incorrectly representative. So, if we're calling this voluntary trade, in this scenario what are they trading? The simplest argument perhaps is that they are simply buying some part of your privately held land from you. In pure UPB, as long as there is no initiation of force, from what I understand, this would be morally neutral. But if you sell land to a number larger than the land can sustain effectively, I think this could be construed as a kind of initiation of force in their usage of local resources. In a society that lives directly off the land, this would be a problem.
But, we don't live under UPB. We have a nation with laws and a centralized governing body. The efficacy of this setup is debatable, but it is the way our communities are organized. I haven't read enough of UPB to know if or how it addresses community vs individuality. Are there moral responsibilities toward the community? Is community identity a resource or property? It cannot be "stolen" per se, but it can be forcibly altered. Would settling 20 Germans into a village of 200 Chinese change the community identity? What about 50? 100? 200? What level is acceptable to avoid forcibly changing the community identity?
There are many issues with immigration, some more significant than others. The chief among them, in my opinion is an integration problem. If people want to emigrate to a county, any county, shouldn't they want to integrate into that country's society? While there are many that do and work hard to achieve that end, what we're seeing now across the EU is exactly the opposite. At some point, immigration of individuals that cut swaths out of our cities like we're seeing with no-go zones in some European countries needs to be considered an invasion and a foreign occupation. Guerrilla tactics overtook the rank and file methods of warfare in the last few centuries. We're now starting to see fairly large-scale invasions being executed guerrilla-style using refugees as a weapon against our feelings instead of traditional siege weapons. Could it be that demographics alteration is the new imperialism?
I realize I've strayed from the topic at hand since the discussion is primarily about vetting for possible terrorists. Personally, I'd rather not worry about vetting at all and just completely discontinue immigration for the foreseeable future. But this isn't a reasonable stance given how our economy works at the moment. But if the following are true:
ISIS has stated that they intend to infiltrate refugee groups in order to sneak terrorists into countries that are more difficult to reach.
There isn't a foolproof test to determine who is currently a terrorist or even who may be radicalized in the future or who may influence natural citizens into becoming radicalized.
We can help far more refugees right where they live than we can through immigration.
It seems logical to me to:
Stop accepting refugees.
Work with allies to create safe zones inside the refugees' own countries.
Work toward providing support and assistance so that they can rebuild their country.
What all this really comes down to, to me, is trying to answer the question, "Is it morally justifiable to prevent a wrong from ever occurring?" For me, the answer is yes as long as we are manipulating the opportunity. There's a temptation to treat questions of this nature like a time-travel paradox. We're a long way from Minority Report, but where is the line? Should we wait until murder has occurred to act if there's a chance to simply avoid the circumstances under which it would have been possible?
