Ayn Rand's 106th birthday is being celebrated today by people all over the world, including many who would (if they only could) escape the various tyrannies under which they happened to be born, people whose most burning desire is to become Americans. Her birthday is also being celebrated, incoherently, by many Americans actively engaged in keeping those would-be Americans out.
Ayn Rand was an "Illegal Immigrant." Scare quotes because, in the moral sense, it is the laws that deny, to some persons, the enjoyment of their natural individual rights solely because of the happenstance of where they were born (and that deny to American citizens our undeniable individual right to employ, and to trade with, the peaceable persons of our choice) - it is America's current immigration laws that are illegitimate.
To obtain a visa to America, Alisa Rozenbaum went through great effort to convince American consular officials, and falsely swore, that she intended to return to Soviet Russia to marry a fellow Soviet citizen to whom she was engaged. Under American law, this constituted (1)perjury, (2)making false statements to a government official, (3)falsification of official documents; and a string of lesser felonies. Her visa, being the fruit of these deliberately committed felonies, was never legally valid. Fortunately, back in the 1920s most Americans understood (as Rand herself understood) that principles are not intrinsicist rules, but guidelines for contextually chosen action. Immigrants from Soviet Russia (and later from Nazi Germany) were not, as a rule, prosecuted for whatever felonies they had committed in order to escape their previous rulers and migrate to America.
Ayn Rand became what today would be formally an "illegal immigrant" when her tourist visa expired, and she stayed. (Soviet passports were for 3 years, at least for those without Pull in the High Nomenklatura. Alice's - her passport name - was issued October 29, 1925. It expired, together with any visas and visa extensions that were stamped into it, on or before October 29, 1928.) She did not become "legal" again until her marriage to an American citizen the following year. The marriage entitled her to become a legal resident (this is no longer the case today.) Overstaying the expiration of a US visa is not a felony, but it is a serious misdemeanor - one for which even mothers of young American citizens have been deported in recent years. Of course, back when most Americans could still think in concepts, such minor technical violations of immigration law were not a problem for any American. Today this is no longer the case. Pragmatist control of American "education" has produced a generation of Americans bereft of normal human conceptual faculties. They have learned that it is racism, to deny a person the enjoyment of her natural rights because of where her ancestors were born. But they are OK with denying a person the enjoyment of her natural rights, because of where she herself was born.
The mantra of today's conservatives is law enforcement first, immigration reform only "after the borders have been secured." American consular officials are under no obligation to respect the individual rights of foreign nationals abroad, and, like all bureaucrats, enjoy the exercise of arbitrary authority over their helpless legal inferiors. The current legal immigration process typically subjects the immigrant to years of waiting in a legal limbo, punctuated by periodic rituals of humiliating subjection to the arbitrary whims of petty consular bureaucrats. The gauntlet of waiting through years of arbitrary obstacles and humiliations, functions as a filter, letting through only those who, once they have arrived in America, will obey our emerging tyrants. The message of our immigration laws to independent-minded people, including those who today celebrate the birthday of American illegal immigrant Alisa Rozenbaum, is simple: we don't want you here.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
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12 comments:
interesant
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2010/05/atlas-surrenders-no-will-for-freedom.html
Covers some of the same territory.
The "blog owner" in the comment above is James Peron - apparently he never properly configured the parameters of HIS blog, leaving the default value of the "Owner:" parameter, "blog owner," as his signature when he posts on other blogs. So no, it's not me, but I really don't mind an occasional comment from a non-geek on my blog. By the way, I agree with Jim's criticism of the miserable Kellyite compromiser - although I would gladly put each and every pseudo-Objectivist compromiser in the "I don't think of you" category.
Nope, not my criticism, but I share it. I don't know where the "blog owner" came from as I've used these comments before and it never listed me this way until today.
OK. Must be some bug that restored your "Owner:" parameter to its default value. You need to edit it again...
Adam, thanks for the article, you echo my thoughts. I'm an immigrant to Canada and when somewhat younger, considered relocating to the USA but the obstacles for 'green card' status where the major deterrent.
I've always held the idea that a nation should expect those who seek to live within the borders to observe the law and do all they can to be self-supporting. A nation is then enriched by its immigrants.
Here is the "evidence" that Ayn Rand was an illegal immigrant:
Alice's - her passport name - was issued October 29, 1925. It expired, together with any visas and visa extensions that were stamped into it, on or before October 29, 1928.) She did not become "legal" again until her marriage to an American citizen the following year. The marriage entitled her to become a legal resident (this is no longer the case today.)
There are at least two likely falsehoods in this claim:
1) Visas actually do NOT usually expire when the containing passport expires. I have routinely traveled with a valid visa stamped into an expired passport. I simply carry the old and new passports together. Some countries may require that the passport not expire in the next six months, but expiring the visa when the passport expires is by no means the norm or even common.
2) Marriage to an American citizen certainly entitled Rand to become a resident, and this is true today. US citizens have the right to make their spouses permanent residents, providing that the spouse pass through the standard medical and background check.
It looks like this article started with the premise that Rand was an illegal immigrant, sought for evidence of it, and failing to find it, manufactured it.
Kevin: Sorry but you are wrong. First, Rand lied in order to secure her visa, which itself makes it invalid. Second, her visa expired before her marriage so she was in the country illegally.
Yes, marriage does allow an American to sponsor their spouse (except gay Americans who many not sponsor their spouse), but Rand's visa was already expired and she was an illegal immigrant at the time of her marriage.
PS: if this shows up as "blog owner" that is glitch in Google, and I am not Adam Reed.
Do you have a copy of the visa application that Ayn Rand made? The report that the examining consul filled out upon reviewing her application and/or interviewing her? If you don't, you can't claim that she lied on the interview.
Do you have a copy of the actual visa that was issued to Ayn Rand? If you don't, you can't claim that it expired.
And although this would be proving a negative, you would need to show that even if Rand's visa expired, her status was not extended by the government.
You need documentation, not just speculation to accuse people of breaking the law. This applies to everyone, not just Rand.
Note that the present policy of the US government for tourist visas is to issue ten year visas to most applicants who are accepted.
Kevin" Actually Ayn did a series of interviews on audio tape with Barbara Branden. Those tapes, which helped form the foundation for Barbara's biography had Rand's own words as to what happened. All this was freely admitted by her. These tapes have been around for decades and now are held by her archives.
still not Adam, a different "blog owner."
I'll add - for the historically ignorant - that at the time the US did not recognize the USSR. Soviet citizens never received a visa for more than two years. The Soviets did not have a diplomatic mission in the US (not that they would have given AR a new passport, without which nothing in the expired one could have remained valid, even if they had had a mission here.) Kevin, you are grasping at very, very short straws.
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