As a Chilean immigrant to the United States, I wish borders between countries would not exist, yet I understand their significance. Today, borders between countries work as a system for humans to coexist in safety. The importance of a sovereign territory under certain political and economic systems allows humans to survive and be in peace. However, not all countries have capable leaders and systems to protect their citizens as they should, so humans, in order to survive, are willing to leave everything they have ever known behind them and immigrate. Immigration to the United States of America to find new opportunities and a decent standard of living is not a new story. However, the U.S government’s treatment of a caravan of people from Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico this past year, under the zero-tolerance policy, called into question whether American citizens’ safety concerns can justly be privileged over endangering some immigrants’ lives. Most importantly, the separation of immigrant families where parents and guardians could not get back to their young children challenged whether the goal of a policy, in this case to reduce immigration, outweighs its means. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes claims in his work Leviathan that humans in a state of nature, under no governmental control, tend to be in a condition of war “of every man against every man” (Hobbes 77) to preserve themselves, while the Scottish philosopher David Hume in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals believes “the humanity of one man is the humanity of everyone” (Hume 105) and only under particular situations of necessity, will self-love take over. While the U.S government’s reaction over migrant caravans is unjustifiable under Hume’s premises, Trump’s administration might justify their immigration policy under Hobbes’ views. However, Trump’s affinity to Hobbes’ philosophy reveals his traits as a tyrant not as a leader.

U.S government officials’ constant promotion that immigration equals crime caused Americans to have the misconception that immigrants are a threat to their national security. President Donald Trump remarked back in December how “they [referring to Democrats] want to have illegal immigrants pouring into our country, bringing with them crime, tremendous amounts of crime” (Rizzo). In fact, from 2013 to 2016, only 4 percent of the total prison population in the United States were noncitizens (Rizzo). U.S leaders popularize the idea of immigration being extremely negative to justify their use of extreme measures designed to lower the number of people arriving at the U.S and Mexico border. The U.S need to decrease immigration might rely on arguments besides crime, yet why do authorities spend more time spreading misleading facts about immigrants over explaining what those other arguments are? One argument might be that the US government owes nothing to non-citizens, that they exist in a state of nature in relation to US citizens; thus, there is no covenant or common power between the two parties. In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes in relation to the methodology of covenants examines how if two parties do not trust one another their covenant “is void. But if there be a common power set over them both, with right and force sufficient to compel performance, it is not void” (Hobbes 77). Therefore, for Hobbes, the existence of laws and a social contract consolidate the trust among two parties, who may not directly trust each other but under the law they do, as they expect specific behaviors to maintain the covenant. Under the “U.S. immigration law, the United States has legal obligations to provide protection to those who qualify as refugees,” (American 1) therefore a covenant between the US government and noncitizens does exist. A person defined as a refugee has the right to receive asylum or be an asylum-seeker —as many in the caravan are. Asylum applies to foreigners who have been persecuted, or legitimately fear persecution in their home country based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion (American 1). Therefore, does Hobbes supports Trump’s policy, even though this policy is not a definite law? Yet, regardless whether it is a policy or a law, can a ruler’s demands overtake an international covenant? More importantly, what if the ruler’s judgment or conscience is erroneous?

To consider a ruler’s judgments, Hobbes analyzed justice under the presence of laws because for him “no law can be unjust” (Hobbes 78).  Hobbes accepts how the immigrants’ home country leaders did not protect their people, and how the U.S government did not take responsibility for the children’s traumas (after separating them from their families) or considered other means to fix its immigration problems because for him the law always rules first. According to Hobbes, “the law is the public conscience” because “a man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing, and as the judgment, so also conscience may be erroneous” (Hobbes 78). Therefore, while one may think Hobbes support of Trump’s decisions may favor his policy, in reality, it demonstrates how Hobbes favors tyranny of any kind as he does not believe in the validity of conscience. So, is the United States under a tyrannical ruling? Should the United States follow President Donald Trump’s policies? Sonia Nazario, New York Times writer and child of immigrants proposes a solution which does not account the separation of families and adhere to the laws as well. Among them, she mentions one is to “address the violence and despair that are pushing migrant out their countries,” for example by not cutting foreign aid which pays “for programs who reduce corruption and violence that drive people to migrate” (Nazario). Another one is taking immigration courts “out of the Trump’s administration Justice Department and make them independent… to ensure that judges operate as impartial arbiters of the law” (Nazario). Laws that separate families prove how some laws can be unjust, even tyrannical. Perhaps Nazario’s ideas can help not only to ease but raise questions on the current principles the U.S has on justice and its implementations.

The U.S government’s lack of control over the situation during the “legal” separation of families manifests how the ruler must consider all the implications caused by the changes on the law. According to the United States Office of Inspector General, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “was not fully prepared to implement the Administration’s Zero Tolerance Policy or to deal with some of its after-effects” (Department 4). Furthermore, from an interview with 12 adults (some in ICE detention while others had been released), “only 6 of the 12 individuals were able to speak with their children while in detention. Of the 6, 2 reported receiving assistance from ICE personnel, and 5 out of 6 reported being unable to reach an operator or were told the number was not working” (Department 14). The messiness caused on the execution of the policy did not bring “gain,” “safety,” or “reputation” to the United States, as Hobbes may say (Hobbes 73). Furthermore, according to Hobbes’ reasoning, the U.S. security officials should have helped others to reach their families not out of human nature, but because they needed to follow the laws. Yet, the interviews prove they did not execute their jobs correctly, and in exchange gained traumatized kids who could later be threats to the U.S, enemies inside the U.S who we were not in concord with the policy, and a bad local, as well as international reputation.

While Hobbes might justify the U.S. government’s policy of slowing down immigration as self-preservation, David Hume would prefer to name it self-love. Hume considers how the law is met with sentiments inclusive, not just as a rational, emotionless covenant between two parties. How immigrants cannot be protected at their home countries and how the U.S handled the separation of families at the border contradicts Hume’s human nature on the principles of humanity. Before the zero-tolerance policy, when an immigrant tried to enter illegally, the U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would place the adult in civil immigration proceedings, where they would remain with their families in detention centers or be released with an order to come to an immigration court on a later date. Only in specific circumstances could families be separated. Now, with the zero-tolerance policy adults faced criminal prosecution and “because minor children cannot be held in criminal custody with an adult,” they had to be separated from any accompanying minor children. Kids were then held in custody and the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement became responsible “for their long-term custodial care and placement” (Department 2-3). These separations not only raised a lot of controversy. Many questioned whether the CBP and the ICE, among other U.S Departments, were capable of implementing the policy correctly and smoothly. When Hume develops his ideas on justice, he claims that “the ultimate reason for every rule which they [writers on the laws of nature] establish” is “the convenience and necessities of mankind” (Hume 102). Therefore, the American people cannot fail to ask themselves: is the separation of families convenient or necessary for mankind? Should Americans obey the U.S government when it fails to act for the benefit of mankind? What virtues (or vices) motivate the U.S government to separate families? Even more significantly, what virtues does the American people want their country to have?

Because the U.S government was not prepared to implement the zero-tolerance policy, they deviated from the social virtues, more specifically from benevolence. Hume asserts benevolence is the highest virtue because “its merit arises from its tendency to promote the interest of our species and bestow happiness on human society” (Hume 99). Nevertheless, many countries forget we are the same species, and instead of helping towards the happiness of all human society, they work for their country’s happiness only. Even if that means to overlook others or make others go through inhumane activities. For example, this summer at the border a 5-month-old breastfeeding baby was snatched away from a mother. Weeks after when the government had to return the baby and her three other children, they handed her the wrong baby. After she was given the right baby, they were left at a bus station with no money (Nazario). I do not know what is more terrifying, receiving someone else’s baby or pondering how babies could be treated as parcels the government could not keep track of.

The U.S government presumes their immigration measures are successful because they place their country and citizens first, when in fact by doing so they lower themselves down in front of the international community. How the U.S left its sentiments behind to approve the policy would perplex Hume, who reasons, “we surely take into consideration the happiness and misery of others, in weighing the several motives of action, and incline to the former, where no private regards draw us to seek our own promotion or advantage by the injury of our fellow-creatures” (Hume 104). If the United States does not want to consider sentiments into the situation, then perhaps they did it out of self-love. But if so they acted foolishly. After seeing images of immigrant children crying in cage-like prisons, French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux asserted that France and the European Union “clearly” do not “share certain values” with America (Sharman). With this situation all over the news, Trump’s policy made the U.S look very bad indeed. Furthermore, Hume does not distinguish some people as being more deserving of acting out of self-love than others, but if it were like that, then surely who deserves to think selfishly is the long-suffering immigrants and not the United States.

Thomas Hobbes and David Hume released their work near the start and end of the Enlightenment, which demonstrates how individuals can and will have different and even opposite opinions on the same epochs. Although they both give logical arguments on ways humans can better coexist with one another, for our survival and well-being, their implementations of social virtues contradict. Hobbes approves of Trump’s policy execution while Hume believes it neither helped the United States nor the larger scheme of humanity’s happiness. Moreover, countries can still protect their sovereignty and help the overall humanity. The motives of action in this situation did not weigh the pain caused to the people of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico. The treatment they received only amplified the use of vices, not of virtues, in theirs, and America’s, future generations. Thus, it is time for all human beings—not only citizens of a specific country—to rethink our virtues; our thoughts and reason must start to align with our conducts. 
 
 

Works Cited