Opinion Today: Trump’s deportations affect citizens, too
To control outsiders, the government must also control everyone else.
Opinion Today
July 1, 2025
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By John Guida

Senior staff editor, Opinion politics

The Trump administration’s frantic efforts on immigration issues can hardly be missed. Many Americans now know the name Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, and they have seen protests for and against ICE raids across the country, as well as federal courts ruling on acceptable (and unacceptable) procedures and processes.

But as Chandran Kukathas, the author of “Dialogues on Immigration and the Open Society” and “Immigration and Freedom,” ventures in a guest essay, we have perhaps reflected a little less on what it all means for citizens themselves, and how it will affect their values and freedoms.

Kukathas points out that there is danger for American values — particularly liberty and equality — and it “comes not from immigration itself but from immigration control.”

“You cannot control outsiders (immigrants or would-be immigrants) without controlling insiders (citizens),” he writes. “The more vigorously you try to control immigration, the more you end up limiting the freedom of your own citizens and violating equality and the rule of law.”

He ends on a grave, provocative note: “Immigration control will transform America.”

Read the guest essay:

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