1. Biblical:
The Bible is exceedingly clear. Genesis to Revelation we see commands/arguments/teachings to welcome the immigrant. Not heeding this teaching is regularly compared to failing to do "for the least of these..." and an attack directly upon God.
2. The war crimes argument:
We cannot treat prisoners of war the way we are treating the children in the for profit shelters/concentration camps. We would be violating war conventions if we did.
3. The child abuse argument:
We cannot leave our children locked in a room laying on a concrete floor with no toothbrushes or toothpaste/basic needs and fail to provide sufficient resources for them... if we did that we would be charged with child abuse and the children be taken away.
4. The libertarian argument:
One of our basic human Liberties is the right to self-determination. This would include the right to live where one wants to live. If someone is moving to a place and not causing any harm in making that move, there is no rational human rights reason to not let the move. Indeed, laws against self-determination would be violation of Human Rights.
5. The Holocaust argument:
Everyone universally agrees (well except for Nazis) that not enough was done to stop people from being killed in Nazi Germany, in Rwanda, and other places where widespread murder and oppression happened. We recognize now that Roosevelt was wrong to not let Jewish children in during World War II when he could have. People died as a result. We need to learn from that lesson.
6. The Golden Rule (beyond any one religion) argument:
If YOUR life was threatened in another land, you would want another safe nation to let you in. Come on, this is easy! Just do what you'd want other people do for you.
7. The don't be an ass argument:
These refugees are just seeking a decent life. Don't be an ass. They are at risk of starvation, oppression, murder and rape where they live and they just want to escape from there. Don't be an ass.
And, in response to some of the attempts to make an argument against legalizing seeking refuge...
8. The "They'll take our jobs" argument:
Data does not support that, by and large. Take it up with the data. Or just think it through... People coming to this nation are People. People will buy food, clothes, necessities... they'll buy stuff. When more people buy stuff, that leads to more jobs, not fewer.
9. The racist "they are murderers and drug dealers..." argument:
Yes, some of them are. Just like some US citizens are murderers and drug dealers. But not the majority, and we don't blame the whole group for the actions of a TINY minority. We don't throw all white preachers in jail because some white preachers molest children. That ideal is not rational or moral. Besides that, the data shows that immigrants are LESS likely than US citizens to commit crimes, so admitting more immigrants in may actually result in lower crime rates! (that's a bit facetious, but still...)
10. The "We can't take in ALL people who want to move here" argument:
Probably not. But we can take in many more. We're not out of space here.
...just off the top of my head. I could go on, but you get the idea. We all (by and large) recognize how wrong our ancestors were to put Japanese Americans in internment camps last century. We recognize that we were wrong for not accepting more Jewish refugees in WWII. We're making these same sorts of mistakes again.
Come on, this should be easy. We're witnessing our nation engage in a great national sin. Let's work for change and for basic human decency.
