Anyone remember eugenics? That wonderful idea born in the United States and appropriated by the Nazis. Everybody loves the Nazis these days, whether it’s relishing punches to their face or supporting their renascent ideals, it’s never been more appropriate to make Godwin arguments. So here’s mine.

Both those who support eugenics and those who are against refugees are trying to stifle the proliferation of an undesirable population. We only want a certain breed of person building a life for themselves in our country, and whether by birth or by immigration, both the proponents of eugenics and the opponents of refugees want to limit who gets to be a part of that privileged process.

Now, this limit to population growth is not done willy-nilly! We’ve already specified that it is the undesirables that we don’t want bolstering our citizenry, and there are certainly measures we can use to see what type of person that is going to be! We can look at predictors of crime, or indicators they will be a burden on the tax system. Those whose lifestyles don’t fit with our current standards, we can either sterilize them, or simply prevent them from entering the country! If these groups of people end up looking like specific demographics, well, we’re modern enough that we’ll skirt around that issue. The first point toward the eugenicists is that they were at least honest about their goals.

Both of these programs are also essentially compulsory. Eugenics was never a voluntary operation, and being a refugee is either facing death or fleeing, which doesn’t seem like the greatest opportunity for complete self-determination. I mean, you could even say that both practices prevent population growth by erasing the potential new arrival. The unborn child never gets to exist, the refugee ceases to exist, and in both instances neither of them gets a choice in the matter. Just sweep all that dirty business under the rug.

Refugees fleeing massacres and dictatorships are simply trying to find a home for their families. All the gays, the disabled, the blacks and Jews and the rest who were forcefully sterilized against their will, they were just trying to make a family for their home. The only reason that people are against these noble goals is because they’re afraid that these undesirables will pollute the purity of their homeland with poverty and crime. Refugees are just as predisposed toward criminal behaviour as blacks, gays, and Jews, I’m sure.

Except, here’s the thing. Nobody disputes that refugees are fleeing out of terror. Nobody denies that there is a civil war going on in Syria. The reasons these refugees exist is legitimate. Even the most ardent opponent of accepting refugees will admit that they are quite reasonable in leaving their homelands. They just don’t want them to come here.

Which means that accepting refugees, whatever the cost, means eliminating a negative. This human being is no longer in danger of being tortured and killed. Eliminating a negative necessarily means that a positive has occurred. It’s basic math. And given that the similarities between being pro-eugenics and anti-refugee are so abundant, if one necessarily bears a positive while the other does not, then being against refugees is less morally defensible than being pro-eugenics.