Freedom of Movement and Emigration Pressures: A Defence of Immigration Fees

Abstract

The article addresses the prospective responsibility of states to protect citizens from emigration pressures. After establishing the moral weight of the interest in staying, the article proceeds to explain why the interest to stay is comparatively more resistant to restrictions than the interest in exercising freedom of movement across borders. On this basis, the argument is then advanced that immigration fees can be charged on (well-off) immigrants as a means to protect economically vulnerable residents in recipient countries from emigration pressures. The argument that I will advance is in at least one sense non-consequentialist: it accounts for the need for immigration fees without relying on (problematic) assumptions about the consequences of immigration. Furthermore, the argument is also realistic in so far as it accepts that states have the right to restrict immigration.

Ne Me Quitte Pas: The Laws’ Argument in Plato’s Crito and Migrants’ Obligations to Their Political Communities

“…A corollary of that implies that we should be responsible, at least partly, to foster and maintain environments in which people have equal and commensurable opportunities to explore and grow their selves. Migrants’ right to dissociate for reasons of autonomy is generally accepted (Angeli 2016; Song 2017, 20); free immigration and emigration may be a weak right, but it is still a right (Yong 2017, 475), and, therefore, if it is to be limited—so as to respect other rights—it cannot be completely limited. Still, the cost of such a desire may cause a social, cultural, or community capital loss that may mean that those left behind become unintentional collateral damage of more privileged members’ right to self-determination through free movement.…”

“…Still, the cost of such a desire may cause a social, cultural, or community capital loss that may mean that those left behind become unintentional collateral damage of more privileged members’ right to self-determination through free movement. If identities are intrinsically valuable enough to justify freedom of movement for the sake of one’s autonomy interests (Angeli 2016, 270), they are also valuable enough to justify the implementation of some corrective measure meant to counterbalance the negative impact of community dilution on vulnerable groups.…”

“…Taxation immediately comes to mind but does not solve the problem posed by the fact that we want to avoid both threats to nonmigratory resident’s identities and a restriction on immigration that would infringe on rights to self-determination and autonomy (Ypi 2008, 415). Angeli (2016, 284) defends an immigration tax on well-off immigrants to provide resources meant to alleviate the burden of vulnerable residents of the host state that would otherwise face emigration pressure as a result of the new arrivals’ impact. However, this proposition is vulnerable to what Ypi calls the “paradox of justice in migration.” Taxing emigrants may fulfill some requirements of justice, but “Migrants, for example, would in fact be burdened twice, having to contribute both in sending societies to compensate for old citizenship benefits and in receiving ones to acquire the new ones” (Ypi 2008, 414–415).…”

“…Scholars of American state and local politics have long known that migration is only really open to the relatively well-off even when it is within borders, to say nothing of international relocation (Allard and Danziger 2000; Cebula and Alexander 2006; Gimpel and Shuknecht 2001; Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl 2017). Similarly, citizens of countries with so-called “weak” passports may well have the right to exit their countries but no right to enter anywhere (Angeli 2016, 275–276).…”

“…A great number of departures can be understood as a type of conflict, whether we understand conflict to be hard and explicit, like authoritarian oppression, or soft and indirect, like the inability of a state to provide a socioeconomic climate suitable to the achievements of a citizen’s personal goals. Oliviero Angeli (2016, 270–272) refers to these as place interests , “interest in things that happen particular to that place,” and “ autonomy interests ,” the principles according to which we generally accept that people “should be the authors of their own lives.” That is to say, the inability of the state to naturalize a spouse, offer a range or quality of specific or unspecific jobs, have a certain climate, and so on, can be understood as conflict insofar as a turn of events or situational realization (e.g., it is too hot in Australia for me to live) undesirable in the eyes of the citizen leads to a confrontation of the facts that eventually results in one’s decision to leave. In such a case, there is an irresolvable tension between what the state is willing or able to do and a person’s right to self-determination that leads to migration.…”