Immigration Enforcement and Domination

Abstract

Normative reflection on the ethics of migration has tended to remain at the level of abstract principle with limited attention to the practice of immigration administration and enforcement. This paper explores the implications of this practice for an ethics of immigration with particular attention to the problem of bureaucratic domination. I contend that migration administration and enforcement cannot overcome bureaucratic domination because of the inherent vulnerability of migrant populations and the transnational enforcement of border controls by multiple public and private actors. The implication is that even if restrictive immigration policies are permissible in principle, the attempt to enforce them leads to injustices that make them ethically unacceptable in practice.

The ethics of immigration enforcement: How far may states go?

“…However, I am not sure that my interlocutors will agree with me. They might object that immigration controls tend to target racial minorities and affect vulnerable people the most (Mendoza, 2014(Mendoza, , 2015bSager, 2017). This is a serious concern that will be addressed in the following section.…”

Migration and the critique of ‘state thought’: Abdelmalek Sayad as a political theorist

“…The normative literature on the inclusion of immigrants does not clearly address these intergenerational migration stigmas fuelling daily racism, or the sociological impediments to immigrants exercising their rights, such as the right to vote (I will revisit this issue in the ‘Democratic inclusion in a postcolonial context’ section, below). Arguably, many normative theorists tend to adhere to ‘state-based legalistic mechanisms’ (Sager, 2017: 46) that focus on formal equality. Sayad’s diachronic approach and the place he gives to migrants’ family narratives shed light on these blind spots.…”

The "imaginary world" of nationalistic ethics: Feasibility constraints on Nordic deportation corridors targeting unaccompanied Afghan minors

“…However, states' enforcement of policies, including deportation politics, has remained a gap, also in relation to the plight of migrant children (cf. Sager 2017). Moreover, applied ethical analyses of Nordic asylum policies are lacking (see though Lemberg-Pedersen 2011;Svendsen 2012;Josefsson 2017), and few have ventured into deportation ethics (but see Cohen 1997;Gibney and Hansen 2003;Gibney 2008Gibney , 2013Gibney , 2015Lenard 2015).…”

“…We may agree in principle that for protection systems to function, applicants must accept final decisions. But we may also hold that because authorities' decisions can be arbitrary and immoral and are often reversed after media or grassroots pressure, it may be morally legitimate to refuse particular deportation decisions (Sager 2017; see also Johannesson, 2017;Wettergren and Wikström 2013). Even if this undermines the ideal of a differentiating protection system, the imperfect implementation of that ideal can create gross injustices that need to be rectified.…”