The Ethics of Immigration: Self‐Determination and the Right to Exclude

Abstract

Many of us take it for granted that states have a right to control the entry and settlement of noncitizens in their territories, and hardly pause to consider or evaluate the moral justifications for immigration controls. For a long time, very few political philosophers showed a great deal of interest in the subject. However, it is now attracting much more attention in the discipline. This article aims to show that we most certainly should not take it for granted that states enjoy a moral right to exclude would-be immigrants. It is neither obvious nor uncontroversial. And if we cannot find adequate justifications for the existence of such a right, then we need to re-evaluate the very backbone of current approaches to immigration policy. The paper begins with an overview of the existing academic debate about the extent of the right to freedom of movement. Next it introduces three arguments in support of the state's right to exclude would-be immigrants which draw on claims about the collective right to self-determination. Finally it outlines three important challenges faced by these arguments in support of the state's right to exclude.

Immigration Controls: Why the Self‐Determination Argument Is Self‐Defeating

“…The latter strategy may seem more appealing insofar as it avoids skepticism regarding the existence of pre-political selves, 9 and circumvents the difficulties involved in establishing the congruence between the pre-political self and state boundaries. 10 Accordingly, I first consider the political route to answering the Problem of the Self. To say that the self is politically constituted means that the civic boundaries which delineate it are defined by political procedures or political principles.…”

“…33 Others claim that it is unlikely that nations will coincide with states' territorial borders, so that, given the current state system, the interest in preserving national identity cannot justify granting a given nation a territorial right to exclude. 34 Nevertheless, I wish to set aside these worries and concede that they are not insuperable for the cultural-nationalist approach. Instead, I will argue that this alternative answer to the Problem of the Self only temporarily avoids the problem posed by the Coercion Principle.…”

Legal status diversity: regulating to control and everyday contingencies

“…Migration policies could solely be about expelling from the territory and/or prohibiting entry to it -and debates on this issue are rife (Fine 2013). States (or conceivably also sub/ supra-state governing bodies) implementing such bare bone migration policy would need to justify why admission is barred or why subjects are expelled -in many ways inverting current approaches to migration control where it is mostly the migrant who has to meet conditions that are portrayed as justifying the individual's legitimacy of presence.…”

Liberal Democracy, Illiberal Immigrants, and Equality

“… Some critics of Pevnick contend that foreigners make contributions as well (Fine, ; Hidalgo, ; Higgins, ). …”