States restrict immigration on a massive scale. Governments fortify their borders with walls and fences, authorize border patrols, imprison migrants in detention centers, and deport large numbers of foreigners. Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration argues that immigration restrictions are systematically unjust and examines how individual actors should respond to this injustice. Javier Hidalgo maintains that individuals can rightfully resist immigration restrictions and often have strong moral reasons to subvert these laws. This book makes the case that unauthorized (...) migrants can permissibly evade, deceive, and use defensive force against immigration agents, that smugglers can aid migrants in crossing borders, and that citizens should disobey laws that compel them to harm immigrants. Unjust Borders is a meditation on how individuals should act in the midst of pervasive injustice. (shrink)

Constitutional democracies unilaterally enact the laws that regulate immigration to their territories. When are would-be migrants to a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? Receiving states also typically enact laws that require their existing citizens to participate in the implementation of immigration restrictions. When are the individual citizens of a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? In this article, I take up these questions concerning the justifiability of noncompliance with immigration law, focusing on the case of (...) nonviolent—or mere—noncompliance. Dissenting from Javier Hidalgo’s view, I argue that the injustice of an immigration law is insufficient to make mere noncompliance justified. Instead, I contend that only if an immigration law lacks legitimate authority are individuals justified in breaching it, since the subjects of an institution with legitimate authority are under a content-independent moral duty to comply with its rules. I further argue that a constitutional democracy’s regimes of law regulating immigration and requiring its citizens’ participation in implementing these regulations have legitimate authority. Nevertheless, when a particular immigration law is egregiously unjust, its legitimacy is defeated. (shrink)

Global migration raises important ethical issues. One of the most significant is the question of whether liberal democratic societies have strong moral obligations to admit immigrants. Historically, most philosophers have argued that liberal states are morally free to restrict immigration at their discretion, with few exceptions. Recently, however, liberal egalitarians have begun to challenge this conventional view in two lines of argument. The first contends that immigration restrictions are inconsistent with basic liberal egalitarian values, including freedom and moral equality. The (...) second maintains that affluent, liberal democratic societies are morally obligated to admit immigrants as a partial response to global injustices, such as poverty and human rights violations. This article surveys the main philosophical arguments for these positions on immigration and discusses the critical responses to these arguments. (shrink)

In this novel account of global citizenship, Luis Cabrera argues that all individuals have a global duty to contribute directly to human rights protections and to promote rights-enhancing political integration between states. The Practice of Global Citizenship blends careful moral argument with compelling narratives from field research among unauthorized immigrants, activists seeking to protect their rights, and the 'Minuteman' activists striving to keep them out. Immigrant-rights activists, especially those conducting humanitarian patrols for border-crossers stranded in the brutal Arizona desert, are (...) shown as embodying aspects of global citizenship. Unauthorized immigrants themselves are shown to be enacting a form of global 'civil' disobedience, claiming the economic rights central to the emerging global normative charter while challenging the restrictive membership regimes that are the norm in the current global system. Cabrera also examines the European Union, seeing it as a crucial laboratory for studying the challenges inherent in expanding citizen membership. (shrink)

Even though human smuggling is one of the central topics of contention in the political discourse about immigration, it has received virtually no attention from moral philosophy. This article aims...

This chapter outlines the main ideas of my book National responsibility and global justice. It begins with two widely held but conflicting intuitions about what global justice might mean on the one hand, and what it means to be a member of a national community on the other. The first intuition tells us that global inequalities of the magnitude that currently exist are radically unjust, while the second intuition tells us that inequalities are both unavoidable and fair once national responsibility (...) is allowed to operate. This conflict might be resolved either by adopting a cosmopolitan theory of justice (which leaves no room for national responsibility) or by adopting a ‘political’ theory of justice (which denies that questions of distributive justice can arise beyond the walls of the sovereign state). Since neither resolution is satisfactory, the chapter defends the idea of national responsibility and proposes a new theory of global justice, whose main elements are the protection of basic human rights worldwide, and fair terms of interaction between independent political communities. (shrink)

Under what conditions, if any, do those the law addresses have a moral duty or obligation to obey it simply because it is the law? In this essay, I identify five general approaches to carrying out this task, and offer a somewhat detailed discussion of one or two examples of each approach. The approaches studied are: relational‐role approaches that appeal to the fact that an agent occupies the role of member in the political community; attempts to ground the duty to (...) obey the law in individual consent or fair play; natural duty approaches; instrumental approaches; and philosophical anarchism, an approach that denies that most subjects of contemporary states have a duty to obey the law simply in virtue of its status as such. (shrink)

This chapter argues that governments have a duty to take reasonably effective and humane steps to minimize the occurrence of unauthorized migration and stay. While the effects of unauthorized migration on a country’s citizens and institutions have been vigorously debated, the literature has largely ignored duties of fairness to would-be immigrants. It is argued here that failing to take reasonable steps to prevent unauthorized migration and stay is deeply unfair to would-be immigrants who are not in a position to bypass (...) visa regulations. Importantly, the argument here is orthogonal to the debate as to how much and what kinds of immigration ought to be allowed. (shrink)

Many liberal democracies have large populations of “unauthorized” migrants, who entered in contravention of immigration laws. In this paper, I will offer a new argument for allowing long-resident unauthorized migrants to transfer to “legal” status, which would allow them to live and work legally in their country of residence, without fear of deportation. I argue that legalization is required to secure the autonomy of these migrants, and that only by securing their autonomy can the state exercise authority over them legitimately. (...) I also respond to popular objections to legalization and illustrate the distinctive policy implications of my approach. (shrink)

Many liberal democracies have large populations of “unauthorized” migrants, who entered in contravention of immigration laws. In this paper, I will offer a new argument for allowing long-resident unauthorized migrants to transfer to “legal” status, which would allow them to live and work legally in their country of residence, without fear of deportation. I argue that legalization is required to secure the autonomy of these migrants, and that only by securing their autonomy can the state exercise authority over them legitimately. (...) I also respond to popular objections to legalization and illustrate the distinctive policy implications of my approach. (shrink)

Many political theorists argue that immigration restrictions are unjust and defend broadly open borders. In this paper, I examine the implications of this view for individual conduct. In particular, I argue that the citizens of states that enforce unjust immigration restrictions have duties to disobey certain immigration laws. States conscript their citizens to help enforce immigration law by imposing legal duties on these citizens to monitor, report, and refrain from interacting with unauthorized migrants. If an ideal of open borders is (...) true, these laws are unjust. Furthermore, if citizens comply with their legal duties, they contribute to violating the rights of migrants. We are obligated to refrain from contributing to rights-violations. So, citizens are obligated to disobey immigration laws. I defend the moral requirement to disobey immigration laws against the objection that disobedience to the law is excessively risky and the objection that citizens have political obligations to obey the law. (shrink)

Many of us take it for granted that states have a right to control the entry and settlement of non‐citizens 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. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the existence of a moral duty to disobey the law and engage in civil disobedience on the basis of one of the grounds of political obligation—the Samaritan duty. Christopher H. Wellman has recently offered a ‘Samaritan account’ of state legitimacy and political obligation, according to which the state is justified in coercing each citizen in order to rescue all from the perilous circumstances of the state of nature; and each of us is bound to obey (...) the law, as the state demands, because we each have a responsibility to help rescue others when this assistance is not unreasonably costly. Though Wellman recognizes that there can be reasons for disobeying the law and resisting injustice in otherwise legitimate states, he overlooks the possibility that at least some of these reasons could be Samaritan in nature, grounded in the duty to rescue people from peril. As I shall argue, the Samaritan duty supports obligations to disobey the law, when the law prohibits Samaritan rescues, and to engage in civil disobedience, when unjust laws and practices contribute to endangering people. The discussion proceeds as follows. After a brief overview of the Samaritan duty, I articulate my case for Samaritan duties to disobey the law, and duties to engage in civil disobedience when unjust laws, institutions, or practices enable what I call ‘persistent Samaritan perils’. I then examine and respond to several objections to my account: first, that the costs of law-breaking are unreasonable, and thus cannot be morally required; second, that individuals’ particular acts of protest and civil disobedience do not appear to make any difference to the rescue, and thus cannot be required; third, that I stretch the Samaritan duty beyond recognition; and fourth, that the Samaritan duty binds us to help people in need or peril anywhere, not particularly at home. I consider in conclusion the advantages and limits of my account of citizens’ Samaritan duties in the face of injustice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOn 4 September 2015 asylum seekers who got stranded in Budapest’s Keleti train station began a march to cross the Austrian border. Their aim was to reach Germany and Sweden where they believed their asylum claims would be better received. In this article, I argue that the march should be characterized as an act of civil disobedience. This claim may seem to contradict common convictions regarding acts of civil disobedience as well as asylum seekers. The most common justifications are given (...) with reference to moral rights of citizens and concerns for enhancing justice or democracy within states. Asylum seekers are not members of the European public. How can they be entitled to break the law? I first show that the march displays features of a paradigm case of civil disobedience. Then, I identify moral reasons for asylum seekers to carry out the march acceptable from both strong and weak cosmopolitan perspectives. After that, I point out its corrective, stabilizing and democracy-enhancing roles in the European political landscape. I conclude by emphasizing that conceptualizing the march as an act of civil disobedience is significant in recognizing asylum seekers as political agents making claims within an evolving framework of refugee protection. (shrink)

According to many philosophers, the world should embrace open borders – that is, let people move around the globe and settle as they wish, with exceptions made only in very specific cases such as fugitives or terrorists. Defenders of open borders have adopted two major argumentative strategies. The first is to claim that immigration restrictions involve coercion, and then show that such coercion cannot be morally justified. The second is to argue that adopting worldwide open borders policies would make the (...) world a much better place, particularly by improving average well-being. This essay contends that both of these argumentative strategies fail. Some immigration restrictions are not only morally justified, but morally required. (shrink)

Constitutional democracies unilaterally enact the laws that regulate immigration to their territories. When are would-be migrants to a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? Receiving states also typically enact laws that require their existing citizens to participate in the implementation of immigration restrictions. When are the individual citizens of a constitutional democracy morally justified in breaching such laws? In this article, I take up these questions concerning the justifiability of noncompliance with immigration law, focusing on the case of (...) nonviolent – or mere – noncompliance. Dissenting from Javier Hidalgo’s view, I argue that the injustice of an immigration law is insufficient to make mere noncompliance justified. Instead, I contend that only if an immigration law lacks legitimate authority are individuals justified in breaching it, since the subjects of an institution with legitimate authority are under a content-independent moral duty to comply with its rules. I further argue that a constitutional democracy’s regimes of law regulating immigration and requiring its citizens’ participation in implementing these regulations have legitimate authority. Nevertheless, when a particular immigration law is egregiously unjust, its legitimacy is defeated. (shrink)