This article considers one seemingly compelling justification for immigration restrictions: that they help restrict the brain drain of skilled workers from poor states. For some poor states, brain drain is a severe problem, sapping their ability to provide basic services. Yet this article finds that justifying immigration restrictions on brain drain grounds is far from straightforward. For restrictions to be justified, a series of demanding conditions must be fulfilled. Brain drain does provide a successful argument for some (...) class='Hi'>immigration restrictions, but it is an argument that fails to justify restrictions beyond a small minority of cases. (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)

Several political theorists argue that states have rights to self-determination and these rights justify immigration restrictions. Call this: the self-determination argument for immigration restrictions. In this article, I develop an objection to the self-determination argument. I argue that if it is morally permissible for states to restrict immigration because they have rights to self-determination, then it can also be morally permissible for states to deport and denationalize their own citizens. We can either accept that it is permissible (...) for states to deport and denationalize their own citizens or reject the self-determination argument. To avoid this implication, we should reject the self-determination argument. That is, we should also reject the conclusion that rights to self-determination can justify any significant immigration restrictions. (shrink)

Some bioethicists and political philosophers argue that rich states should restrict the immigration of health workers from poor countries in order to prevent harm to people in these countries. In this essay, I argue that restrictions on the immigration of health workers are unjust, even if this immigration results in bad health outcomes for people in poor countries. I contend that negative duties to refrain from interfering with the occupational liberties of health workers outweighs rich states' positive (...) duties to prevent harm to people in sending countries. Furthermore, I defend this claim against the objection that health workers in poor countries acquire special duties to their compatriots that render them liable to coercive interference. (shrink)

This chapter argues that people have a human right to immigrate to other states. People have essential interests in being able to make important personal decisions and engage in politics without state restrictions on the options available to them. It is these interests that other human rights, such as the human rights to internal freedom of movement, expression and association, protect. The human right to immigrate is not absolute. Like other human freedom rights , it can be restricted in certain (...) extreme circumstances. Outside these circumstances, however, immigration restrictions are unjust. Having presented the argument for a human right to immigrate, the chapter responds to objections from distributive justice, culture and scarcity. (shrink)

This article asks whether states have a right to close their borders because of their right to self-determination, as proposed recently by Christopher Wellman, Michael Walzer, and others. It asks the fundamental question whether self-determination can, in even its most unrestricted form, support the exclusion of immigrants. I argue that the answer is no. To show this, I construct three different ways in which one might use the idea of self-determination to justify immigration restrictions and show that each of (...) these arguments fails. My conclusion is that the nature and value of self-determination have to do with the conditions of genuine self-government, not membership of political society. Consequently, the demand for open borders is fully consistent with respect to self-determination. (shrink)

Within the immigration debate, libertarians have typically come down in favor of open borders by defending two main ideas: i) individuals have a right to free movement; and ii) immigration restrictions are economically inefficient, so that lifting them can make everyone better off. This entry describes the rationale for open borders from a libertarian perspective (in part by analogy to the debate around minimum wage laws). Three main objections within the immigration literature are then discussed: i) the (...) view that states may restrict immigration to protect the interests (e.g. jobs) of their domestic needy; ii) the claim that restrictions are justified as a means of preserving culture; and iii) the influential argument that the right to freedom of association entails a right to exclude. These arguments are well-known, and I describe some of the compelling responses to be found in the recent literature. The essay then turns to more neglected critiques. The first concerns how liberal regimes should think about immigration from countries where the dominant norms are illiberal. The second examines the idea that political and economic institutions are sensitive to immigration policy, especially in the long run. Both of these critiques approach the topic from a non-ideal theory perspective, emphasizing the “public choice” dimensions of immigration policy. The entry closes by suggesting that this form of critique is especially important for open-borders libertarians to respond to given their general commitments to non-ideal, non-romantic theorizing in the context of government institutions and policy. (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)

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)

Although immigrants have been found to be particularly likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities in their host countries, very often their ability to do so is restricted by a range of challenges, including having limited access to finances. As a consequence, proactive immigrant entrepreneurs establish informal financial associations, which are known as stokvels in South Africa, in order to compensate for the general lack of available capital for their business ventures. Accordingly, this paper has sought to ascertain the role, which (...) stokvels play in the startups and the growth of Cameroonian-owned businesses, and also the strategies which they employ. A mixed-methods approach was adopted to conduct the study and purposive sampling was employed to obtain a research sample of 123 participants to respond to the survey questionnaire and 10 to take part in one-on-one in-depth interviews. The data was analysed through the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, which generated findings in the form of descriptive statistics. The results suggest that most emerging immigrant entrepreneurs struggle to obtain sufficient startup capital. It also emerged from the findings that stokvels played an equally significant role in providing the capital, which was necessary for the growth of their businesses. On the basis of the assumption that widening access to finance would improve both the startups and the growth of immigrant-owned businesses, the authors of this paper advocate for inclusive policy initiatives, which consider the unique characteristics of the immigrant entrepreneur. In addition, it is hoped that this paper will make a valid contribution to the discourse concerning inclusive finance and be of interest to policymakers and academics. (shrink)

What does social cohesion require in culturally diverse post-immigration societies? Immigration and social cohesion are, in the public debate, believed to be incompatible. In normative political philosophy, a similar understanding manifests in the argument that social cohesion-based on a common national identity-is incompatible with immigration. In so doing, its proponents justify restrictive border policies. In this chapter, I will critically engage with this argument by reconnecting the literature in social sciences to normative political philosophy. I will offer (...) a conditional and pro tanto argument that social cohesion in post-immigration societies justifies open and non-discriminatory border policies. My argument is conditional in two senses: first, it assumes social cohesion is based on a common identity, and second, it only applies to the societies with significant cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity that can be best described as post-immigration societies. My argument implies that liberal nationalists have a choice: they can either keep defending social cohesion in the traditional way, which comes with open borders; or they can abandon this view, thereby losing one of the strongest justifications for restrictive borders. (shrink)

States heavily restrict immigration, and many people violate these restrictions. For example, unauthorized immigrants cross borders without official permission, and other actors, such as people smugglers, assist them in doing so. How should we evaluate resistance to immigration law from a moral perspective? In this article, I survey recent work on the ethics of resisting immigration law. In particular, I examine three categories of resistance to immigration law as the following: unauthorized immigration, people smuggling, and (...) citizens' resistance to laws that prohibit them from assisting or interacting with unauthorized immigrants. (shrink)

Jurisdictionism offers a new rationale for restricting immigration. Immigrants impose new obligations on the people whose territories they enter. Insofar as these obligations are unwanted, polities are justified in turning immigrants away, so long as the immigrants are from a country that respects their rights. The theory, however, employs a flawed account of obligation, which overlooks how we can be obliged to take on new duties to immigrants. Jurisdictionism also employs different standards when determining whether an obligation exists, only (...) one of which is sensitive to consequences. Finally, the theory falsely claims that obligations necessarily reduce the freedom of the obliged. (shrink)

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)

I examine the legitimacy of immigration controls in the context of Canada and this country’s restrictive immigration policies. Despite the fundamental, philosophical arguments against immigration restrictions, the necessity of immigration controls is rarely questioned in Canadian politics. In this paper I suggest that there is an incredible cynicism of Canadian immigration policies with respect to this country’s own political principles. The idea of international migration controls is neither sustainable from a larger liberal- theory perspective nor (...) a political-economy viewpoint. I suggest that geographers should imagine alternatives to the current systems of immigration control and the regulation of the international movement of people. (shrink)

A critical but underdeveloped part of the libertarian debate about immigration is the question of who, if anyone, owns public property, and the consequences of the answer to this question. Libertarians who favor restrictive immigration policies, such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe, argue that taxpayers own public property, and that the state, while it is in control of such property, should manage it on behalf of taxpayers in the same way private owners would manage their own property. In other words, (...) it should be quite selective about who may enter. Walter Block, who takes an “open borders” position, does not appear to dispute the claim that taxpayers own public property, but nevertheless argues that immigrants are entitled to ignore the state’s control of, and thus may freely enter, such property. In this article I explore the question of public property ownership using Rothbardian property rights principles. I conclude that, at least with respect to a particular type of public property, neither Hoppe’s nor Block’s reasoning is consistent with these principles. I also consider the idea that the state ought to have a role in managing public property in light of some libertarian anarchist ideas about the state. I conclude that supporting a legitimate role for the state as an immigration gatekeeper is inconsistent with Rothbardian and Hoppean libertarian anarchism, as well as with the associated strategy of advocating always and in every instance reductions in the state’s role in society. (shrink)

This study is devoted to the ways and means to justify a ‘more’ cosmopolitan realization of certain policy implications, in the case of immigration. The raison d’être of this study is the idea that the contemporary debate over open borders suffers from indeterminate discussions on whether liberal states are entitled to restrict immigration. On the other hand, most of the liberal cosmopolitan accounts neglect the detrimental consequences of their open borders argument – which take it as a means (...) to compensate people in need –, such as brain drain and the effects of brain drain on the opportunity sets of members of sending countries. Therefore I offer a moral cosmopolitan account of immigration which takes the interests of would-be immigrants, the residents in receiving, along with the residents in sending countries in respect to their opportunity sets because of the way arbitrary border control represents the inequality of opportunity. I do not provide a well-formed immigration policy here, yet I believe the account provided here is more feasible in considering phenomena such as brain drain. (shrink)

The small business sector has been identified as an essential component of the global economy, especially in the developing economies, where it plays a significant role in addressing job creation and poverty. However, the COVID 19 pandemic and its attendant lockdown restrictions have brought untold devastation to the sector forcing many out of operation, crippling business operations and financial viability. We seek to identify the role and impact of government relief measures in helping immigrant-owned businesses in South Africa to deal (...) with the impact of the pandemic on their businesses. Primary data was collected using an electronic questionnaire administered to 260 foreign business owners in South Africa. The data was cleaned and statistically analysed using IBM SPSS version 27. We interpreted and discussed the results using the realistic conflict theory. Though a vast majority of the businesses (89%) reported that the pandemic had a very severe impact on their financial sustainability and liquidity, none of them reported that they benefitted from any of the South African government business support packages during the pandemic. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that even when they appear to help, restrictions on migration are usually only an impediment, not an aid, to cosmopolitan justice. Even though some egalitarian cosmopolitans are well intentioned in their support of migration restrictions, I argue that migration restrictions are (i) not truly cosmopolitan and (ii) will not have the kinds of consequences they expect. My argument in defense of this claim begins, in section 1, by outlining a defense of migration restrictions based on (...) egalitarian cosmopolitan grounds. Then in sections two and three, I reply to the harms this position associates with open borders and provide some reasons as to why restrictions on migration are incompatible with cosmopolitan justice. (shrink)

Projects of human improvement take both individual and intergenerational forms. The biosciences provide many technologies, including prenatal screening and the latest gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, that have been viewed as providing the means to human improvement across generations. But who is fit to furnish the next generation? Historically, eugenics epitomizes the science-based attempt to improve human society through distinguishing kinds of people and then implementing social policies—from immigration restriction to sexual sterilization and euthanasia—that influence and even (...) direct what sorts of people populate our future. Despite recognition of the horrors of the eugenic extremes of the past and of the subhumanizing of those sufficiently below appearance or ability norms to be viewed as “defective” or “unfit”, many people continue to be drawn to strands of eugenic thinking. (shrink)

Many people think that citizenship should not be for sale. On their view, it is morally wrong for states to sell citizenship to foreigners. In this article, I challenge this view. I argue that it is in principle permissible for states to sell citizenship. I contend that, if states can permissibly deny foreigners access to citizenship in some cases, then states can permissibly give foreigners the option of buying citizenship in these cases. Furthermore, I defend the permissibility of selling citizenship (...) against the objections that selling citizenship values citizenship in the wrong way, corrupts civic norms, and unfairly discriminates against poor foreigners. I conclude by noting that, although selling citizenship is not intrinsically wrong, it could still be wrong for states to sell citizenship in practice. If existent immigration restrictions are unjust, then it may be impermissible for states to sell citizenship in the real world. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPeople smugglers help transport migrants across international borders without authorization and in return for compensation. Many people object to people smuggling and believe that the smuggling of migrants is an evil trade. In this paper, I offer a qualified defense of people smuggling. In particular, I argue that people smuggling that assists refugees in escaping threats to their rights can be morally justified. I then rebut the objections that people smugglers exploit migrants, have defective motivations, and wrongly violate the law. (...) My conclusion is that people smuggling is sometimes a permissible way of helping refugees to evade unjust immigration restrictions and compelling states to bear their fair share of the global refugee population. (shrink)

In this chapter, I bring non-ideal theory to bear on the ethics of immigration. In particular, I explore what the obligations of liberal states would be if they were to attempt to implement migration arrangements that conform to liberal-cosmopolitan principles. I argue that some of the obligations states have are feasibility-insensitive, while some are feasibility-sensitive. I show that such obligations can have as their content both the inclusion and exclusion of prospective immigrants, and that they can be grounded in (...) the requirements of liberal justice, mere capacity to assist, as well as past or foreseeable contribution to harm. The chapter therefore explores the possibility of an international migration regime that takes human rights seriously whilst avoiding the twin pitfalls of strict immigration restrictions and the complete liberalization of immigration. (shrink)

The following is an unedited/copy edited version of a review to appear in Ethics. if citation is desired, please cite to the published version when it appears (April 2021). -/- For several years Michael Blake has been among the most important contributors to the philosophical literature on immigration. This book is therefore greatly anticipated, and develops a number of fruitful arguments. Although I will argue that the account is unsuccessful or incomplete at key points, it’s clearly an important work (...) of relevance to those working on immigration, as well as to political philosophers more generally. In particular, Blake provides powerful arguments against the claim that “open borders” are required by liberal principles of justice, develops his own “jurisdictional” account justifying immigration restrictions and the acceptable limits to these restrictions, and, in the most interesting and novel part of the book, discusses the role of virtues and values other than justice in relation to immigration policy, focusing specifically on the virtue of mercy. This last section of the book has potential for starting a rewarding line of research for political philosophers working on many topics, not just immigration. (shrink)

This work explores the increasing militarization of borders throughout the world, particularly the United States border with Mexico. Rather than further rhetoric of "border security," this work views increases in guards, technology and the building of walls as militarized action. The goal of this essay is to place the onus upon states to justify their actions at borders in ways that do not appeal to tropes of terrorism. This work then explores how a logic of security infiltrates philosophical discussions of (...) "the right to exclude," thereby curtailing the ability to see borders in any other way than as a locale that must be militarized. Specifically, I analyze the work of Michael Blake and his juridical theory of immigration restrictions. I argue that his work necessitates the walling of borders and removal of those who create new obligations for current members of existing political institutions. (shrink)

This paper argues that libertarianism—and only libertarianism—can vindicate immigration's status as a human right whose protection is morally required in nearly all circumstances. Competing political theories such as liberal egalitarianism fail to rule out significant immigration restrictions in a range of realistic conditions. We begin by outlining the core tenets of libertarianism and their implications for immigration policy. Next, we explain why arguments that appeal to alternative principles are unable to provide robust justification for open borders. We (...) conclude by considering whether our argument vindicates libertarianism or undermines open borders. (shrink)

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom has been interpreted as a general warning against state intervention in the economy.1 We review this argument in conjunction with Hayek’s later work and discern an institutional thesis about which forms of state intervention and economic institutions could threaten personal and political freedom. Economic institutions pose a threat if they allow for coercive interventions, as described by Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty: by giving someone the power to force others to serve one’s will by (...) threatening to inflict harm, in the absence of general rules of conduct. According to the logic of the argument, welfare-state provisions are not coercive insofar as they do not allow the identification and discriminatory treatment of individuals. By contrast, we claim that a structure of coercion is likely to emerge from the command-and-control nature of protectionist institutions and immigration restrictions currently advocated by the radical right. (shrink)

This brief article examines the notion of that there are sorts (or kinds) of people are varying qualities relevant to their eugenic policies, such as sterilization or immigration restriction.

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion (...) that has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

The best arguments for a nation-state’s right to exclude unwanted outsiders actually condemn nation-level regimes of restriction. Two argumentative steps lead to this conclusion. The first points out that the best arguments for exclusion generalize: if they show that nation-states have the right to exclude, they perform the same service for a great many towns, cities, subnational states, and provinces. The second step constructs a dilemma. The right to exclude is important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, (...) or it is not. If it is, the right to exclude is very important indeed–would-be immigrants often suffer grievously. But nation-level regimes would then be a serious moral problem: they would deprive a great many municipalities of a right that matters a great deal. Turning to the dilemma’s second horn, if the right to exclude is not important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, nation-level regimes are straightforwardly immoral. Either way, we arrive at this paper’s central thesis: the best arguments for a nation-states right to exclude actually condemn nation-level regimes of exclusion. (shrink)

This chapter criticizes policies that aim to restrict the emigration or immigration of skilled workers, analyzes the ethics of recruitment, and proposes basing an ethics of skilled migration based on the violation of negative duties not to uphold unjust institutions.

Certain states in the Global North have responded to refugees seeking safety on their territories through harmful practices of border violence, detention, encampment and containment that serve to prevent and deter refugee arrivals. These practices are ostensibly justified through an appeal to a right to control borders. This paper therefore assesses whether these harmful practices can indeed be morally justified by a state’s right to control borders. It analyses whether Christopher Heath Wellman’s account of a state’s right to freedom of (...) association, which represents the most restrictive account of a state’s right to control borders available in the literature, can extend to justify current harmful practices against refugees. If not, then no available justification will be able to do so, and thus contemporary harmful practices used against refugees cannot be justified by a state’s right to control borders. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical examination of two recent American Supreme Court verdicts, Masterpiece Cake Shop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Trump v Hawaii. In Masterpiece the Court ruled against the state of Colorado on grounds that religious bias on the part of state officials undermines government’s authority to enforce a policy that might otherwise be constitutional. In Trump the Court ruled in favor of an executive order severely restricting immigration from seven countries, five of which are Muslim (...) majority. Both verdicts raise important issues concerning fairness and religious freedom. After examining some of the central legal issues in these verdicts I offer a critical assessment of the legal arguments, focusing on how political value judgments played a crucial role in determining the legal outcomes. (shrink)

I revisit themes from Against Borders: Why the World Needs Free Movement of People (2020) in dialogue with Gillian Brock's Justice of People on the Move (2020) and Sarah Song's Immigration and Democracy (2019). We share the conviction that current border regimes are deeply unjust but differ in what migration justice requires. Brock and Song continue to give states significant discretion to exclude people from entering and settling in their territories, whereas I contend that migration justice demands open borders. (...) I reject the claim that state self-determination justifies migration restrictions. Central arguments for open borders highlight the role that restrictive border controls and the state category of ‘immigrant’ play in upholding racialised hierarchies and exploitative economic relations, as well as in inflicting violence against mobile people. (shrink)

The most well-known kinds of liberalism are based on the doctrine of the atomism of the individual, sometimes called "the separateness of persons." But these doctrines do not seem to allow a country to restrict immigration for the purpose of protecting a national way of life, except for protecting liberalism itself. This can lead to considerable discontent. In this paper, I present a kind of liberalism that addresses this concern.

In response to the Covid pandemic the Norwegian government put in place the strictest border closures in Norwegian modern history, restricting entry to most foreign nationals. The Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, justified these restrictions with reference to the rise of new Covid variants, and the need to limit visitors to Norway as much as possible. In this paper we critically examine both the justification given for the border closure, and explore the possible adverse effects this closure might bring about. We (...) argue that the recent closures are not morally justified, that they place an unjust burden on transnational citizens and Norwegians with close relations abroad, and that such border closures can have severe impacts for many individuals, on Norway’s international standing and on social cohesion. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar se não seria o caso que o trato diferenciado dedicado a cidadãos nacionais e imigrantes seria discriminatório. A questão dos imigrantes internacionais aflora atualmente nos mais distintos campos da sociedade. Entretanto, o foco da discussão aqui não é somente o ato de cruzar as fronteiras – ponto central de grande parte das publicações filosóficas sobre imigração. O cerne é a diferença entre direitos e obrigações de imigrantes internacionais e cidadãos nacionais. Não se trata de (...) cidadãos de um ou outro país, mas da categoria ‘cidadão nacional’ frente à categoria ‘estrangeiro’, independentemente do país. Será discutido o conceito de discriminação, a fim de que, sobre o pano de fundo deste conceito, sejam debatidas as restrições aos direitos dos estrangeiros. Com isso, pretende-se demonstrar que este tratamento diferenciado caracterizaria uma discriminação, pois os argumentos que sustentariam a diferenciação são insuficientes para justificá-la. -/- This paper aims to analyze whether the differential treatment dedicated to national citizens and immigrants would be discriminatory. The issue of international migrants arises today in very different fields of society. However, the core of the discussion here is not only the act of crossing borders – focus of much of the philosophical publications about immigration. The focus of the analysis is the difference of rights and obligations between international migrants and national citizens. It is not about one country or another, but the discussion concern the category ‘national citizen’ in relation to the ‘foreign’, regardless of the country. We will discuss the concept of discrimination, in order to debate the restrictions over the rights of the strangers on the background of this conceptualization. Our goal is to show that this differential treatment would characterize as discrimination, because the arguments that support this differentiation are insufficient for justifying it. (shrink)

Expeditious increase in population and industrialization has led to alarming rates of air pollution in all countries. However, developing economies have had to face a more adverse and severe impact. This had led to many changes in the day to day living of citizens. In this paper we have focused on the psychological process and predictors of migration intention of the people living in Hanoi, Vietnam. Two stratified random datasets of 475 people were used, and Bayesian analysis was performed on (...) this dataset. We found out that the intent to move was negatively associated to the individual’s satisfaction with air quality. We also found that people who have family members that have fallen victim to a disease caused by air pollution are more likely to migrate. This paper discusses an important topic: immigration of the younger demographic, i.e. the Hanoi workforce, which may cause restrictions and hurdles in the city's urbanisation and development. The findings suggest that, if measures against air pollution are not taken, economic forces may be disrupted, posing a threat to urban growth. As a result, collaborative activities and steps need to be taken by the government to curb this unfortunate consequence. (shrink)

The article aims to focus on a brief historical and epistemological reflection on the issue of the emergence of fundamental rights in the Western tradition and its universalist and hegemonic claim in the colonized countries of the New World -whose ideal of the subject of law is paradoxically restricted to the human person of an autochthonous-European and Euro-diasporic character due to affirmative policies and promotion of European immigration, subsidized by the colonized Ibero-American States. At the same time, it seeks (...) to analyze the phenomenon of acculturation of the aforementioned law and its inducing character of the process of destitution of the condition of subject of the Afro-diasporic population in the New World, from the perspective of the Critical Theory of Race (CCT). and emphasizing its relationship with the ideology of racial supremacism present in the institutional ideal of a post-independence Ibero-American State during the 19th century. (shrink)

Global processes significantly affect the mobility of the population. In the context of geopolitical transformation, globalization and quarantine restrictions of Covid-19, it is important to predict the development of the migration movement of countries that are developing. Therefore, the article is aimed at modelling migration changes according to alternative scenarios using the example of Ukraine. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is formed by a number of scientific works of leading scientists from different countries, statistical information on migration (...) processes and socio-economic indicators of Ukraine’s development, economic, mathematical and scenario methods. In the course of the study, the main factors were identified that more affect the migration processes of Ukraine, taking into account the trends in the impact of Covid-19 on them. These include population size, life expectancy, GDP per capita, average monthly wages, and the volume of remittances from individuals to Ukraine. With the help of correlation-regression analysis, a multivariate econometric model of migration growth (reduction) has been built. This made it possible to study the absolute and relative influence of factors on the magnitude of the migration increase (decrease), determine the potential reserves for its increase (decrease), evaluate them using a comparative analysis and carry out predictive calculations of the volume of migration increase (decrease) in Ukraine. (shrink)

This article questions the use of immigration as a tool to counter global poverty. It argues that poor people have a human right to stay in their home state, which entitles them to receive development assistance without the necessity of migrating abroad. The article thus rejects a popular view in the philosophical literature on immigration which holds that rich states are free to choose between assisting poor people in their home states and admitting them as immigrants when fulfilling (...) duties to assist the global poor. Since the human right to stay is entailed by values that feature prominently in the philosophical debate on immigration, the article further contends that participants in that debate have particular reason to reject the popular ‘choice view’ and endorse the alternative position presented in the article. (shrink)

Australia, Canada, and New Zealand currently apply health requirements to prospective immigrants, denying residency to those with health conditions that are likely to impose an “excessive demand” on their publicly funded health and social service programs. In this paper, I investigate the charge that such policies are wrongfully discriminatory against persons with disabilities. I first provide a freedom-based account of the wrongness of discrimination according to which discrimination is wrong when and because it involves disadvantaging people in the exercise of (...) their freedom on the basis of morally arbitrary features of their identity. Discrimination is permissible, I suggest, when it is necessary to advance a valuable exercise of the discriminating agent’s freedom. I then apply this account to the case of social cost health requirements. Against critics of these requirements, I argue that it is sometimes permissible for states to discriminate against prospective immigrants with disabilities. States may do so, I suggest, when such discriminatory treatment is necessary to prevent an increase in rates of mortality and/or morbidity amongst citizens. Alongside critics of social cost health requirements however, I argue that existing policies are likely a form of wrongful discrimination insofar as they are too broad to satisfy this standard. (shrink)

Can a liberal state exclude illiberal immigrants in order to preserve its liberal status? Hrishikesh Joshi has argued that liberalism cannot require a commitment to open borders because this would entail that liberalism is committed to its own demise in circumstances in which many illiberal immigrants aim to immigrate into a liberal society. I argue that liberalism is committed to its own demise in certain circumstances, but that this is not as bad as it may appear. Liberalism’s commitment to its (...) own demise is merely a reflection of the fact that it must take into account the rights of outsiders, not just the rights of existing citizens, and of the fact that circumstances of injustice can sometimes leave liberal societies with no correct choice. (shrink)

This article offers a critical analysis of David Miller’s proposal that liberal immigration policies should be conceptualized in terms of a quasi-contract between receiving nations and immigrant groups, designed to ensure both that cultural diversity does not undermine trust among citizens and that immigrants are treated fairly. This proposal fails to address sufficiently two related concerns. Firstly, an open-ended, quasi-contractual requirement for cultural integration leaves immigrant groups exposed to arbitrary critique as insufficiently integrated and unworthy of trust as citizens. (...) Secondly, the focus on national culture instead of citizenship obfuscates the close link between political membership and political trustworthiness. An examination of two models of interpersonal trust, affective and cognitive,shows that there is no room for the mid-way position associated with a quasi-contract. The effect of grounding political trust in a shared national culture instead of democratic institutions is to normalize the domination of immigrants and citizens alike. (shrink)

We use imperatives to refute a naïve analysis of update potentials (force-operators attaching to sentences), arguing for a dynamic analysis of imperative force as restrictable, directed, and embeddable. We propose a dynamic, non-modal analysis of conditional imperatives, as a counterpoint to static, modal analyses. Our analysis retains Kratzer's analysis of if-clauses as restrictors of some operator, but avoids typing it as a generalized quantifier over worlds (against her), instead as a dynamic force operator. Arguments for a restrictor treatment (but against (...) a quantificational treatment) are mustered, and we propose a novel analysis of update on conditional imperatives (and an independently motivated revision of the standard ordering-semantics for root modals that makes use of it). Finally, we argue that imperative force is embeddable under an operation much like dynamic conjunction. (shrink)

How can we ameliorate the current immigration policies toward Mexican people immigrating to the United States? This study re-examines how the development of scenarios assisted South Africa to dismantle apartheid without engaging in a bloody civil war. Following the scenario approach, we articulate positions taken by different interest groups involved in the debate concerning immigration from Mexico. Next, we formulate a set of scenarios which are evaluated as to how well each contributes to the well-being of the populace (...) both of Mexico and of the United States. The South African scenario model has proven to be an effective tool in times of political disagreement. It fosters a common language among competing groups, non-hierarchal communication among groups, and acknowledgement of the concerns of each group involved. (shrink)

Democracy has difficulties with the rights on non-voters (children, the mentally ill, foreigners etc). Democratic leaders have sometimes acted ethically, contrary to the wishes of voters, e.g. in accepting refugees as immigrants. The remarkable story of resettlement of the Displaced Persons of Europe after World War II is a case in point.

Several philosophers have recently argued that policies aimed at reducing human fertility are a practical and morally justifiable way to mitigate the risk of dangerous climate change. There is a powerful objection to such “population engineering” proposals: even if drastic fertility reductions are needed to prevent dangerous climate change, implementing those reductions would wreak havoc on the global economy, which would seriously undermine international antipoverty efforts. In this article, we articulate this economic objection to population engineering and show how it (...) fails. We argue, first, that the economic objection paints an inaccurate picture of the complicated relationship between demographic change and economic growth, and second, that any untoward economic effects of fertility reduction can be mitigated with additional policies. Specifically, we argue that supplementing fertility reduction with policies that facilitate the emigration of younger people from developing nations to developed nations could allow for both global reductions in GHG emissions and continued economic stability. Further, we show that moral arguments against such unprecedented increases in immigration are unsuccessful. We conclude that population engineering is a practical and morally justifiable tool for addressing the twin evils of climate change and global poverty. (shrink)