3.3. Priority for the Least Advantaged
Some believe that the state ought to place greater weight on benefitting the least advantaged members of society than on benefitting other groups. Suppose this view (hereafter, “the Priority View”) is correct. Footnote What would it imply for the issue of immigration?
Joseph Carens believes that the Priority View provides further support for open borders. This is because Carens believes the Priority View should be applied internationally. Many of the globe’s least advantaged inhabitants presently reside in foreign countries, and they could be helped by a policy of open borders. Footnote Other thinkers argue, however, that a national government should apply the Priority View only within the borders of its own nation, thus prioritizing the interests of the least advantaged of its own citizens, rather than the least advantaged people on Earth. Footnote
Why might the Priority View apply only to a government’s own citizens? Michael Blake argues that obligations of distributive justice arise from the need to justify the coercive aspects of a social system. As a result, the Priority View applies only within the domain of those persons who are subject to the state’s coercion, which he takes to mean the citizens of that state. Footnote Stephen Macedo argues that a state has obligations of distributive justice only to those who are subject to a common system of laws. Considerations of distributive justice do not apply across borders, because individuals in different countries are not under a common legal system. Furthermore, according to Macedo, immigration causes economic disadvantage to those members of the native-born population who are already worst off. This is because immigrants often compete for the lowest-skilled jobs, thus further lowering the wage rates of the lowest-paid workers. The economic gain to consumers and employers may be greater than the economic loss to native-born workers, but, Macedo argues, the state should prioritize the interests of poor American workers, over both the interests of wealthier Americans and the interests of would-be immigrants. Footnote Thus, this version of the Priority View supports tight restrictions on immigration.
The Priority View itself is controversial. Footnote But, even without challenging the general validity of the Priority View, there are still two things that may be said in response.
First, even if the Priority View is generally correct, it does not justify just any way in which the state might prioritize the interests of its least advantaged citizens. When the state has resources to spend, the Priority View tells us that the state ought, ceteris paribus, to spend its resources to help its poorest citizens. If the U.S. government is distributing food aid, it ought to give food to poor Americans before giving food to upper or middle class Americans. If Macedo and Blake are correct, the government ought also to give food to poor Americans before giving food to poor foreigners. But even those who are sympathetic to the Priority View would typically not, I think, hold that the state ought to promote the interests of its least advantaged citizens by violating the rights of foreigners. For example, suppose that the United States government were in a position to steal food from hungry people living in Afghanistan, ship the food to America, and give it to poor Americans. Very few, even among the most nationalistic egalitarians, would argue that the state was justified in doing so. Or suppose that the U.S. government could trick poor Afghans into giving the government money by offering to sell them food, but instead of giving them food, the government could just take the Afghans’ money and give it to poor Americans. Or, finally, suppose the U.S. government could kill Afghan citizens, sell their organs, and use the money to help poor Americans. In all of these cases, the U.S. government would be prioritizing the interests of its poorest citizens over those of foreigners. But presumably, these are not valid applications of the Priority View. A plausible account of why these applications of the Priority View are not valid is that the Priority View must be understood as operating under an implicit constraint: the state should promote the interests of its poorest citizens, but without violating the rights of others. If the argument of section 2 is correct, then restrictions on immigration are, prima facie, violations of the rights of foreigners; they thus could not be justified by appeal to the Priority View. Of course, we may yet find special circumstances that neutralize or override foreigners’ prima facie rights in this case. The point here is simply that the Priority View does not point us to such a circumstance: as the examples discussed in this paragraph show, the fact that a particular action would promote the interests of the poorest Americans does not make what would otherwise be a violation of the rights of foreigners cease to be such.
A second response to Macedo and Blake is to argue that the Priority View, if correct, should after all apply to foreigners. This is clear when we consider Blake’s view of the principles of distributive justice. Blake holds that such principles apply to all those who are subject to coercion by the state. Pace Blake, this group is not limited to the state’s subjects. As I have been at pains to emphasize, immigration restrictions are coercive toward foreigners. Would-be immigrants are coercively prevented from immigrating. Therefore, by Blake’s own lights, the state does after all owe these people a justification for its coercive activities. Footnote If, as Blake believes, the justification for official coercion must derive from a hypothetical social contract among all parties subject to the state’s coercion, then foreigners must be included in this contract. If the social contract demands a version of the Priority View, then it must be an internationalist Priority View.
Macedo’s position is similar to Blake’s: Macedo holds that the Priority View arises out of a social contract, to which the parties are all those subject to a common system of laws. Admittedly, foreigners are considerably less subject to U.S. law than U.S. citizens are. They are not, however, entirely exempt from American law. In particular, foreigners are subjected to U.S. immigration law, which prohibits most of them from migrating to the United States. Macedo might argue that their subjection to this relatively limited body of law, in contrast to the much larger body of laws from which they are exempt, is not enough to justify their inclusion in the hypothetical social contract. But this, it seems to me, is not a natural position. If legal systems require justification, perhaps because of the way in which they impose coercive restrictions on persons, and if, as a rule, they must be justifiable to all those on whom the laws are imposed, then the most natural view to take is that even limited bodies of law must be justifiable to all those on whom those limited bodies of law are imposed. Thus, immigration law should be justifiable to all those who are subjected to it, which is to say, to all potential immigrants. It seems unlikely that potential immigrants, if included in the hypothetical social contract, would agree in principle to being excluded from the country for the benefit of native-born citizens.
3.4. Cultural Preservation
In the views of some thinkers, states are justified in restricting the flow of immigration into their territories for the purposes of preserving the distinctive cultures of those nations. Footnote Joseph Heath argues that citizens have an interest in preserving their culture because the culture helps them form values and decide how to live. If too many immigrants from other cultures arrive, they could disrupt our culture; thus, Heath believes, we have a right to restrict immigration. Footnote David Miller argues that existing citizens have an interest in seeking to control how their culture does or does not develop, and this requires the ability to limit external influence; thus, again, we have a right to restrict immigration. Footnote
To see this as a persuasive reason for restricting American immigration, we must accept two premises, one empirical and the other ethical. The empirical premise is that American culture is in danger of extinction or at least severe alteration if immigration is not restricted. The ethical premise is that the need to preserve one’s culture constitutes a legitimate justification for harmful coercion of the sort involved in immigration restrictions.
Both premises are open to question. Empirically, it is doubtful whether apprehensions about the demise of American culture are warranted. Around the world, American culture, and Western culture more generally, have shown a robustness that prompts more concern about the ability of other cultures to survive influence from the West than vice versa. For example, Coca-Cola now sells its products in over 200 countries around the world, with the average human being on Earth drinking 4.8 gallons of Coke per year. Footnote McDonald’s operates more than 32,000 restaurants in over 100 countries. Footnote The three highest grossing movies of all time, worldwide, were Avatar, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. All three were made by American companies, but 70% of the box-office receipts came from outside the United States. Footnote The television show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, has been franchised in over 100 countries worldwide, including such diverse places as Japan, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Afghanistan. Footnote Whether one sees the phenomenon as desirable, undesirable, or neutral, Western culture has shown a remarkable ability to establish roots in a variety of societies around the world, including societies populated almost entirely by non-Western people. This robustness suggests that American culture is in no danger of being eradicated from America, even if America should drastically increase its rate of immigration. Other societies may have cause to fear the loss of their cultures due to foreign influence, but America does not.
Turning to the ethical premise of the argument for restriction, is the desire to preserve American culture a valid justification for immigration restriction? More generally, can one be justified in harmfully coercing others, solely because doing so is necessary to prevent those others from altering the culture of one’s society? Miller is on plausible ground in maintaining that people have a strong interest in controlling their culture. But not everything in which one has an interest is something that one may, ethically, secure through harmful coercion of others, even if such coercion is required to protect one’s interest. For instance, I have an interest in having my lawn mowed, but I may not force anyone to mow it, even if this is the only method I have available to secure the desired result. Even when one has a right to something, it is not always permissible to protect one’s enjoyment of the right through coercion. Suppose that I am in need of a liver transplant, but there are no willing donors available. To preserve my life, I must take a liver by force from an unwilling donor. Even though I have both a strong interest in living and a right to life, this does not imply that I may coerce an unwilling donor.
Why, then, should we assume that our admittedly strong interest in preserving our culture entitles us to harmfully coerce others in the name of cultural preservation? Proponents of the cultural preservation argument have neglected this question. Two hypothetical examples, however, may help us to address it.
First, suppose that a number of your neighbors have been converting to Buddhism or selling their homes to Buddhists. Because of this, your neighborhood is in danger of being changed from a Christian to a Buddhist community. The Buddhists do not coercively interfere with your practice of your own religion, nor do they do anything else to violate your rights; still, you object to the transformation, because you would prefer to live among Christians. If you catch on to what is happening in the early stages, are you ethically entitled to use force to stop your neighborhood from becoming Buddhist? Consider a few ways in which you might go about this. You might forcibly interfere with your neighbors’ practice of their religion. You could go to their houses, destroy their Buddha statues, and replace them with crucifixes. You could force your neighbors to attend Christian churches. You could forcibly expel all Buddhists from the neighborhood. Or you could forcibly prevent any Buddhists from moving in. All of these actions seem unacceptable. Hardly anyone would accept the suggestion that your interest in preserving a Christian neighborhood either negates or outweighs your neighbors’ rights not to be harmfully coerced by you.
A society’s dominant religion is an important part of its culture, though not the only important part. But similar intuitions can be elicited with respect to other aspects of culture. You may not forcibly prevent your neighbors from speaking different languages, wearing unusual clothes, listening to unfamiliar music, and so on. This suggests that the protection of one’s interest in cultural preservation is not a sufficient justification for harmful coercion against others.
Second, consider another variant of the story of Marvin. Again, imagine that Sam has coercively prevented Marvin from reaching the local marketplace, where he would have bought food needed to sustain his life. His earlier justifications for his behavior having fallen flat, Sam mentions that he had yet another reason. Marvin practices very different traditions from most of the other people in the marketplace. For instance, he wears unusual clothing, belongs to a minority religion, speaks a different language from most others (though he is able to get along well enough to purchase food), and admires very different kinds of art. Sam became concerned that, if Marvin went to the marketplace and interacted with the people gathered there, he might influence the thinking and behavior of others in the marketplace. He might convert others to his religion, for example, or induce more people to speak his language. Because Sam did not want these things to happen, he decided to forcibly prevent Marvin from reaching the marketplace.
Sam had a real interest in preventing the sort of changes that Marvin might have induced. The question is whether this interest is of such a kind that it justifies the use of harmful coercion against innocent others to protect that interest. Intuitively, the answer is no. Sam’s desire to be surrounded by people who think and behave in ways similar to himself does not overrule Marvin’s right to be free from harmful coercion.
Is this case a fair analogy to the case of immigration restriction? One difference is that Marvin is only one person, and it seems unlikely that he could single-handedly bring about a drastic change in the culture of Sam’s society. In contrast, if the United States were to open its borders, millions of people would come across, making drastic cultural change a much more realistic possibility.
This difference between the two cases would invalidate my argument, if the reason why Sam’s action was impermissible were that Marvin would not in fact have had the effects that Sam feared. But this is not the case. In both of my examples, it should be stipulated that the agent’s fears are realistic: in the first example, you have well-founded fears that your neighborhood is becoming Buddhist; in the second example, Sam had well-founded fears that Marvin would have a large impact on the other people in the marketplace. (Perhaps the marketplace is small enough that a single person can significantly influence it.) My contention, with regard to these examples, is not that the cultural change would not happen, but that the avoidance of cultural change does not seem an adequate justification for harmful coercion against innocent others.
3.5. The Immigrant Flood and the Collapse of America
The last reason for restriction that we have to consider appeals to the catastrophic consequences that allegedly would result from the ocean of immigrants that would flood over America if the borders were opened. Brian Barry believes that at least one billion immigrants would pour into America if given the chance. The result would be severe overcrowding; the collapse of government social programs, including educational and health services; ethnic violence; the collapse of liberal democracy; environmental devastation; and a reduction of the U.S. standard of living to Third World levels. Footnote
Each of these predictions merits a lengthy discussion on its own, but limitations of space preclude this. Here, I can make only a few observations about some of Barry’s concerns. To begin with, consider Barry’s prediction of one billion immigrants coming to the United States. Although he considers this “surely ... quite a conservative estimate,” Footnote the estimate seems to be the reverse of conservative. Barry bases the estimate on the assumption that a person will leave his home country whenever “there is at least one other place with a material standard of living higher enough to offset the cultural differences between the two places.” Barry figures that there must be at least a billion people around the world whose material standard of living is much lower than what they would have in the U.S., sufficiently so to offset the disadvantage represented by the cultural differences between the two societies.
In practice, however, most people are much more reluctant to move than Barry’s remarks would suggest. Even though migration among U.S. cities and states is legally unconstrained, 57% of Americans have never lived outside their current state of residence, and 37% have never lived outside the city in which they were born. Footnote It seems unlikely that this is because such a large number of Americans were born in the city that offers them the greatest economic opportunities of any city in the country. This seems especially unlikely when one considers that those born in rural areas, which tend to have the most limited economic opportunities, are also those least likely to move. Nor would these Americans be likely to suffer cultural shock were they to leave their home towns or home states. Rather, those who have remained stationary most commonly cite family reasons for not moving. An individual who leaves his home town must generally leave behind his current neighbors, friends, and family (including extended family). This is extremely important to most people. In addition, most people feel an emotional attachment to the place in which they were born and raised. Most people also exhibit a kind of inertia: they do not survey all the alternative life paths possible to them at each moment, ready to switch paths whenever they identify one with greater expected utility; rather, they remain on their present path until something pushes them out of it. These are the main reasons why most Americans do not move within America. For foreigners, these same reasons would apply. In the case of people considering movement from one country to another, however, family considerations would be even more weighty than for people considering movement within the United States, because visiting family who live in another country is more difficult than visiting family who merely live in another city or state within the U.S. Foreigners also have additional reasons for not moving to America, deriving from language and other cultural barriers, as well as the sense of loyalty that most people feel to their native country.
There is some empirical evidence bearing on this issue. The U.S. State Department reportedly has about four million applicants on the waiting list for immigrant visas. Footnote In addition, every year, the State Department conducts a lottery, known as the “Diversity Visa Lottery,” to give away 50,000 green cards. Individuals from any country in the world, other than the twenty countries with the highest rates of emigration to the U.S., are eligible to apply (the purpose is to increase diversity in the group of incoming immigrants). In 2009, 9.1 million people applied. Anticipating that only some of those selected would actually come, the State Department selected about 100,000 people who were invited to pursue their applications further. Footnote The 9.1 million applicants constituted approximately 0.3% of the total population of the eligible countries. Footnote So there are presently about 13 million or so people living outside the United States who have made at least some effort towards moving to the U.S. legally. All of this gives us only a limited basis for guessing how many people would come to the United States if the borders were opened (among other things, there may be many who have refrained from trying to immigrate only because they believed they would not be permitted to do so). Nevertheless, these facts suggest that Barry has an overly liberal view of people’s desire to move, and that his estimate of one billion immigrants may be off by one or two orders of magnitude. Footnote
In addition to overestimating the supply of potential immigrants to the United States, Barry may have underestimated the capacity of the U.S. to assimilate immigrants. As a percentage of total population, the U.S. has coped with immigration rates far higher than the current rate. Footnote Though Barry worries about overcrowding, the U.S. appears to have room for many more people. The population density of the United States in 2009 was about 34 persons per square kilometer. For comparison, the world average is 45 per square kilometer, and China has 144 per square kilometer, more than four times the American density. Footnote This suggests that, at the least, we are not likely to soon run out of land.
In my view, Barry’s speculations about the effects of open immigration are overly alarmist. For my part, however, I can offer little more than alternative speculation. No one knows what the full effects of a policy of open borders would be, since it has been a very long time since U.S. borders have been open. Perhaps Barry is correct that the result would be disastrous for American society. If so, this is the sort of extremely negative consequence that, it might be argued, outweighs the rights of potential immigrants to freedom of movement. As I have suggested above, it is not plausible that the rights of potential immigrants are outweighed by such relatively small considerations as modest economic disadvantages to American workers, or the aversion of some Americans to cultural change; it is, however, plausible that the rights of potential immigrants are outweighed by the need to preserve American society from the sort of devastation envisioned by Barry.
Therefore, I grant that it may be wise to move only gradually towards open borders. The United States might, for example, increase immigration by one million persons per year, and continue increasing the immigration rate until either everyone who wishes to immigrate is accommodated, or we start to observe serious harmful consequences. My hope and belief would be that the former would happen first. But in case the latter occurred, we could freeze or lower immigration levels at that time.
To summarize this section, we have examined the most popular reasons for immigration restriction. They include the concerns that immigrants harm poor Americans through labor market competition, that they burden government social welfare programs, that they threaten our culture, and that excessive numbers of immigrants could bring about the general collapse of American society. While each of these worries provides some reason for restriction, the question of interest is whether any of them provides a reason adequate to justify the harmful coercion entailed by such restrictions. In most cases, the answer is a clear no. This can best be seen by considering simpler, less controversial cases in which an individual engages in analogous harmful coercion for similar reasons. Thus, it seems that Sam may not forcibly prevent Marvin from reaching the marketplace merely because Marvin would compete with Sam’s daughter economically. This is true even though Sam has special duties to his daughter that require him, in many other circumstances, to put her interests before those of non-family members. Nor may Sam coerce Marvin to prevent Marvin from (peacefully) causing changes in the language spoken in the marketplace, or the religion practiced by the merchants there, or other social customs. The one concern that plausibly would, if well-founded, serve to justify immigration restriction is the worry that enormous numbers of immigrants would cause a virtual collapse of American society. This concern is also the most speculative and doubtful. Nevertheless, if the worry is valid, it would justify imposing some limits on the rate of immigration, albeit much higher limits than those currently in place. The conclusion is that for the most part, advocates of restriction have failed to satisfy the burden of justification created by the harmful, coercive nature of their favored policy, and that a far more liberal immigration policy is demanded by respect for individual rights. Those would-be immigrants who have been turned away from America have almost certainly suffered a serious violation of their rights.
4. The Right to Restrict: Club U.S.A.
We have now concluded the main argument for the right to immigrate. But some philosophers have advanced arguments, independent of any particular reasons in favor of restriction, for the conclusion that the state has a right to restrict immigration. The most popular argument of this kind is an argument based upon an analogy between citizenship and membership in other sorts of organizations.
In general, a private club may choose to exclude those whom it does not want as members, even if the club has no very strong reason for not wanting them. Suppose Sam, Betty, and Mike form a private club to discuss philosophy on the week-ends. Marvin asks to join. For no particular reason, Sam, Betty, and Mike decide that they don’t feel like having Marvin around, so they refuse. Though their behavior is unfriendly, the club members are within their rights. Marvin may attempt to persuade them to change their minds, but he cannot complain of an injustice or rights-violation if he is not invited to the gatherings.
Some believe that a nation-state is similar to a private club in this respect: a nation may also, at its discretion, exclude unwanted members, even if the nation has no very strong reason for not wanting these prospective members. Footnote Since most Americans do not want all the new members who would likely arrive if the nation’s borders were opened, America is entitled to exclude most of those people.
There are at least two important objections to this reasoning. The first is that there are a number of important differences between a state and a private club of the sort envisioned above, and some of these differences may be morally significant enough to undermine the analogy. Footnote In the case of states, everyone is compelled to be a citizen of at least one—no one has the option of simply not joining any country. In addition, these states provide extremely important services, but some states are much better than others, such that individuals who belong to the worse states are likely to suffer severe and lifelong deprivation or oppression. Finally, exclusion from a country generally also entails exclusion from any of a vast array of interactions with the citizens of a given country. None of these things are typically true of private clubs. No one, for example, is compelled to belong to a philosophy discussion club. Philosophy discussion clubs, while useful, do not provide services that everyone needs to have a decent life, nor are those who belong to inferior philosophy discussion clubs doomed to lifelong deprivation or oppression. Finally, those who are excluded from a philosophy discussion club are not thereby effectively excluded from a vast array of business and social interactions with the members of the club. They may still visit the club members individually, hire or be hired by them, and so on.
In recognition of these important differences, we might devise another scenario that provides a closer analogy to governmental control over citizenship. Suppose there is an island, on which each individual belongs to one of several “water clubs.” The water clubs procure water for their members, and all water on the island (including rain) is controlled by the clubs. Everyone is forced to belong to at least one club, and no one can obtain water except through a water club. Furthermore, some clubs are much better at managing their water, or simply have control of more and better quality water, than others. As a result, many individuals on the island suffer from chronic thirst and water-borne illnesses. Many of these individuals attempt to join better water clubs, but the privileged members of the latter clubs refuse to admit them. Some members of the high-quality water clubs want to admit the less fortunate, thirstier people, but they are outvoted by other members. Furthermore, these privileged water clubs pass rules prohibiting any of their members from sharing water with thirsty people who do not belong to the club, and even from socializing with or doing business with such thirsty people. These rules are enforced through threats of violence.
This last scenario provides a closer analogy to the U.S. government’s immigration policy than does the example of the weekend philosophy discussion club. In the water club story, the clubs in question have control over vital goods that everyone needs, everyone is compelled to belong to one, those who belong to inferior clubs thereby suffer serious deprivation, and those who are excluded from a club are also excluded from a wide array of business and social relations with any of that club’s members. In all these respects, the water clubs are similar to governments, while the philosophy discussion club is not. And, whereas the philosophy discussion club seems within its rights in excluding unwanted members, it seems to me much more doubtful that the high-quality water clubs in the example are ethically permitted to exclude thirsty, less-fortunate people.
That is one reason why the private club analogy fails to establish its intended conclusion. The second objection takes the form of a reductio ad absurdum: if the private club analogy succeeds in showing that foreign individuals have no right to immigrate to the United States and that states have the right to control their membership, then similar arguments can also be used to establish that individuals have hardly any rights at all, and that states have almost unlimited rights to coerce their members. The advocate of the club analogy will have to accept that a state may make demands of its citizens similar to those that a private club may make.
Of course, the advocate of the club analogy need not, initially, accept that states may do all things that private clubs may do. But he is committed to accepting that states have the same sort of rights to control the conditions for citizenship that private clubs have to control the conditions for membership, for that is the central point of the analogy. And the rights of private clubs are, in this regard, very extensive. A private club is within its rights even when it sets onerous, unwise, and unreasonable conditions (but not immoral conditions). Thus, I may if I wish start a club for people who refuse to eat vegetables and who flush $1,000 down the toilet every month (but I may not start a club for murderers). I may not compel anyone to join my club, but once they have joined, I do no wrong by requiring members to abstain from vegetables and flush money down the toilet. Whether I may punish members for failing to live up to the conditions of membership is more controversial, but I may at least demand that they either accept punishment or resign from the club. Similarly, the members of a club may (provided that this is in accordance with the club’s bylaws) vote to alter the membership conditions. A club initially started for philosophy discussion could become a club for people who eschew vegetables, provided that the change is made in accordance with club procedures. Again, the club could demand that all members either comply with the policy or resign their membership.
Following the analogy between clubs and states, then, a state could demand that all citizens refrain from eating vegetables (or else renounce their citizenship), provided that this policy was adopted in accordance with established legislative procedures. Some readers may not find this result especially disturbing. But now consider some of the other things that could be valid conditions for membership in a private club. I could, if I wished, start a club for people who cut off their left arms. Or for people who refrain from voting if female. Or for people who refrain from expressing political opinions. Again, I could not force anyone to join any of these clubs; I could, however, demand that anyone who belonged to the club either resign or follow the club’s stated policies. If we rely on the analogy between states and clubs, then the state could require citizens to cut off their left arms, refrain from expressing political opinions, refrain from voting if they are female, and so on. Whatever the law requires, one could propose that abiding by that law is a condition on membership in the civil society. Thus, the state may demand that anyone who wishes to retain their citizenship should follow these laws.
Evidently, there is something wrong with that argument. The state does not have a right to require citizens to cut off their arms, or to prohibit women from voting, or to prohibit the expression of political opinions. The argument leading to those implausible results employed two main premises: one, that states have the same sort of rights of membership control that private clubs have; second, that a private club could impose the above conditions on membership. The first of these premises is the more doubtful and is the one we should reject. Perhaps the asymmetry between states and clubs derives from one of the differences noted earlier in this section between states and most private clubs. Or perhaps there is some other important difference not so far noticed. In any case, the fact that states do not have the same freedom in setting citizenship conditions that private clubs have in setting membership conditions undermines the argument for the claim that the state has a right to restrict immigration. The analogy to private clubs does not give us good reason to conclude that states have such a right.
5. Conclusion
The main argument of this paper ran as follows:
1. Individuals have a prima facie right to immigrate (that is, a right not to be prevented from immigrating). This is because:
a. Individuals have a prima facie right to be free from harmful coercion.
b. Immigration restrictions are harmful and coercive.
2. The prima facie right to immigrate is not overridden. In particular:
a. It is not overridden because of immigrants’ effects on the labor market.
b. It is not overridden because of the fiscal burden of providing social services to immigrants.
c. It is not overridden because of the state’s special obligations to its citizens in general, nor its special obligations to its poorest citizens.
d. It is not overridden because of the threat immigrants pose to the nation’s culture.
3. Therefore, immigration restrictions are wrongful rights-violations.
In this final section, I would like to comment, first, on how my argument compares with other arguments on the subject, both in the popular discourse and in the academic literature; second, why the majority of citizens continue to support very restrictive immigration policies; and third, why the immigration issue is one of today’s most important political issues.
In the popular discourse, most arguments surrounding immigration are restricted consequentialist ones: they are consequentialist arguments in which attention is restricted only to consequences for native-born citizens. Opponents of immigration typically claim that immigrants harm domestic workers, while advocates of more liberal immigration policies claim that immigrants are a boon to the domestic economy. Both sides commonly ignore the welfare of the immigrants themselves, as if they were of no concern, and further ignore any issues of rights and justice beyond economic consequentialism. In counterpoint to this depressingly shallow discourse, I have tried in this paper to draw attention to the rights of the potential immigrants, and to the moral significance of imposing harmful restrictions on people by force.
In the academic literature, many of the arguments in defense of restriction similarly overlook the rights of potential immigrants and the moral significance of coercion, in favor of a focus on the interests of native-born citizens. Footnote This is true when, for example, advocates of restriction argue that citizens have an interest in controlling their society’s culture, or that poor citizens have an interest in limiting labor market competition, without attending to the question of whether these interests are of the sort whose furtherance justifies harmful coercion of innocent others. Those who address the question of immigrants’ rights most often frame the issue in terms of a right to freedom of movement and/or in terms of rights connected with distributive justice. Footnote I have focused on a simpler, more general right: the right to be free from harmful coercion.
Most of the academic discussion is theory-centered: authors address the implications for immigration policy of some general philosophical theory or ideological orientation. Kershnar, for example, assumes a traditional social contract theory. Blake and Macedo each assume a Rawlsian hypothetical contract leading to the Difference Principle. Other authors examine the implications of liberal egalitarianism, liberalism in general, libertarianism, and utilitarianism. Footnote As mentioned at the outset, I do not believe that any of these theories has been established. I have therefore sought to build a case upon generally acceptable intuitions about certain cases. These intuitions are not ideologically controversial—one would not, for example, expect liberals and conservatives to disagree over whether it was permissible to forcibly prevent a hungry person from traveling to a marketplace to buy food. The argument for free immigration ought to be persuasive to nearly everyone, regardless of ideological orientation.
Why, then, do most citizens of Western democratic countries oppose the opening of their borders? I believe the best explanation is that most of us suffer from a bias that makes it easy for us to forget about the rights and interests of foreigners. Racial bias once caused white persons to view members of their race as more important than those of other races, and to ignore the rights of members of other races. Sexist bias caused men to view themselves as more important than women and to ignore the rights of women. In modern times, great progress has been made in overcoming these biases. But some prejudices remain socially acceptable today, not even recognized by most as prejudices. Among these privileged prejudices is nationalist bias, the prejudice that causes us to view our countrymen as more important than citizens of other countries, and to ignore the rights of the foreign-born. Footnote
When Americans today recall the unabashed racism of earlier generations, we may easily feel ashamed of our forebears. Most of us would cringe at the suggestion that our race is better than other races. We feel that we cannot understand what it would be like to be so prejudiced. How could one not see the injustice in slavery, or racial segregation? But most Americans, like most human beings around the world, in fact have easy access to what it was like to be an unabashed racist. It was to feel about one’s race the way most of us now feel about our country. Today’s Americans do not cringe when we hear the statement that America is the greatest country on Earth, any more than white people a century ago would have cringed to hear that whites were the best race. We do not cringe to hear that American businesses should hire native-born Americans rather than immigrants, any more than Americans three generations ago would have cringed to hear that white-owned businesses should hire white people in preference to blacks. Naturally, nationalists may attempt to devise explanations for why nationality is different from race, and why nationalism is really justified. This is not the place to attempt to argue that point. I would like simply to put forward for consideration the thought that perhaps we have no right to feel ashamed of our ancestors, and that our descendants may feel about us the way we feel about our ancestors.
Be that as it may, the question of immigration is surely underemphasized in contemporary philosophy, given its human importance. Literally millions of lives are affected in a serious and long-term manner by immigration restrictions. Were these restrictions lifted, millions of people would see greatly expanded opportunities and would take the chance to drastically alter their lives for the better. This makes immigration law a strong candidate for the most harmful body of law in America today. In view of this, it is particularly troubling that these restrictions appear to have so little justification.
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