The Ethics of Immigration
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1478-9299.2005.00026.x |
| Date | 01 September 2005 |
| Published date | 01 September 2005 |
| Author | Jonathan Seglow |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Ethics of Immigration
Jonathan Seglow
Royal Holloway, University of London
This review essay examines recent work in political theory on the ethics of immigration admis-
sions. It considers arguments put forward by Michael Walzer, Peter Meilaender and David
Miller, among others, for state control of borders. Such arguments tend to appeal to the value
of political communities and/or the exclusion rights of democratic associations, and I argue
that neither of these are successful. Turning to work by Joseph Carens, Phillip Cole, Michael
Dummett and others who advocate open or much more open borders, the article considers
various arguments that would support this stance, including appeals to freedom of move-
ment, utilitarianism and social justice. I argue that rights to immigration need embedding in
global principles of resource redistribution. In the conclusion I sketch a cosmopolitan approach
to immigration by which impartial criteria such as population density and gross domestic
product would determine how many migrants states have a duty to admit.
No one knows how many millions of people migrate each year. Figures are
indefinite because states record flows in different ways and because of illegal
migration (Ghosh, 2000a, p. 6; Stalker, 2001, p. 10). The United Nations (UN)
estimated that in 2002 there were 185 million migrants in the world or about
3 percent of the global population (Castles and Miller, 2003, p. 4).1Mass migra-
tion has been much investigated by political scientists, sociologists, lawyers,
geographers, economists and historians, but not by political theorists, who,
despite about 15 years of normative work on the multiculturalism migration
so often causes, have in the main oddly bypassed the logically prior question
of what rights migrants have to enter a new state. Here I examine recent work
that redresses this omission. The principle of open borders has been strongly
defended.2Others argue along similarly cosmopolitan lines for more open
borders.3There are also prominent advocates of border controls.4There is
something of an emerging research agenda on the ethics of immigration.
Migration has a complex character. Categories of migrants include permanent
settlers, contract workers, students, refugees, a nomadic global elite, as well as
those rejoining their families, forcibly transported or returning to their home
country (Stalker, 2001, pp. 10–2). The great majority of the world’s population
who do not migrate remain profoundly affected by it through the receipt of
emigrants’ remittances (a fair proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) in
many sending states), new competition over jobs and living space, ethnic
conflict, and so on (Stalker, 2001, pp. 100–12; Castles and Miller, 2003,
pp. 32–48, 178–97, 220–77). Rational choice explanations for migration focus
on ‘push factors’ (such as poverty or population growth) by which individuals
decide to leave their homes and ‘pull factors’ (such as jobs and higher living
standards) that draw them elsewhere; by contrast, structuralist paradigms
explain migration through globalised labour markets and richer states’ and
POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW: 2005 VOL 3, 317–334
© Political Studies Association, 2005. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
318 JONATHAN SEGLOW
firms’ economic power (Stalker, 2001, pp. 20–39; Castles and Miller, 2003,
pp. 21–32). Migration problematises the very notion of state membership, with
much attention now focused on transnational communities – ‘a new type of
social space’ (Stalker, 2001, p. 115; Castles and Miller, 2003, pp. 29–30; Jordan
and Düvell, 2003, pp. 75–8) – that exist between states rather than within them
such as the circular migration between the US and Mexico (compare Johnson,
2003). This complexity, moreover, is increasing. Not just the volume of migrants,
but also the number of sending countries, is rising; a globalised economy means
proximity; shared history or cultural affinity are by no means the sole expla-
nations for migrants’ choice of destination (there are new social networks such
as migrant traffickers); and hence the cultural background, economic skills and
social attitudes of those entering rich states is diversifying too (Ghosh, 2000a,
pp. 8–14, 18–20; Castles and Miller, 2003, pp. 7–14, 122–53, 278–91). Human
rights infringements, environmental degradation and deepening inequalities
are all gaining salience as push factors from developing states. Domestic poli-
tics, state security and regional relationships are all increasingly affected by
migration.
I will have to gloss over this complexity. Following most of the literature I
examine, I shall consider mainly economic migrants, not refugees (or other cat-
egories such as forced migrants). The majority of the world’s migrants move
for economic or economic-related reasons such as family reunification. Only
about 15 million of the 185 million migrants in 2002 were refugees (Castles and
Miller 2003, pp. 4–5). To be sure, that proportion may rise. Bell (2004), for
example, has highlighted the phenomenon of environmental refugees whose
numbers may grow significantly in the future. Moreover, one could destabilise
the distinction between political refugees and many economic migrants
through an argument that both groups suffer from states’ failures to provide
for peoples basic needs like security and welfare (Shacknove, 1985). Neverthe-
less, there is some distinction to be had, and because I believe refugees raise
distinct, albeit critical, claims of justice, I shall not focus on them here.5I shall
also be concerned principally with the basic right to enter and reside in a new
state, not the subsequent question of admission to citizenship, although there
are, I believe, strong grounds in justice, to extend citizenship rights swiftly to
those granted the right to reside.6
The guiding framework of this article is cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan justice
(stipulatively defined) concerns the principles governing the fair distribution of
basic burdens and benefits that people suffer or enjoy; all the people who may
be affected by a putative principle. Immigration controls involve considerations
of justice because they plainly greatly affect people’s life chances (compare
O’Neill, 1994; Lichtenberg, 1981; Ottonelli, 2002; Coleman and Harding, 1995,
pp. 38–40; Moellendorf, 2002, pp. 30–9). Benhabib, by contrast, argues that
‘migration rights cannot be subsumed under distributive justice claims’
(Benhabib, 2004, p. 72; compare Walzer, 1983, p. 61). Her two reasons for
this claim are, first, that our globalised world is not quite the ‘system of co-
operation’ to which principles of justice properly apply (although it does
contain ‘significant interdependencies’), and second, that global principles of
justice may not be compatible with democratic self-governance (Benhabib,
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