1.5: The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge)

5 The Moral Issues of Immigration
B.M. Wooldridge⁷

Suppose I have a neighbour, call him Bob. Bob and his family moved into the house across the street from mine a couple of months ago. During this time, I have not interacted with Bob or his family all that much. I have a general idea as to who he is and what he does for a living, and overall my impression of him and his family is quite positive. Suppose further that one-day Bob knocks on my door and says that he and his family would like to stay at my house for a while, say for six months. He says that he admires my home, that it looks so much better than his and that, overall, he thinks that if he and his family were to spend some time in my home, that they can enjoy life much better in my home than what they could in their home.

I take it as intuitively plausible that I would be justified in refusing to allow Bob and his family to stay at my house. I would be justified in refusing Bob and his family entry to my house for at least two reasons: security concerns, and property rights. While I might look at Bob favourably, there is a chance that he and his family could threaten my safety, and refusing him entry to my home on these grounds seems justifiable. Moreover, I also have property rights. I own my home, and if I do not want Bob and his family on my property, I can justifiably refuse them entry. In the same way that I am justified in refusing Bob and his family entry to my home, so too, I will argue, is a state morally justified in refusing entry to immigrants. To better understand this argument, let us consider these two reasons further, beginning first with security concerns.

The first reason that I would be justified in refusing Bob and his family entry to my home would be for security purposes. While my impression of Bob and his family might be positive, there are many things that I do not know about Bob. For example, does he have a past criminal record? Has he been abusive towards his family in the past? Does he and his family subscribe to values and principles which are fundamentally against the values and principles that my family subscribes to? At a minimum, before allowing Bob and his family to enter and stay at my house, I would be justified in looking into Bob and his family to find answers to the questions just raised, for I have a duty to my family to ensure that I am not putting them at risk to be harmed. So too, in the case of immigration. States have a right to look into potential immigrants to determine whether they might pose a security risk to the state, as the state has a duty towards its members to ensure that they are protected. This duty can be explicated through the idea of a social contract. A state and its members have entered into an informal arrangement whereby the members of the state sacrifice some of their interests and rights to the state. In return, the state promises to act for the best interests of its members, which includes protecting them against foreign threats. Immigrants seeking entry to a state might pose security risks by, for example, having a past criminal record, engaging in behaviour that could disrupt the public order of the community that they seek to join, having ties to terrorist organizations, or subscribing to values and principles that go against the fundamental values and principles that the state embodies. In either case, this puts the safety of the entire state at risk, and in order to protect its members from potential harm, a state is justified in vetting immigrants to ensure that they do not pose a threat to the state and, if necessary, refuse to grant them entry to the state for security purposes.

I acknowledge that immigrants often do not pose a security threat to the state, and that their admittance can often have a positive impact on the state they seek to join. However, the fact that very few people are actual security threats to the nation should not lead us to abandon the notion of security as a plausible ground for denying an immigrant entry to a state. First, even if few immigrants are real security threats, we cannot tell who is and who is not a threat before actually vetting the individual. Terrorists, for example, do not carry cards saying that they are a terrorist. As such, stopping an immigrant before she enters a state is necessary to determine whether she is a security threat. Second, having security as a criterion of exclusion serves an important practical function: it serves as a deterrent for those who are real security threats. If we were to drop the criterion of security simply because so few people are actual threats, this would serve as an incentive for those who are real threats to immigrate, since they would have a better chance of admittance. However, by keeping the security criterion, we further deter them from immigrating and threatening the safety of our nation.

More importantly, however, the criterion of security has a fundamental importance for the state. It is a fundamental component of political statehood to be able to control its own borders and restrict access if it deems potential immigrants as threats to the nation. Even if a state is mistaken about who is and who is not a real security threat, the state has this right because it is a closed, politically self-determining entity. The very fact that immigrants can pose a threat to the state is enough to justify the state preventing them from entering. In the same way that I would be justified in preventing Bob and his family from entering my home so that I can find out more about him and his family to ensure that they do not threaten the safety of my family, so too should a state be able to prevent immigrants from entering so as to properly vet the immigrants and ensure that they do not pose a threat to the state.

“are organized around the idea that various contested resources are assigned to the decisional authority of particular individuals … The person … has control over the object: it is for her to decide what should be done with it …”¹⁰ The state’s property can be understood as the territorial boundaries that make up the state. The idea that the territorial boundaries of a state compose the property of that state is essential for understanding statehood itself. As Michael Blake notes, a state cannot exist but for the existence of three things: “a government capable of exerting its coercive control; a particular part of the world’s surface over which that control is exerted; and a particular group of people over whom that control is exercised (my emphasis).”¹¹ Thus, in order for a state to exist, it must have territorial boundaries that separate it from other states. Similarly, the land on which a home is built has boundaries which demarcate it from other homes. If, in the case of homes, we conclude that the land one’s home is built on encompasses one’s property, then we are similarly justified in concluding that the land over which a state governs is also the property of the state. And if owning a home grants an individual the right to refuse entry to someone, then owning a specific part of the world’s surface ought also to grant the state the right to refuse entry to an immigrant.

The idea of property rights also brings to light an important feature of statehood: self-determination. In the individual context, self-determination is the process by which one controls their life. Self-determination, for example, grants one the freedom to determine who they associate with, what activities they engage in, and so on. Applied to the state, self-determination can be generally understood as the process by which a state exercises control over its territorial boundaries and determines its existence as a state. The central idea here is that a state is justified in determining which policies it chooses to adopt, and how it carries out those policies within its territorial boundaries. This idea of self-determination, however, is importantly grounded in the idea of property rights. The territorial boundaries of a state separate it from other states and comprises the property of the state which separates the state from other states.

Before moving on, let me conclude by emphasizing what a closed borders position entails and, importantly, emphasize what it does not entail. In arguing that a state is justified in closing its borders to immigrants, I am arguing that if a state deems a potential immigrant to be a security threat, then the state is justified in refusing to admit that migrant. Moreover, the state’s property (i.e. its territorial boundaries) grants it rights to exclude in the same way a homeowner has the right to exclude a stranger entry onto her property. Importantly, however, in arguing for the claim that a state is justified in refusing entry to migrants, I am not committed to the claim that a state cannot or should not admit immigrants. That is, in saying that a state is justified in closing its borders, I am not saying that a state should completely close its borders. A state may choose to admit immigrants onto its territory. Before doing this, however, it is fully justified in looking into these immigrants and ensuring that they do not pose a threat to the security of the state. Understood in this way, a closed borders position is not as closed off as what some might think.

In response to my argument a critic might raise two points. First, my position is based on what some might think is an implausible analogy. While I have drawn similarities between statehood and owning a home, a critic might raise some important differences that problematizes my account. And second, a critic might argue that my position does not sufficiently account for the interests and rights of immigrants.

Let us begin with the first point, regarding my analogy between owning a home and statehood. While I have drawn some similarities between owning a home and statehood, there are some important differences. For example, one might argue that in the case of owning my home, I am justified in refusing entry to individuals of a specific ethnicity. Since it is my property, and I have ownership rights, there is nothing wrong with refusing entry to individuals I do not want. So too, might a critic argue, with the case of the state. If I am justified in refusing entry to individuals of a certain ethnicity, then it would seem that a state would also be justified in refusing entry to individuals of a specific ethnicity, which would result in morally unjust and blameworthy practices.

In response to this objection, I maintain that the reasons one has for refusing entry to a visitor, in the case of homes, and immigrants, in the case of migration, must be morally justifiable reasons. Refusing entry based on prejudicial and/or racist principles is not morally justifiable, regardless of one’s property rights. So, what this means is that if one refuses entry based on racist or prejudicial reasons, one can still be held morally blameworthy. Having property rights does not override having basic moral respect for the rights of others.

The success and strength of this argument depends on how one understands a human right. One approach would be to assert, as Christopher Wellman does, that a human right is a claim to protection against the standard threats to living a minimally decent life.¹⁴ In order to live a minimally decent life, one must have a sufficient degree or range of opportunities to satisfy one’s basic human interests.¹⁵ If we understand human rights in this way, then the claim that one should have a right to immigrate is very much dependent on whether one’s human rights are being respected in one’s home country. If an immigrant has a range of opportunities to pursue her basic interests in her home country, then her basic human rights are not being harmed in her home country. And if her human rights are not being harmed in her home country, then there is no fundamental interest to immigrate that could ground a right to immigrate. As such, she would not have a ‘right’ to immigrate, but rather only a very strong interest in doing so.

What about cases where human rights are not be recognized and respected? Consider, for example, a refugee crisis, where individuals are forced to flee their country for fear of persecution. In cases like this, the basic interests of human beings are not being fulfilled, and so human rights are not being recognized or respected, and as such, refugees might be thought to have a human right to immigrate. While I am sympathetic to the plight of refugees, and while their very strong interest in migrating might rise to the level of a human right, it does not follow that this right is absolute. A human right to immigrate would grant us the right to move to any country, not any particular country. If an immigrant, and this includes refugees, is refused entry to a country, and has other countries to which she can immigrate, then we cannot say that her human right to immigrate is being violated. So long as there is at least one state that is willing to take an immigrant in, then a state refusing entry to that immigrant is not violating the immigrant’s rights. And, in the cases of refugees, a state should do all that it can to help these refugees find a safe haven, whether in their own country or in that of another. However, any right that an immigrant has to immigrate is not strong enough to outweigh the state’s interest in protecting its borders.

For Review and Discussion

1. How does an ‘open borders’ position on immigration differ from a ‘closed borders’ position on immigration?

2. Does a state have a ‘special obligation’ to its own citizens? If so, why?

3. Is there a human right to immigrate? Provide an argument either for or against a human right to immigrate.