Immigration, Democracy, and Citizenship

Abstract

In this chapter I want to explore some of the ways in which our thinking about democratic citizenship ought to be affected by the movement of people across political boundaries. My goal is to create some borders of my own. I want to map out the limits that morality sets to acceptable conceptions of democracy and citizenship when it comes to the treatment of people who have crossed political boundaries to live in a state in which they are not citizens. Justice prohibits certain kinds of policies toward immigrants and requires others, at least in any state that claims to be a democracy. Within the borders set by these prohibitions and requirements lies a range of morally permissible policies whose merits will depend on context and on the democratic will of particular communities. I will focus on these prohibitions and constraints, but I will also try to say something in general terms about the content of this range of morally permissible alternatives.

A much shorter, somewhat different version of this article appeared as “On Belonging: What we owe people who stay,” Boston Review 30 (Summer 2005): 16–19. Versions of this article were presented to audiences at Rutgers University and the University of Chicago and at a conference at the University of Victoria. I am grateful for the reactions of the participants on these occasions.