Here are two comments from my classmates, which need to response following the ways above.
1. In David Miller’s “Immigration: The Case for Limits”, Miller describes why countries/states have justification in restricting immigration. The author first explains the pro immigration side stating the right to freedom of movement, right to leave which thus means right to enter, and distributive justice. Three important considerations are: 1. That a right to immigrate depends on if the individuals vital interests/rights can not be obtained in their current location. 2. The right to leave/enter does not mean an unlimited right to migrate to wherever 3. Under distributive justice “People everywhere have a right to a decent life.” so it “must either ensure that the basic rights of such people are protected in the places where they live– by aid, by intervention, or by some other means – or they must help them to move to other communities where their lives will be better.”. In terms of distributive justice I believe scope is a key concept because “justice” at a global level does not seem realistic or even feasible.
Miller then introduces two reasons as to why immigration should be limited: to preserve culture, and population. Personally I found this argument kind of absurd, these days their are so many ways cultures and cities are influenced especially with tech, that even trying to control this seems like a fools errand. Finally, Miller explains the ethical consideration in immigration policies specifically for refugees, and discrimination in admission policies. Here I think it would be really interesting to analyze the Kantian view point on immigration policies, what is the intention of countries when they allow specific immigrants in? Is it primarily based on the benefit they can receive from them?
The second comment:
In ‘The Case for Open Immigration’, Chandran Kukathas argues for increasing the freedom of movement by explaining the issues surrounding immigration, a defense of why free immigration is important, and rebuttals to common arguments against free immigration. Issues with immigration include security concerns and the increased burdens. Kukathas’ arguments for immigration primarily focus on freedom and humanity, that it would be morally wrong to turn away an individual without a strong reason. The primary arguments against immigration are economic harm (countered by Kukathas’ argument of more labor), cultural differences (which is countered by arguing that immigrants will generally assimilate into the culture), and security issues (countered by the argument that security is not equally enforced on other aspects of life, and to do so is a loss of liberty). I was unsure about the strength of the final argument here since Kukathas did not really spend much time addressing security risks directly and instead argued about more broad issues with security versus liberty. What would an analysis of statistics related to immigration and security issues reveal? Additionally, since nations are groups that protect each other within the group, similar to a family/group of friends but on a larger scale, what is the cutoff for when a group of people should not necessarily have the right to decline immigration arbitrarily?
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