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Political Philosophy

Philosophers & Immigration Control

Edward Hall argues that philosophers of immigration are not thinking it through.

Much mainstream philosophical work on migration focuses on whether or not states have a unilateral right to exclude would-be migrants from their territory. This is, clearly, a vitally important question for contemporary politics. However, one striking feature of much of the literature which defends states’ rights to exclude would-be migrants is that it has very little to say about real-world practices of immigration control. Christopher Heath Wellman’s entry on ‘Immigration’ in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy is exemplary in this regard.

Wellman offers a useful overview of arguments for and against open borders, and also addresses a number of important questions concerning refugees, guest workers, and the ethics of selecting or recruiting immigrants.

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