Abstract
This chapter defends open borders on the grounds that people have a right to immigrate and that increased immigration would enrich the world significantly, with large gains going to the global poor. I consider three major objections: (1) immigration can create economic and social costs for citizens of destination countries, (2) citizens ought to prioritize the interests of their compatriots over those of immigrants, and (3) nations possess rights of self-determination that permit them to restrict immigration. I argue that these objections fail to justify significant immigration restrictions and that the case for open borders stands.
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Notes
- 1.
Lant Pritchett, “The Cliff at the Border,” in Equity and Growth in a Globalizing World, ed. Ravi Kanbur and Michael Spence (Washington: World Bank, 2010), 263–86; Michael Clemens, “Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 25, no. 3 (2011): 83–106.
- 2.
For an important skeptical assessment of open borders, see George Borjas, We Wanted Workers (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016).
- 3.
On this comparison between nations and states, see Bryan Caplan and Vipul Naik, “A Radical Case for Open Borders,” in The Economics of Immigration, ed. Benjamin Powell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 180; Loren Lomasky and Fernando Tesón, Justice at a Distance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 95.
- 4.
Michael Huemer, “Is There a Right to Immigrate?” Social Theory and Practice 36, no. 3 (2010): 432.
- 5.
Ibid., 432–33.
- 6.
This analysis of the wrong involved in the case is from ibid.
- 7.
Ibid., 434.
- 8.
Ibid., 435.
- 9.
Pritchett, “The Cliff”; Clemens, “Economics and Emigration.”
- 10.
Lant Pritchett, Let Their People Come: Breaking the Gridlock on Global Labor Mobility (Washington DC: Center for Global Development, 2006), 6. Italics in the original.
- 11.
Michael Clemens, “The Biggest Idea in Development That No One Really Tried” in ed., Emily Chamlee-Wright, The Annual Proceedings of the Wealth and Well-Being of Nations (Beloit, WI: Beloit College Press, 2010), 29.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Michael Clemens, Claudio Montenegro, and Lant Pritchett, “The Place Premium: Wage Differences for Identical Workers Across the U.S. Border,” Center for Global Development. Working Paper #148 (2008), 5.
- 14.
See, for example, Joseph Heath, “Immigration, Multiculturalism, and the Social Contract,” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 10, no. 2 (1997): 343–61; John Isbister, “A Liberal Argument for Border Controls: Reply to Carens,” International Migration Review 34, no. 2 (2000): 629–35; James Woodward, “Commentary: Liberalism and Migration.” In Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money, eds. Brian Barry and Robert E. Goodin (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 59–84.
- 15.
Alex Nowrasteh, “The Fiscal Impact of Immigration,” in The Economics of Immigration, ed. Benjamin Powell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 63.
- 16.
This argument draws from Christopher Freiman and Javier Hidalgo, “Liberalism or Immigration Restrictions, But Not Both,” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 10, no. 2 (2016): 12–13.
- 17.
See, for example, Borjas, We Wanted Workers, 131.
- 18.
On this point, see Caplan and Naik, “A Radical Case,” 188–89.
- 19.
Christian Dustmann, Tommaso Frattini, and Ian Preston, “The Effect of Immigration Along the Distribution of Wages,” Review of Economic Studies 80, no. 1 (2013): 145–73.
- 20.
Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, “Rethinking the Effect of Immigration on Wages,” Journal of the European Economic Association 10, no. 1 (2012): 152–97.
- 21.
This argument is spelled out at greater length in Freiman and Hidalgo, “Liberalism or Immigration Restrictions,” 13–14.
- 22.
For discussion, see Alex Williams, “Employment Picture Darkens for Journalists at Digital Outlets,” Columbia Journalism Review 9/27/16. Available online at: https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/journalism_jobs_digital_decline.php
- 23.
For a more extensive treatment of “keyhole solutions” to problems that may arise from immigration, see Caplan and Naik, “A Radical Case,” 202–4; see also Lomasky and Tesón, Justice at a Distance, 107.
- 24.
I develop this argument in detail in Christopher Freiman, “The Marginal Cases Argument for Open Immigration,” Public Affairs Quarterly 29, no. 3 (2015): 257–76. For a similar point, see Lomasky and Tesón, Justice at a Distance, 94. See also Richard Arneson, “Extreme Cosmopolitanisms Defended,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19, no. 5 (2016): 555–73. In this article, Arneson offers compelling arguments for the claim that “people do not incur moral duties toward the members of their own national community or nation-state simply by virtue of membership in such groups.” Arneson, “Extreme Cosmopolitanisms,” 556.
- 25.
Clemens, Montenegro, and Pritchett, “The Place Premium,” 11.
- 26.
See, for example, Richard Dagger, “Rights, Boundaries, and the Bonds of Community: A Qualified Defense of Moral Parochialism,” American Political Science Review 79, no. 2 (1985): 436–47; Andrea Sangiovanni, “Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 35, no. 1 (2007) 3–39.
- 27.
For similar arguments, see Arneson, “Extreme Cosmopolitanisms,” 568–570; Javier Hidalgo, “Self-Determination, Immigration Restrictions, and the Problem of Compatriot Deportation,” Journal of International Political Theory 10, no. 3 (2014): 268–69.
- 28.
See Freiman, “The Marginal Cases Argument;” Hidalgo, “Self-Determination,” 265.
- 29.
Michael Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 232.
- 30.
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 40.
- 31.
Freiman, “The Marginal Cases Argument,” 268; Hidalgo, “Self-Determination,” 265.
- 32.
See Huemer, “Is There a Right to Immigrate?” 449.
- 33.
One could argue that some degree of cultural uniformity—for instance, convergence on a language and widespread compliance with the law—is needed to facilitate cooperation within a country. With respect to the United States in particular, these two criteria are met. For one, evidence indicates that today’s immigrants to the United States have better English skills than previous generations of immigrants. Jacob Vigdor, “The Civic and Cultural Assimilation of Immigrants to the United States,” in The Economics of Immigration, ed. Benjamin Powell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 84. They also tend to commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born citizens. See, for instance, Michelangelo Landgrave and Alex Nowrasteh, “The DREAMer Incarceration Rate,” Immigration Research and Policy Brief, Cato Institute 8/30/17. Available online at https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/dreamer-incarceration-rate
- 34.
Clemens, “The Biggest Idea,” 38. For the data concerning the wages of the median American high school dropout and the living standard increases for immigrants from the developing world, see Emily Forrest Cataldi, Jennifer Laird, Angelina KewalRamani, and Chris Chapman, High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2007 (Washington DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Education, 2009) and Clemens, Montenegro, and Pritchett, “The Place Premium,” respectively.
- 35.
See, for example, Christopher Heath Wellman, “Immigration and Freedom of Association,” Ethics 119, no.1 (2008): 109–41.
- 36.
See Freiman and Hidalgo, “Liberalism or Immigration Restrictions,” 6–11; Hidalgo, “Self-Determination,” 278; Lomasky and Tesón, Justice at a Distance, 108–10. For a compelling general criticism of the freedom of association argument for immigration restrictions, see Sarah Fine, “Freedom of Association is Not the Answer,” Ethics 120, no. 2 (2010): 338–56.
- 37.
See Bryan Hoch, “No Beard in the Bronx—Wilson Won’t Shave for the Yanks,” MLB.com 11/13/13. Available online at: https://www.mlb.com/news/no-beard-in-the-bronx-brian-wilson-wont-shave-for-new-york-yankees/c-63902080
- 38.
For instance, the Yankees may permissibly remove a player from their organization if they judge it in their interest but states may not permissibly deport citizens simply because they judge it in their interest . Arguments along these lines are developed in Hidalgo, “Self-Determination” and Freiman, “The Marginal Cases Argument.” Thanks to David Boonin for noting this point.
- 39.
Lomasky and Tesón, Justice at a Distance, 110.
- 40.
This point is stressed in Borjas, We Wanted Workers.
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Freiman, C. (2018). A Defense of Open Borders. In: Boonin, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93907-0_13
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