Immigration and Discrimination

Abstract

Abstract Prompted by both past policies and recent developments about immigration around the world that center on race, ethnicity, religion, and other identities, this book explores what states are morally permitted to base their admission decisions and policies on, and why. Many scholars appeal to the terminology and ideas of wrongful discrimination when discussing identity-based immigration decisions, but there has been little to no effort to examine whether the idea of wrongful discrimination—traditionally applied to interactions among people within the same state—is applicable at the global level or to interactions among people in different states. Employing economic and empirical research where available, this book tries to fill this gap by demonstrating why the idea of wrongful discrimination can be applied to states’ admission decisions, and what this means in terms of states’ rights concerning immigration. Rather than rejecting any connection between immigration decisions and identity, it argues that it is often morally permissible to exclude people based on their identity, especially, but not only, when it is done by disadvantaged groups. Despite this finding, however, a major implication of the arguments and analysis of the book is a rejection of the “right to exclude.” Thus, this book concludes by demonstrating why states are not unilaterally entitled to make decisions about whom to admit into their borders.