A Liberal Argument for Border Controls: Reply to Carens Author(s): John Isbister Source: International Migration Review, Vol.

34, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), pp. 629-635 Published by: The Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2675936 . Accessed: 22/05/2011 22:12
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COMMUNICATIONS

Liberal

Argument Reply to

for Carens

Border

Controls: John Isbister

University California at Santa Cruz of This note challenges Joseph H. Carens' assertion that no comprehensive liberal case has been made against open borders. The heart of a liberal case against open borders is the distinction between the equal moral standing of all people on the one hand, and the requirement to provide equal treatment on the other. The firstdoes not necessarily imply the sec? ond. Border controls in rich countries can be justified by liberals on the grounds that they protect the most disadvantaged residents of those countries. In his exchange with Peter Meilaender Carens (1999) concludes by saying, (1999) in this Review, Joseph H.

"But apart fromthe earlydiscussionof Walzer..., I know of no attemptto lay out for in a systematic way a fundamentalmoral justification the rightof states to of a in excludemigrants the world as it is, nor any to justify generalright exclusion theirinstitutions prac? and in the world as it ought to be. Liberalsaspireto justify reasonsforthem thatno one can reasonably ticesby offering reject.What reasons conclosure?How much do thesereasonsrestupon unexaminedand highly justify to of communities preserve testablepresuppositions about the entitlements existing of what theyhave regardless what othersdo not have?What sortsof reasonscan be for offered thosewho are excludedthatit would be unreasonable themto reject to of as a justification theirexclusion?.. . My own view is thatthereare no satisfacto? of ryanswersto thesequestionsonce one removesthe constraints presuppositions of about what is feasibleand considersthe question fromthe perspective what lib? eraljusticerequiresin a (relatively) world.The challengeof open borderscon? just tinues." Carens claim about the failure of liberals to justify immigration controls is wrong, I believe. Liberals can provide good justifications. They may not in

the end be fully persuasive, because they must contend with the strong justi? fication that Carens has made on the other side, the case for open borders. It is a mistake to imply, however, that there is no coherent disagreement among liberals. This note sketches a liberal case for restricting immigration.

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A few preliminary comments. The core of liberalism in this discussion is, I assume, the commitment to, first, the equal moral worth of each person in the world and, second, the proposition that the rights of the individual are prior to the rights of the community. I would also like to say that, while I argue in this note against Carens' assertion, I am deeply grateful for the pio? neering work he has done in opening up the ethics of immigration policy, a topic which hardly existed in the scholarly literature before he engaged it. The firststep that must be taken by a liberal in defending border controls is to show that national borders have some moral relevance. If they are sim? ply arbitrary lines on a map that divide people into jurisdictions for no ethi? cally defensible reason, no important distinctions should depend upon where one finds oneself in relationship to those lines. Not all liberals are willing to concede this, however. heart of the argument against open borders is that equal moral standing does not necessarily commit us to the equal treatment of each per? son. I doubt if many would disagree, certainly not Carens, who asserts that The Tony Blair should be more concerned with people living in the United King? dom than with people living in Germany. Every one of us, I expect, practices this distinction in our personal family lives, giving enormously more atten? tion to kin than we do to others. In doing so, we do not imply that our rela? tives are morally superior to other people, but rather that we have more intense connections to them, connections of love and of lives shared, and that give rise to particular obligations. When my children come I give it to them without question, far more generously than I to me for help help other people's children, even though, on occasion, I do help others as these connections well. But I never for a moment think that my children are better than the neighborhood children. Virtually all of us behave this way in our family lives, and it cannot be unjust for us to do so. It is probably an evolutionary require? ment. Why might it be morally acceptable to think of a country as an extend? ed family, so that its government is justified in offering preferred treatment to people inside its border, while still recognizing the equal moral standing of those outside? To take an example, why might the United States government be justified in giving more assistance to a destitute man in Chicago than to a destitute man in Delhi? At least four arguments are offered by liberals, argu? ments that we may label efficiency, impossibility, moral saints and unequal connections.

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(i) Efficiency One reason it would be silly to have an undifferentiated world welfare system, in which the Chicago man is treated the same as the Delhi man, is that people can be helped more effectively by those who are closest to them and who understand their situation better. Moreover, we are likely to be more generous to those with whom we have a more personal connection. These arguments are made by, among others, Peter Singer (1993:233). This argument is valid as far as it goes, but by itself it does not relieve the governments of the rich countries of responsibility for equal treatment. India is a poorer country than the United States and it can afford to do much less for its destitute citizens. Once the United States government has helped the Chicago man and the Indian government has helped the Delhi man, the lat? ter will be much worse off than the former. If efficiency is the only argument in support of unequal treatment, the American government would still be required to make up the difference, so that the two people would receive equal treatment. The argument from relative efficiency cannot take us very far, therefore, in justifying unequal treatment by the government of a rich country (ii) Impossibility. It is impossible for the government of a rich country to treat all the world's people equally, if it is to give any modicum of justice to its own disadvantaged people. Suppose, for example, that the governments of the rich countries did provide welfare payments to the Delhi man and everyone else in his position sufficient to bring them to a standard of living equal to the Chica? go man, after the latter has been helped. We cannot know exactly what trans? fer of funds would be required, but in view of the disproportion of population in the rich and poor countries, it would likely be well over half the national incomes of the rich. Even if the rich were prepared to make such a sacrifice, their economies would probably not survive. People require material incentives to work productively, and a modern economy requires a circular flow of income and spending; both would be disrupted by the enormous transferpayments. No moral obligation exists to do something that is impossible, (iii) Moral saints. If people in the rich countries were required to treat people in the poor countries equally, they would have to give up a very high portion be fundamentally changed. To do this would be remarkably generous, but generosity is by its nature voluntary The question before us is not what actions the rich might voluntarily take, but rather what obligations they have to people living in of their incomes, and the lives of their citizens would poor countries. Most people would agree that we are not obliged to be what Susan Wolf (1982) calls "moral saints," people whose entire lives are devoted

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single-mindedly to doing the right thing for others, with no thought for our own pleasures and preferences and for the people who are closest to us. A few among us choose to live this way, but most do not, and it defies common sense to think that we are immoral because of this choice. A standard of jus? tice that requires us to be saints flies in the face of the fact that we are not saints, and condemns us to lives of injustice. It resembles the doctrine of orig? inal sin. It makes injustice inevitable and it therefore devalues the very idea of justice. If we cannot come anywhere close to being just, we may conclude, why both with justice at all? (iv) Unequal connections. It can be argued that justice is relevant only under conditions of reciprocity. I have obligations of justice to you if you have oblig? ations to me, and not if you do not. Those who think of justice in this way sometimes go on to say that the institutions and cultures that permit reci? procity exist within national borders but not across them. While Carens (1987) as well as Charles Beitz (1999a, 1999b) and others have argued that John Rawls' (1971) difference principle should govern relationships of justice among everyone in the world, Rawls himself (1999) demurs. One can almost hear him saying, "I am not a Rawlsian," echoing Marx' famous denial. Rawls holds that within countries we participate in the same governing institutions which embody our collective commitment to justice. Such institutions are simply lacking internationally, so we are not connected to each other by a relationship of justice across borders. Rawls argues that an international sys? tem of states exists, the consequence being that states have obligations of jus? tice to one another, including the obligations to respect each other's sover? eignty and to refrain from intervening in their domestic affairs. He claims, however, that neither states nor individuals have obligations to individuals across borders. His argument may be too extreme, since many connections do in fact exist between individuals across borders. Immigrant communities, for example, often retain close connections to their countries of origin for gener? ations. It is reasonable to conclude, however, that institutional and emotion? across national borders are typically weaker than within bor? ders, so the obligation to provide justice to foreigners, while it exists, is weak? al connections er than the obligation to provide justice to fellow citizens. The four arguments carry different weights under different circum? stances, and it is not necessary to accept them all in order to accept the idea that our obligations to our fellow citizens are greater than to foreigners. The important feature they all share is that they are based on liberal premises. They are all consistent with the equal moral standing of each person in the

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world, and they stay away from arguments about the primacy of community and culture, in distinction to some non-liberal defenses of immigration con? trols (for example, Walzer, 1983). They deny that equal moral standing gives rise to a requirement of equal treatment. If any of the four arguments is cor? rect, we are justified in giving prior consideration to fellow citizens. The next step in a liberal argument for border controls is to identify some reason connected with justice for restricting access across a country's borders. In much of his writing, including the paper under consideration, Carens argues that border restrictions represent selfishness. "Restrictions on migra? tion usually serve as a protection for economic and political privilege," he writes. I have sympathy for this view, having come to much the same con? clusion myself (Isbister, 1996, 1999). If we impose border controls in order to protect our wealth, and further disadvantage people who are already dis? advantaged in the world, we fail any reasonable liberal test of justice. It is possible, however, that border controls serve the cause of justice, in Carens sometimes seems to imply that everyone in rich countries is rich, but of course some are not. Some are desperately poor, including the homeless, as well as many racial minorities, disabled, unem? ployed, single parents and others. An uncontrolled influx of poor people from at least one dimension. the third world might well make the condition of the poor in rich countries much worse. The immigrants might compete for jobs, take jobs away, lower wages. Their presence might relieve employers of having to improve working conditions in menial jobs, in order to attract a labor force. Much of the cur? rent debate about immigration revolves around exactly this point. Econo? mists are divided on whether the current level of immigration to the United States hurts the poor: the cross-sectional econometric studies show no nega? tive impact (Isbister, 1996: Chapter 5), while other types of studies show a big effect (Borjas, 1999: Chapter 4). Employer groups typically favor relax? ation of immigration restrictions - and the Wall StreetJournal calls for open borders ? while labor unions are generally opposed. It is an open question, therefore, whether current immigration into the United States hurts the American poor. There is not much doubt, though, that if immigration were unrestricted - resulting in an inflow probably many times as large as today's - the increase in labor supply would raise the gap between the rich and the poor. In other words, once we start to think of Americans (or people in any rich country) not as an undifferentiated group but as divided into groups with unequal incomes, the relationship between immigration restrictions and self-

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ishness begins to look the opposite of the way Carens has portrayed it. Open immigration would likely make the American rich richer and the American poor poorer. What is the relevance of this prediction? One could argue that the Ameri? can poor are typically better off than the third world poor: the Chicago man lives better that the Delhi man. If so, and if something like Rawls' difference principle is applicable internationally, perhaps the fate of the Chicago man is of no moment, certainly not in comparison to the fate of the Delhi man. I am not sure if Carens would go this far. People who accept the moral relevance of bor? ders, however, will think that the United States has a prior obligation to the Chicago man. At the very least, they will think, the United States may not harm him, as a perhaps unintended by-product of helping the Delhi man. In all like? lihood they will think that the United States must actually help him - and must not help the Delhi man unless this can be done at the same time as helping the Chicago man. In sum, the two prongs of a liberal argument in favor of immigration con? trols are 1) that a country is justified in meeting the needs of its own disadvantaged citizens before the needs of disadvantaged foreigners, and 2) that unlim? ited immigration poses a threat to the most disadvantaged countries. residents of rich

I do not think this is a strong enough moral argument to permit the elim? ination of immigration. A rich country like the United States has an obligation to relieve the most serious suffering abroad, particularly by admitting stateless refugees. It is, however, a good argument against unlimited immigration. Lib? erals have to contend with a moral conflict here, and it will likely lead them to endorse something like the current level of immigration: large but not over? whelming. Carens does say that the case for open borders needs to be made "from the perspective of what liberal justice requires in a (relatively) just world," and he might reject my argument on the grounds that it presumes a desperately unjust world. Certainly one can imagine a world so just that no immigration restric? tions would be needed. It would be a stable world, with no major social inequities within or between countries, and no wholesale social dislocations of the sort that generate immigration flows. In such a world, people might want to move across national boundaries for a variety of reasons, but the flows would be roughly equal in and out of countries and they would create no disruptions. This is not what Carens means by a just world, however. If the world were so just that people could be equally fulfilled anywhere, immigration

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would

to public policy is justice, not selfishness. What I have tried to show is that, in such a world, liberals trying to fashion the most defensible immigration policy will find themselves caught between their domestic and their foreign obligations and will have to make compromises: neither completely open nor tightly shut borders, but some? thing in between. REFERENCES

be unimportant to most people, and it would lose its interest for Carens. What he means by a just world, I think, is a world characterized by all the inequities that mar our actual world, but one in which the only guide

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