Copio íntegra la conclusión del ensayo Is there a right to immigrate?, de Michael Huemer. Me parece muy atinada su perspectiva (en particular su referencia a la doble moral que introduce el nacionalismo) y comparto enteramente sus valoraciones.
In contemporary debates over immigration policy, the negative rights of potential immigrants have been conspicuously ignored. Most discussion centers on the benefits or harms, to existing citizens, of an increase or decrease in immigration. Some discussion focuses on the alleged positive rights of potential immigrants, under certain theories of distributive justice—for instance, perhaps all human beings have a positive right to receive assistance in meeting their basic needs. In his influential defense of open borders, Joseph Carens argues that a policy of open borders follows from any of three influential theories of justice: a Nozickean libertarianism, a Rawlsian theory of distributive justice, and utilitarianism. But while Carens’ case should be persuasive for most theorists of justice, it may be resisted by those who doubt all three of the theories of justice to which Carens appeals.
In my view, most parties to the immigration debate have overlooked the simplest and most
powerful consideration in favor of open borders: the rights of the foreign-born to be free from harmful coercion. In restricting the flow of immigration, the government does not merely allow a harm to occur, nor does it merely refrain from conferring a benefit; the government actively and coercively interferes with people’s acting to satisfy their needs, in a way that is extremely harmful to most potential immigrants. In the face of this consideration, the most common anti-immigration arguments, appealing to the economic or fiscal impacts of immigration or the desires of native-born citizens to maintain their culture as it is, can be seen as more or less irrelevant—they do not appear to come anywhere close to justifying a violation of the prima facie rights of potential immigrants to be free from harmful coercion.The argument for open borders does not rest upon controversial moral theories or controversial theories of justice. For instance, one need not accept the existence of positive rights or duties. Whether or not one believes that individuals or governments have a positive obligation to assist others in need, nearly everyone accepts that one may not coercively prevent those in need from satisfying their needs. Nor need one accept either libertarianism, or Rawls’ theory of justice, or utilitarianism, all three of which are controversial theories. One can motivate the thought that it is prima facie wrong to harmfully coerce others without appealing to any general theory of justice, but appealing instead only to a very widely shared and simple moral intuition.
It is initially puzzling that this simple argument has not gained more prominence in the
immigration debate. The best explanation for this oversight, I believe, lies in two common mistakes in moral thinking. The first mistake is that of thinking of the government of a country as if it were a person who owns that country’s territory. This tempts one to think that, just as an individual may exclude anyone he likes from his own property, so the government may exclude anyone it likes from its territory. The problem with this thinking is that different parcels of land are owned by different individuals, some of whom are happy to allow illegal immigrants onto their land.The second and, in this context, more important mistake is that of ignoring or discounting the rights and interests of foreigners, merely because they are foreigners. Comparable to racism, sexism, and speciesism, this bias might be called “nationalism.” Nationalist bias can also cause one to overestimate the dangers posed by foreigners and to overlook or underestimate the benefits to be gained from interaction with foreigners. Racism once caused white Americans to ignore the rights of blacks and to treat small advantages to members of their own race as more important than the most vital interests of members of other races. Similarly, nationalism has caused present-day Americans to overlook the rights of foreigners and to treat small advantages to Americans as more important than the most vital interests of foreigners. Only thus could Americans have been led to think that a small reduction in wage rates for some American workers outweighed the rights of foreigners not to be subjected to extremely harmful coercion. Once we overcome this bias, we will see foreign-born persons and American-born persons as moral equals. Seeing persons of all nationalities as equal need not lead us to abandon the view that the U.S. government has special obligations to its own citizens. But it will surely lead us to abandon the view that modest economic interests of some Americans can outweigh vital rights of the foreign-born.
