Immigration and Freedom - by Chandran Kukathas

About the Book

"Few would deny that immigration controls are restrictions on individual freedom. In debates about immigration, however, freedom is rarely mentioned. When it is raised it is usually indirectly, and the contending parties typically divide into those who question the wisdom or the morality of limiting the movement of would-be immigrants and others who think such restrictions warranted. The language of freedom rarely makes an appearance, perhaps because the liberty of foreigners or aliens does not really interest most people. Advocates of immigrants express a concern for the welfare of outsiders; others appeal to the welfare of natives and the integrity of the nation. The point of this book is to establish freedom as the basis of the immigration question. Chandran Kukathas argues that what's at stake is nothing less than the liberty of citizens and residents of the free society, and therefore the free society itself. To put it simply, immigration controls are controls on people, and it is not possible to control some people without controlling others. More specifically, it is not possible to control outsiders (aliens, foreigners, would-be immigrants) without controlling insiders as well, and to enforce immigration control is to enforce control generally. The author shows why this must be so, and explains why it is significant. Over the course of eight chapters and an epilogue, the books draws anecdotally on current and historical immigration practices in Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore and most of the major Western European countries, but the information is deployed in service of an accessible, first-principles argument. To assess immigration, he says, we must think then about what we value most about our society and also come to a clearer understanding about what we mean by immigration in the first place. In the conclusion, he defends the need for greater freedom of movement-which ultimately means a world of more open borders"--

Book Synopsis

A compelling account of the threat immigration control poses to the citizens of free societies

Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self-determination. In this book, however, Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control.

Kukathas shows that immigration control is not merely about preventing outsiders from moving across borders. It is about controlling what outsiders do once in a society: whether they work, reside, study, set up businesses, or share their lives with others. But controlling outsiders--immigrants or would-be immigrants--requires regulating, monitoring, and sanctioning insiders, those citizens and residents who might otherwise hire, trade with, house, teach, or generally associate with outsiders. The more vigorously immigration control is pursued, the more seriously freedom is diminished. The search for control threatens freedom directly and weakens the values upon which it relies, notably equality and the rule of law. Kukathas demonstrates that the imagined gains from efforts to control immigration are illusory, for they do not promote economic prosperity or social solidarity. Nor does immigration control bring self-determination, since the apparatus of control is an international institutional regime that increases the power of states and their agencies at the expense of citizens. That power includes the authority to determine who is and is not an insider: to define identity itself.

Looking at past and current practices across the world, Immigration and Freedom presents a critique of immigration control as an institutional reality, as well as an account of what freedom means--and why it matters.

Review Quotes

"A revelatory rethinking of immigration controls from one of today's most original and incisive political philosophers."--Leif Wenar, Stanford University

"Chandran Kukathas turns current public and academic debates over immigration on their head in this careful, original, and compelling account of how border controls infringe the liberties of the very citizens they aim to protect. Immigration and Freedom is little short of a revelation."--Matthew J. Gibney, University of Oxford

"Political philosophy at its best makes us rethink our collective life by offering a fresh and enlightened, possibly surprising perspective. Immigration and Freedom masterfully achieves that, as it redirects our attention from what happens at our borders, important as it is, to the society of surveillance that arises with the control of migrants. Chandran Kukathas's treatise is an exemplary work of 'grounded' political theory uncompromising in its quest for individual freedom pitched against the power of the nation-state."--Rainer Forst, Goethe University Frankfurt

"Sober and balanced, Immigration and Freedom explores the threat that the prevalent state focus on immigration control poses to the ideal of an open society. Kukathas draws out the ways--both blatant and subtle--in which immigration control limits the freedom of outsiders and insiders alike. This impressive and original book is quite unlike anything else published in this field."--David Owen, author of What Do We Owe to Refugees?

"This important book looks at immigration through the lens of freedom, which no theorists working on immigration have done previously. Its entire argument is well-crafted and the work makes an important contribution to the political theory literature on immigration."--Jeff Spinner-Halev, author of Enduring Injustice

About the Author

Chandran Kukathas is the Lee Kong Chian Professor of Political Science and Dean of the School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University. He is the author of Hayek and Modern Liberalism and The Liberal Archipelago. He lives in Singapore.