Immigration Ethics
The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics explores ethical issues in immigration.
What Is Immigration Ethics?
by Jonathan Kwan, former Inclusive Excellence Postdoctoral Fellow in Immigration Ethics with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
Immigration ethics refers broadly to the normative issues that arise from the movement of individuals across borders. One of the central questions in immigration ethics concerns whether states should restrict immigration or open their borders and what should be the values on the basis of which this determination is made. Although much of the public discourse on immigration is framed in binary terms (one is either for or against immigration), immigration ethics encompasses many issues beyond, though also including, the question of whether states should limit immigrant admissions. For instance, once immigrants have entered a state, what rights and privileges should they have? Should unauthorized immigrations have access to a path to citizenship?
The Ethics of Immigration Enforcement
This Ethics Spotlight explores the ethical dimensions of immigration enforcement and detention in the United States—particularly the role of ICE under the current administration.
Words Matter: Illegal Immigrant, Undocumented Immigrant, or Unauthorized Immigrant?
The labels used to refer to different classes of individuals are not merely neutral descriptors but often implicitly create associations or value judgments.
From an ethical standpoint, immigration law should be applied consistently and fairly, not selectively based on ideology.
While reasonable people may disagree about the best practical strategies to manage immigration and deportation, certainly a complicated issue, core ethical principles should be considered and followed at all times.
The current state of immigration in America reflects a systemic failure and only attention to addressing these long-term failures will set it on its correct path.
When agencies such as ICE target identity rather than conduct, they violate fundamental principles of governmental ethics: that law enforcement must serve all persons equally and that government power must be exercised impartially under law.
Ethics Spotlight: The Ethics of Immigration
A collection of articles addressing key ethical immigration dilemmas.
Immigration Articles
Articles on the ethical issues in immigration such as citizenship, migration, borders, ICE, and other related topics.
Case Studies
Case studies pertaining to immigration ethics issues.
Borderland: An Interview Series on Immigration Ethics
Amy Reed-Sandoval on Migration, Gender, and Pregnancy
In the second episode in this video series our guest is Amy Reed, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and participating faculty in the Latinx and Latin American Studies Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the author of Socially Undocumented: Identity and Immigration Justice, which was published last year by Oxford University Press, and co-editor of Latin American Immigration Ethics and Ética, Política, y Migración.