Immigration policies and what is the right thing to do morally or practically has been a major point of argument over the years. From Risse’s article, we get both moral and practical standpoints on immigration. Kukathas shares a similar view in her article supporting open immigration and also showing the challenges towards it. On the other hand, Brock argues against the immigration policies of healthcare worker recruitment to developed countries. Lastly, Mill shares a similar philosophy, however a little more exceptional through his concept of social alarm. All in all, by comparing and contrasting these articles the key differences that I deduced is that Risse and Kukathas are both one-sided towards the immigrating countries where as Brock and Mill address more about the home countries and their problems for immigration.
In the first article, Risse brings in a moral standpoint saying that the earth belongs to humanity in general and this matters for assessing while making the immigration policies (Risse, 2008). His moral arguments have a few important components starting from safety, security, land, space, and resources. Land, space, and resources are his focus over here. Risse uses the policies of immigration into the US to build his argument. His major argument states that the amount of land or space that the US exclusively holds power over is significantly large compared to its population. Thus, he thinks that illegal immigrants should be neutralized, and more widespread immigrants should be permitted (Risse, 2008). He raises a huge moral question is illegal immigration a moral thing to do? He introduces the term egalitarian ownership saying all humans share ownership of earth’s resources. He also talks about luck egalitarianism, saying it’s a matter of luck where someone is born and ends up now. Based on these two standpoints and the massive space being underused in the US Risse argues that the citizens of the US do not have the right to bar other people from entering the country. Thus he disagrees with the notion of illegal immigration, he says there is no such thing as that. All in all, Risse thinks the US has a lot of resources to share and he favors open immigration and morality of immigration. However, his moral philosophy is contradictory because people immigrate for opportunities, you would not live in a lot of space with no jobs or opportunities. To further justify his argument Risse compares US population density per square mile with other countries of the world. The overall population density per square mile in the US is 80 where whereas countries like Germany, the UK, Japan, the Netherlands, and Bangladesh have 600,600,830,1200 and 2600 respectively (Risse, 2008). This clearly shows that the US is severely misusing their land. Thus, he says that illegal immigration cannot be condemned in the US as they are underusing their resources and not letting more immigrants. Lastly, Risse talks about adverse possession, which states that there are many illegal immigrants across America working in their society with jobs, licenses, and other permits. These immigrants are well known by the society as well as the state but nothing much is done against it. Showing that there is an existence of a moral form of adverse possession.
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On the other hand, Kukathas is arguing for the freedom of immigration and defending it from all its critiques. He argues that borders should be open and movement should be free. According to him does not matter what perspective a person or group is from, starting from socialists, liberal, or libertarians everyone is guarded about immigration (Kukathas, 2005). Kukathas breaks down the chapter into six sections starting with the problems of immigration, its defense, economic perspectives, national perspectives, security perspectives, and lastly some dilemmas and reinforcement of his argument. First is the imposed cost on society and secondly, most of these liberal democratic states are welfare states. As a result, it’s a huge drawback if the immigrants are getting more benefits compared to the tax they are paying. Kukathas says labor unions and nativist groups would oppose immigration out concern of for their economy and environment. He explains this with a classic example of Australia refusing to offload human cargo in their borders from Norway in 2001(Kukathas, 2005). Proving that these states are reluctant to get new immigrants until and unless making sure they will be gaining more than they spend. To defend these immigrations from such issues Kukathas come up with two principles, freedom and humanity. By the principle of freedom, he means that borders restrict freedom of movement without having any established or sufficient reasoning making people indefensible (Kukathas, 2005). As a result, if people from a country are fleeing from unjust or tyranny then it's unfair to them. Same for people who are coming for friendship, love, duties, or family. Closing borders restricts workers from selling their labor and also restricts people from the freedom to associate. Thus Kukathas argues that the stated reasons for these restrictions are not strong enough to justify their side. Humanity on the other side is more concerned with global justice. A lot of people around the world living in poor conditions want to immigrate to developed countries to help improve their living conditions. In some cases, it is the alleviation of poverty. Restricting and denying such people entry is equal to denying them the right to get out of poverty or live a better life. Kukathas says there is no justification to deny them this positive assistance. For the economic challenges, he mentions the impacts on the local market economy and migrants on the cost and availability of state-funded resources. For national issues, he talks about changes in society, damages in culture, and difficulty in retaining social solidarity. Lastly in the security section, he talks about terrorism and the security of their political systems. All in all, Kukathas builds a strong case for free immigration by solving all these issues and proving that welfare states should rethink.
Brock in her article argues for ending or reducing health care worker recruitment from developing countries to developed countries. He addresses the citizens of affluent developed countries as “We” and citizens of developing countries as “Them”. The paradox of the reading is that countries that have the money to train doctors are attracting doctors from countries that do not have money to train them. As a utilitarian, the marginal utility in a poor country for a doctor is more than a rich country as they already have enough. Health care workers have the right to immigrate anywhere, but they are also obligated to compensate. A country like Bangladesh where there is a great shortage of doctors would maximize the utility of the doctor rather than adding one more to a country like Canada which would reduce the doctor’s value. Brock brings in two main examples, cheaper as there is no training cost and a global tax regime. She also talks about the various push factors and pull factors that bring these immigrant doctors. Brock uses the term ‘Brain Drain’ in his article, meaning that the emigration of skilled workers leaves behind only the low-skilled doctors, in a way draining the country’s skills (Brock, 2011). To conclude she believes “We” are allowing an injustice to happen by not restricting these immigrant doctors and causing suffering in the developing countries. Lastly, Mill states in his article that recruitment of health workers from sub-Saharan Africa is a crime. He shares a similar view as Brock, however, the only exception he provides is the social alarm in Africa. He points out that this is a widespread problem throughout Africa as millions are suffering due to an insufficient number of doctors available, for instance in Malawi there is one physician per 50000 people where whereas the Uk has 100 times more (Mill, 2008). There are also a lot of push factors involved that cause these doctors to flee such as poor living conditions, dangerous infectious diseases, and a lot more. Mill finds this outrageous and proves it is a crime.
By analysing the four articles I have found that they are complex and multifaceted. They reduce their articles to either “pro-immigration” or “anti-immigration”. All four articles try to point out the grey areas surrounding immigration. By comparing the four texts I have found that Risse and Kukatha's articles are more one-sided towards the immigrating countries and have a utilitarian approach, like Sandal’s freedom approach. He argues in favor of opening immigration. Kukathas give a similar vibe, but there are a few major differences between Risse's and Kukatha's articles. Risse is focused more on the moral standpoint of why people are entitled to immigration based on egalitarian ownership, on the other hand, Kukathas is solely dependent on the practical reasons and all the practical issues associated with them. Risse focuses on the US where as Kukathas focuses on a general standpoint based on economy, nationality, and security. Risse’s article is more concerned about the unused resources foreign people are entitled to in the US where as Kukathas discusses how immigration could get people out of poverty and tyranny of their home countries. All in all, Kukathas is more realistic compared to Risse and deals with more practical problems. Similarly, Brock and Mill argue about the same issue, both focus on reducing or restricting the immigration of doctors to developed countries. However, there is a significant difference, Brock argues that it should be stopped because of compatriotism and injustice however Mill’s paper states it’s a crime and caused major social alarms in Africa. Mill compared to all the other articles is significantly specific in terms of the percentages, numbers, and graphs. Miller, Risse, and Brock are more to the point, population density numbers and comparison of the number of nurses to doctors respectively. Comparing the solutions to the problems provided by all the authors the most effective solution in my opinion was Risse’s idea to grant visas to immigrant doctors on condition that the health care organization provide adequate compensation to the country of origin (Risse, 2008). Does not matter what rules and policies are made doctors will move to developed countries mainly due to push factors thus it is important to work something out around it. Finally comparing the texts, I feel that all four readings share the same goal, their main goal is to reach justice for people. Risse wanted to justify morally, whereas Kukathas more realistically that immigration should not be restricted but they both had weighted reasons like humanity and poverty. Similarly, Brock and Mill argued the restriction of only immigrating doctors whichdoeso not conflict with Risse and Kukatha's argument as they did not focus on any particular profession or sector. Brock and Mill also had sufficient established and weighted reasons which proved that morally and ethically it's wrong for doctors to immigrate to these developed countries stranding their fellow citizens to die.
Based on my discussion and textual comparison I think that the messages in these texts are complimentary. They might not be mutually exclusive, but they all share the same global goal, which is justice. Immigration has been a major issue for debates over the years and it is easy to prove someone wrong as it has different angles and ways to look at it. In many cases, it might be right to restrict freedom of movement, on the other hand injustice in doing so. What matters is if the policies and the ultimate goal of the developed nations is justice for the people, not exploiting them.
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