Mich "Conflicting associative duties: when special obligations to exclude and to include foreigners clash."

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Andrès Salazar

A prevalent argument to justify immigration restrictions stems from special associative duties and compatriot partiality. Institutional actors often employ strategies to protect our compatriots from the costs and risks associated with immigration, leading to highly restrictive immigration policies. However, these policies, particularly in certain polities, increasingly require citizens to comply with them and even actively support their enforcement. In these instances, immigration law compels citizens to avoid or suspend their associations with unauthorised migrants or report them to immigration authorities. This results in special associative duties among compatriots given precedence over other forms of associations, including those between locals and foreigners, creating an imbalance between our associations with compatriots and those with foreigners.

I argue that the rationale for highly restrictive immigration policies, grounded in associative duties, faces significant constraints when it comes to citizens who bear special obligations towards foreigners. If associative duties are mobilised to justify special obligations, and thus immigration restrictions, they also imply a qualified moral permissibility for citizens to potentially violate immigration laws. Associative duties and compatriot partiality also introduce an ethical dilemma, where citizens are torn between their special obligations towards their compatriots and those towards foreigners.