Abstract
At the beginning of this book, Ryan Pevnick announces that he will eschew both the open borders and sovereign control of borders positions that continue to dominate debate around the ethics of immigration in favour of a third way where immigration decisions are, as the title suggests, subject to the constraints of justice. In practice, however, the position he argues for is much closer to the sovereign borders view since Pevnick believes that states are basically entitled to admit whom they see fit with the exception of refugees and the destitute. However, this is not to impugn a well-argued book that is a fine addition to the political theory literature on immigration.
The core of Pevnick's argument is a theory of ‘associative ownership’ according to which citizens who have contributed to the maintenance of a set of political institutions (for example, through paying taxes) come to own those institutions and are therefore presumptively entitled to decide who can make use of them. Only in extreme cases, as with refugees and the indigent, can that presumptive right be overridden by considerations of justice. I was not sure whether citizens could really have a property right in their political institutions; and even if they did, whether this gave them the right to exclude outsiders. In addition, the associative ownership view seemed liable to the objection that outsiders do not really choose not to contribute to a state's political institutions; they are simply not able to, for reasons which may themselves be unjust. At times, Pevnick suggests that if a previous generation has established ownership of its political institutions, then subsequent generations can come to inherit them, but that seems to raise questions too. Moreover, in a book with a US focus, it was odd to read nothing about family reunification, this being one of the chief categories of immigrants to the United States.
These concerns notwithstanding, Pevnick skilfully combines philosophical argument with a contemporary policy focus in this book. He has interesting things to say about the nature of coercion, the site of distributive justice and the benefits of temporary labour migration. I would have liked to read more about what the associative ownership view implies in practice; a great deal of space in the book is devoted to criticisms of views in conflict with Pevnick's own, which gives it a slightly defensive feel. Overall, however, this is a very good book which will certainly be of interest to all scholars of immigration.