From the Ethics of Immigration to the Politics of Borders.

Democracy has a boundary problem: the boundaries of democratic communities have not been and in all likelihood cannot be democratically legitimated. This problem is occasionally noted but generally avoided: since it is a seemingly intractable problem for democratic legitimacy, democratic theorists prefer to focus on the nature of legitimate political institutions, rather than the legitimate boundaries of democratic communities. This paper argues that the strategy of avoiding the legitimation challenge presented by borders is a mistake, and one productive way to engage the challenge is through normative evaluation of immigration and border control policy in democratic states. To that end, I survey several arguments about the ethics of border control and immigration policy, ranging from a defense of highly restrictive border policies (David Miller) to a defense of open borders (Joseph Carens). Despite important policy differences, the normative literature on immigration shares two errors: first, this literature fails to consider the unintended consequences of border policy, especially with regard to the impact on the social and political life of borderlands. Second, the literature fails to acknowledge the potential democratic agency of the excluded would-be border-crossers. For a political theory of immigration to help us address the legitimation challenge presented by borders, these issues must be addressed. The paper concludes with a sketch of what a political theory of immigration that overcomes these two shortcomings might look like, with help from Seyla Benhabib's conception of 'democratic iterations' and Bonnie Honig's conception of 'democratic takings.' ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]