"The Freedom of the Migrant presents a series of reflections on national, ethnic, and cultural identity, offering a unique perspective on such topics as communication, nomadism, housing, nationalism, migrant cultures, and Jewish identity."--BOOK JACKET.

A compelling account of the threat immigration control poses to the citizens of free societies Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self-determination. In this book, however, Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control. Kukathas shows that immigration control is not merely about preventing outsiders from moving across borders. It is about controlling what outsiders do once in a society: whether they work, reside, study, set up businesses, or share their lives with others. But controlling outsiders—immigrants or would-be immigrants—requires regulating, monitoring, and sanctioning insiders, those citizens and residents who might otherwise hire, trade with, house, teach, or generally associate with outsiders. The more vigorously immigration control is pursued, the more seriously freedom is diminished. The search for control threatens freedom directly and weakens the values upon which it relies, notably equality and the rule of law. Kukathas demonstrates that the imagined gains from efforts to control immigration are illusory, for they do not promote economic prosperity or social solidarity. Nor does immigration control bring self-determination, since the apparatus of control is an international institutional regime that increases the power of states and their agencies at the expense of citizens. That power includes the authority to determine who is and is not an insider: to define identity itself. Looking at past and current practices across the world, Immigration and Freedom presents a critique of immigration control as an institutional reality, as well as an account of what freedom means—and why it matters.

Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But it has two major shortcomings: individual voters have little chance of making a difference, and they face strong incentives to remain ignorant about the issues at stake. "Voting with your feet," however, avoids both these pitfalls and offers a wider range of choices. In Free to Move, Ilya Somin explains how broadening opportunities for foot voting can greatly enhance political liberty for millions of people around the world. People can vote with their feet through international migration, choosing where to live within a federal system, and by making decisions in the private sector. Somin addresses a variety of common objections to expanded migration rights, including claims that the "self-determination" of natives requires giving them the power to exclude migrants, and arguments that migration is likely to have harmful side effects, such as undermining political institutions, overburdening the welfare state, increasing crime and terrorism, and spreading undesirable cultural values. While these objections are usually directed at international migration, Somin shows how a consistent commitment to such theories would also justify severe restrictions on domestic freedom of movement. By making a systematic case for a more open world, Free to Move challenges conventional wisdom on both the left and the right. This revised and expanded edition addresses key new issues, including fears that migration could spread dangerous diseases, such as Covid-19, claims that immigrants might generate a political backlash that threatens democracy, and the impact of remote work.

International borders have become deadly barriers of a proportion rivaled only by war or natural disaster. Yet despite the damage created by borders, most people can’t – or don’t want to – imagine a world without them. What alternatives do we have to prevent the deadly results of contemporary borders? In today’s world, national citizenship determines a person’s ability to migrate across borders. Migration Borders Freedom questions that premise. Recognizing the magnitude of deaths occurring at contemporary borders worldwide, the book problematizes the concept of the border and develops arguments for open borders and a world without borders. It explores alternative possibilities, ranging from the practical to the utopian, that link migration with ideas of community, citizenship, and belonging. The author calls into question the conventional political imagination that assumes migration and citizenship to be responsibilities of nation states, rather than cities. While the book draws on the theoretical work of thinkers such as Ernst Bloch, David Harvey, and Henry Lefebvre, it also presents international empirical examples of policies and practices on migration and claims of belonging. In this way, the book equips the reader with the practical and conceptual tools for political action, activist practice, and scholarly engagement to achieve greater justice for people who are on the move. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315638300 has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book offers an accessible examination of the human rights of migrants in the context of the UN’s negotiations in 2018. This volume has two main contributions. Firstly, it is designed to inform the negotiations on the UN’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration announced by the New York Declaration of the UN General Assembly on 19 September 2016. Second, it intends to assist officials, lawyers and academics to ensure that the human rights of migrants are fully respected by state authorities and international organisations and safeguarded by national and supranational courts across the globe. The overall objective of this book is to clarify problem areas which migrants encounter as non-citizens of the state where they are and how international human rights obligations of those states provide solutions. It defines the existing international human rights of migrants and provides the source of States’ obligations. In order to provide a clear and useful guide to the existing human rights of migrants, the volume examines these rights from the perspective of the migrant: what situations do people encounter as their status changes from citizen (in their own country) to migrant (in a foreign state), and how do human rights provide legal entitlements regarding their treatment by a foreign state? This book will be of much interest to students of migration, human rights, international law and international relations.

From Alaska to Florida, millions of immigrants and their supporters took to the streets across the United States to rally for immigrant rights in the spring of 2006. The scope and size of their protests, rallies, and boycotts made these the most significant events of political activism in the United States since the 1960s. This accessibly written volume offers the first comprehensive analysis of this historic moment. Perfect for students and general readers, its essays, written by a multidisciplinary group of scholars and grassroots organizers, trace the evolution and legacy of the 2006 protest movement in engaging, theoretically informed discussions. The contributors cover topics including unions, churches, the media, immigrant organizations, and immigrant politics. Today, one in eight U.S. residents was born outside the country, but for many, lack of citizenship makes political voice through the ballot box impossible. This book helps us better understand how immigrants are making their voices heard in other ways.

In this book, Mireya Loza sheds new light on the private lives of migrant men who participated in the Bracero Program (1942–1964), a binational agreement between the United States and Mexico that allowed hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers to enter this country on temporary work permits. While this program and the issue of temporary workers has long been politicized on both sides of the border, Loza argues that the prevailing romanticized image of braceros as a family-oriented, productive, legal workforce has obscured the real, diverse experiences of the workers themselves. Focusing on underexplored aspects of workers' lives--such as their transnational union-organizing efforts, the sexual economies of both hetero and queer workers, and the ethno-racial boundaries among Mexican indigenous braceros--Loza reveals how these men defied perceived political, sexual, and racial norms. Basing her work on an archive of more than 800 oral histories from the United States and Mexico, Loza is the first scholar to carefully differentiate between the experiences of mestizo guest workers and the many Mixtec, Zapotec, Purhepecha, and Mayan laborers. In doing so, she captures the myriad ways these defiant workers responded to the intense discrimination and exploitation of an unjust system that still persists today.