Carens Arguments Against Immigration

The dynamics of ethical immigration based upon the assumption that both individual and state have possessed the power to make choices between the available alternatives. Consequently, it could be happening in some cases these entities confronted each other. A recent move by the US would be sufficed to explore this phenomenon. People who are fleeing from Syria are seeking immigration status based on refugee category, though the US imposes a ban on them until the country has introduced an extremely vetting measure that eventually subdue the potential terror risk associated with immigration. Nonetheless, it has often been argued by the states around the world that their governments have every right to make a decision to safe its citizens life …show more content…
He rhetorically expressed state sovereignty by saying “borders have guards and the guards have guns” to protect unwarranted aliens. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” is not achievable if we preserve state sovereignty as our top priority according to him. He put forward three arguments based on three different political theories, namely utilitarianism; Rawlsianism; and Nozickianism. Despite their differences, they yield the same conclusion favoring open borders. By endorsing these arguments, Carens wants to challenge the claim that states may choose to be generous in admitting immigrants, but they are under no obligation to do so in order to establish that borders should generally be open and that people should normally be free to leave their country of origin and settle in another. The absence of free movement simply asserts the lack of our autonomy. Our lives are full of richness that includes activities, such as love, marriage, educating children, jobs, hobbies, sporting events, cultural pursuits, intellectual development, and striving, etc., from which we can choose the desired life styles for us that can be considered as a ‘conception of a good life’. Choosing among conceptions of the good life and trying to live out such a conception are expressing the fact that we are autonomous being. Carens claims that the right to free movement in fact promotes individual’s autonomy, understood as the opportunity to pursue their conceptions of the good life. He justified the free of movement between nation states based on an analogy. The justification for the right to freedom of movement within a state is that it enables someone to travel as needed to carry out their