Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration

What if the central question surrounding migrants’ rights were not what rights displaced persons have but rather who is responsible for protecting them? The latter is the question Rajendra pursues in this timely work. Arguing against the notion that migrants are isolated, rational actors, she shows how both family and global histories shape the flow of populations. Turning to the Bible, she reads the Hebraic rules regarding resident aliens not as simple guidelines but as emblematic of the type of relationship Christianity calls us to have with strangers. Using this scriptural support, she argues for a relational justice that emphasizes the need for everyday citizens to do their part to minimize harms. Her insistence that we need better, truer narratives about migrants before we can begin to enact this new form of justice is especially persuasive. Although she writes from an academic perspective, Rajendra has a talent for making complex philosophical positions transparent and bringing rarefied debates to earth. Scholars of ethics, theorists of migration, and others grappling with the question of their duties towards migrants will come away with a fresh sense of their obligations. (Aug.)