Abstract

Much of the original philosophical literature on immigration focused on the general question of whether borders should be open. More recently, more specific questions regarding immigration have come to the fore. This article considers an important attempt to show that consideration of one of these more specific questions, the ethical limits on the enforcement of immigration law, leads to an answer to the general question of whether borders should be open. On this indirect argument for open borders, even if we assume that states have the right to exclude, the ethical limits on the means used to enforce this right imply that borders should be open. In early 2026, with President Trump using novel tactics to enforce immigration law and anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise in many countries, it may seem that this indirect argument is correct. However, using the United States’ Chinese Exclusion Cases as an example, I argue that the ethical limits on the means used to enforce the right to exclude do not imply that borders should be open.