Migration and Manipulation

Abstract

Abstract Much modern discussion of the morality of migration begins with the concept of coercion, and takes the coercive nature of border enforcement as especially salient in the moral analysis of migration policy. Much migration control, however, begins not with overt coercion, but with what I term manipulations; these are ways of making migration more difficult that do not resemble canonical cases of coercion. Examples include the alteration of the physical pathways between states, attempts to deceive or mislead prospective migrants about what they will discover upon arrival, and the deliberate use of abstract and complex rules to make legal migration difficult or impossible. I argue that these manipulations are worthy of independent moral examination—and that the tradition of classical liberalism has resources with which to undertake this examination.