Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T02:48:45.951Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Immigration and Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Johannes Knolle
Affiliation:
Imperial College London
James Poskett
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Chandran Kukathas
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Filippo Grandi
Affiliation:
United Nations Refugee Agency
Eva Harris
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Kavita Puri
Affiliation:
BBC
Venki Ramakrishnan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Iain Couzin
Affiliation:
Universität Konstanz, Germany
Get access

Summary

Immigration is the subject that dominates politics in our time, most particularly in the liberal democratic Western countries of Europe, North America, and Australasia. While immigration has become an issue in many other nations – from Singapore looking to manage local attitudes to its large expatriate population, to Colombia facing an influx of desperate Venezuelans – in the liberal democracies it has provoked a backlash against outsiders as politicians as well as analysts of various stripes identify it as an existential question. Immigration for many is not just a source of unwelcome competition in the labour market or a problem for citizens struggling to gain access to over-subscribed public services from transport to health care. The threat it poses is not a financial one, or a matter of inconvenience, but an existential one.1 Immigration poses a threat to fundamental liberal, democratic (American, Australian, Canadian, British, or European) values. It is for this reason above all that immigration must be controlled: to protect those values; and, by doing so, for these countries to take (back) control of their destinies. To some extent, it is the fear of losing control more broadly speaking that drives the imperative to control immigration.

Type
Chapter
Information
Migration , pp. 18 - 49
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×