Discrimination at the Border

In selecting among prospective immigrants, it is widely accepted that states are morally permitted to differentiate on the basis of certain traits, such as skills and education, but not on the basis of other traits, such as race, ethnicity, and religion. Whereas many see the former as a legitimate exercise of self-determination by the state, the latter is widely condemned as wrongful discrimination. But these views prove difficult to defend in conjunction. This, I argue, is because the strongest accounts of why race, ethnicity, and religion are not morally acceptable criteria for immigrant selection threaten to also rule out selection based on skill and education. This implies that the set of morally acceptable criteria for selecting among prospective immigrants may be narrower than typically thought. 

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