Borders , Walls , and

At the heart of Carens's careful exploration lies a core norm or belief: " The moral right of states to apprehend and deport irregular migrants erodes with the passage of time. " This then leads him to the proposition that amnesty should be the result of that passage of time. The passage of time represents attachments, a life well-lived, contributions to the community, the absence of a criminal record after years of residence. The determination of what length of time is meaningful in this domain is partly empirical in that it ought to capture actual life processes and societal connections, and these can vary enormously depending on the individual and the situation. " At some point a threshold is crossed, and they acquire a moral claim to have their actual social membership legally recognized " (Carens, p. 18). Legal recognition basically involves the right to permanent residence and all the rights that go with it, including eventually the right to citizenship. It is easy to produce a vast number of counterarguments to this proposition about the consequences of the passing of time and the notion of actual social membership. It is more difficult to deny the validity of the core principle it signals, a norm that may well override the legal constraint. This difficulty becomes clear in the responses of the six distinguished scholars from diverse disciplines and with diverse political, ethical, or policy positions. For some, Carens goes too far in his emphasis on time spent in the country and in his invocation of a norm that can override the law. For others, he does not go far enough in protecting the rights of migrants. Some of the respondents invoke more scholarly arguments or invite us to understand the historical details easily drowned out by political arguments. Carens's basic proposition, one that carries normative weight, is that social membership does not depend on official permission. From a practical point