Immigrant Oppression and Social Justice

Abstract

My dissertation provides a partial response to the question of what is owed by states to undocumented migrants in their territory. According to one prominent philosophical position, long-term undocumented migrants should be allowed to remain because they have become de facto social members of the society in question. I contend that this view, while important, neglects a different category of undocumented migrant: those who are oppressed while living in the new society. I argue that oppressed undocumented migrants are owed, as a matter of justice, a right to remain in the state where the oppression took place. To do this, I employ a bottom up philosophical approach in order to develop a descriptive and normative account of undocumented migrant oppression (i.e., what it is, and why it is unjust). I call those who are oppressed as undocumented migrants the "socially undocumented". I show why, in light of the normative account of undocumented migrant oppression, a right to remain for the socially undocumented is the only just solution to this perplexing social problem.