ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some broad theories of immigrant rights. It also looks at different theories of rights migrants who are present in a territory should be granted. The chapter also considers a view that looks at rights less from the perspective of what each individual person is owed and more from a perspective of shaping a whole society so that there is no group-based subordination. One basis for migrant rights is to ground them in human rights. Few theorists think that these exhaust the rights of migrants, but they are often thought, for instance by Carens, to set at least a floorof rights that all people present in a territory must be granted. Owen Fiss points out a very serious moral concern that immigrants can become a “pariah” group, living at the margins of society and treated with contempt.
