ABSTRACT
The range of criteria used for selecting immigrants historically and in the contemporary world is wide. States have relied on factors including an immigrant’s race, ethnicity, religion, skills, family ties, linguistic knowledge, and persecution in their home country. This chapter explains the limits of the state’s discretion over immigrant selection by examining which criteria are impermissible. It discusses in more detail family migration and which kinds of relationships should be given priority by the state. The chapter looks at selection procedures: the criteria states can use to determine who is permitted to enter their territories. It also looks at race, ethnicity, and gender and also used each of these examples as case studies to illustrate moral concerns, including expressive harms and stereotyping, that can be applied to all of forms of selection. The chapter considers cultural selection, which, raises some difficult questions about how to define nations and national belonging: for example, what is to be an Icelander.
