The ethical cases for immigration as a human right

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(The Conversation) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested roughly 50,000 immigrants in July and August 2026; almost 80% of those migrants did not have a criminal record. Until the end of the Biden administration, federal authorities did not expect migrants to leave the country while their visa renewal was pending . The Trump administration has changed that policy.

ICE has defended itself for the overall scale of detentions by saying that it is simply enforcing federal immigration law . However, immigrant rights advocates are skeptical about this claim and wary about the lack of oversight of ICE agents .

This scale of immigration enforcement raises fundamental philosophical questions: What ethical obligations do governments have to prospective migrants? And what claims to admission do migrants have?

As a scholar of migration ethics , I have studied the arguments philosophers make about migration. Many philosophers claim that immigration should be understood as a human right. From their perspective, governments have an important responsibility to tread carefully when denying…