Immigration and Punishment: Against the Laws of Penal Inadmissibility

Abstract

Are laws that forbid the entrance of foreigners in a state on grounds of their criminal record morally justifiable? Taking as a starting point Cecile Fabre's arguments (2016) against Joseph Caren's use of these laws or criteria of inadmissibility (2013), I consider a series of plausible arguments against these criteria to ultimately reject each of them. Instead, I offer a different and substantive normative critique against this criterion of penal inadmissibility based on the principle of equality, pivotal to any plausible political theory and, thus, central to an adequate conception of punishment within the political community. Ultimately, I deem penal inadmissibility unjustifiable within a political community that aspires to respect each individual's equal moral status.