Five moral aspects to migration issuesAdapted from A. F. Rowlands - ‘‘On the Temptations of Sovereignty: The Task of Catholic Social Teaching

and the Challenge of UK Asylum Seeking’in Political Theology 12 (2011), pp. 843-869.

1.The right not to migrate

•In CST the person has inalienable dignity

•They are also socially entangled with others as the rest of God’s creation

•The assumption is that these relationships should build a community that protects the conditions for human flourishing.

When they do not...

2. The right to migrate in the face of genuine

danger

• Danger = violent conflict, persecution, famine; where the community fails to protect

• It is not simply looking for an alternative, but sanctuary

• Absolute and natural right

• Where the individual is harmed so too is the common good

• The dignity of the person is recognised in the sense of meaningful global citizenship

3. Moral requirement to receive and protect

• The right to migrate implies that somewhere must receive the migrant

• Government task - to mediate between this and its care for its own society

• Balance between:

• universal good of personal protection,

• local good of the community

4. Imperfect right to regulate borders

• The balance between goods must include that a government control migration flow

• Political community is sovereign

• Borders are a relative good - good when they help maintain conditions for human flourishing

• Decisions must be just and transparent

5. Need for migrant integration

• Human flourishing is within social relationships

• The common good is fulfilled through individuals’

• Each individual has particular value

• :. the migrant should have an active political, social and cultural role in the community

• We all have a role in enabling that