On a certain orthodox Kantian view, when states violate migrants' rights to enter a foreign country , citizens of that country must comply with the laws and refrain from helping them gain access. After all, (i) philanthropic efforts are strictly subordinated to questions of right, and (ii) an important precondition of right is recognition of the state's authority to determine what counts as right in practice. Moreover, because the state has a mandate to control its borders, fixing rules for entry lies squarely within its jurisdiction. If its determination is unjust by some substantive standard, citizens ought to protest and campaign against it. But they may not violate it. Against this, I argue that the best understanding of Kantian political principles does not entail these conclusions. Rather, citizens may resist the state's pronouncements on matters like this and aid refugees in gaining entry to their target country, as long as they can do so without (a) compromising the stability of the state or (b) violating their neighbors' rights.Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality. Here, as in the preceding articles, it is not a question of philanthropy but of right, so that hospitality (hospitableness) means the right of a foreigner not to be treated with hostility because he has arrived on the land of another. The other can turn him away, if this can be done without destroying him, but as long as he behaves peaceably where he is, he cannot be treated with hostility. What he can claim is not the right to be a guest … but the right to visit, to present oneself to society, belongs to all human beings by virtue of the right of possession in common with the earth's surface, on which, as a sphere, they cannot disperse infinitely but must finally put up with being near one another. 1 Both philanthropy and respect for the rights of the human being are duties: but the former is only a conditional duty whereas the latter is unconditional duty, commanding absolutely, and whoever wants to give himself up to the sweet feeling of beneficence must first be completely assured that he has not transgressed this unconditional duty. 2
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