Birthright citizenship, immigration, and global poverty

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world-wide movement of peoples has increased from 175 million in 2000 to 218 million in 2012. Although it is only 3.5 per cent of the world’s population that migrates, the accelerated pace of migrations as well as changing patterns of migrants’ integration and acculturation in host societies have created challenges to devise just citizenship and migrations policies world-wide. How does the control of first entry, citizenship, and naturalization practices by states affect the life chances of the global poor? Is the institution of birthright citizenship justifiable legally and/or morally? This essay considers these questions through a review of Ayelet Schachar’s book, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).