Cultural Injustice and Refugee Discrimination

Law and Philosophy https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-024-09502-7  The Author(s) 2024 RUFAIDA AL HASHMI CULTURAL INJUSTICE AND REFUGEE DISCRIMINATION (Accepted 21 March 2024) ABSTRACT. Many believe that it is morally impermissible to select refugees applying for resettlement on the basis of religion but morally permissible to do so on the basis of language. In this paper, I challenge this position. I argue that if we oppose selection by religion, then we should also oppose selection by language. I argue that the kind of religious selection proposed by some is demeaning because of a history of cultural injustice, which I examine through the context of colonialism. I show that this account of the wrongness of religious selection fares better than alternative views. Since language played an important role in this history of cultural injustice, I conclude that language selection is demeaning for the same reason. An upshot of my argument is that some kinds of language selection should be viewed as a form of cultural selection. Language, like religion, can be culturally laden in ways that makes it impermissible grounds for the selection of refugees applying for resettlement and indeed would-be immigrants more generally. I. INTRODUCTION In 2014, amid the wars in Syria and Iraq, there were demands from some of those living in traditionally Christian countries, such as the UK, to prioritise assisting Christian refugees. For example, Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, claimed to ‘particularly feel for the plight of Christians who have got nowhere to go in that region’, adding that he ‘would happily, as a country, take Christian refugees’.1 In 2017, Donald Trump stated that persecuted Christians would be given priority over other refugees seeking to enter the 1 Nihal, ‘Should the UK prioritise Christian refugees?’, BBC Radio (2015). URL https://www.bbc.co. uk/programmes/p02ptnpb (accessed 8.18.22). For more on this see, Caldwell, ‘Open your homes to refugees fleeing the Taliban, bishop urges the faithful’, Catholic Herald (2021), URL https:// catholicherald.co.uk/open-your-homes-to-afghanistan-refugees-bishop-urges-the-faithful/ (accessed 5.25.23). RUFAIDA AL HASHMI United States. When he was Senator for Alabama, Jeff Sessions (who would go on to serve as Attorney General in the Trump administration) declared that, as a Christian nation, the US ‘should only be accepting Christian refugees’.2 Some people defend this view by arguing that Christian Syrian or Iraqi refugees are especially vulnerable to harm because of their religion.3 Others, such as Sessions, argue that Christians will be more able to assimilate into these countries.4 Setting aside the point about vulnerability, this kind of selection by religion strikes most – probably all – political theorists as morally wrong. Religion, like race and ethnicity, is taken to be a morally impermissible ground for selecting migrants.5 Yet, many of these same theorists believe that other aspects of cultural selection – that is, selection based on cultural affinity – in which states engage are morally unproblematic. One example is linguistic competence. Political theorists typically assume there is nothing wrong with the use of such a criterion.6 Thus, debates on cultural selection routinely treat religion as an obviously morally wrong basis for cultural selection and language requirements as a morally uncontroversial basis for such selection. In this paper, I challenge this asymmetry, focusing on the selection of refugees for resettlement. I argue that if we oppose selection by religion, then we should also oppose selection by language. My argument is based on the idea of cultural injustice, which I examine 2 This was a view expressed by Jeff Sessions. See Jonathan Blitzer, ‘The Trump Administration’s Hard Line on Refugees Comes Under Fire’, The New Yorker (2018). 3 Many of these claims are thinly viewed racism. For example, see Rowena Mason, ‘Nigel Farage rows back on call to grant asylum to Syrian refugees’, The Guardian (2013). 4 Jonathan Blitzer, ‘The Trump Administration’s Hard Line on Refugees Comes Under Fire’, The New Yorker (2018). 5 For example, Joseph Carens (2006, p. 104) writes that, ‘no state may legitimately exclude potential immigrants on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity’. See Joseph Carens, ‘Who Should Get in? The Ethics of Immigrant Admissions’, Ethics & International Affairs 17(1) (2006): pp. 95–110 at p. 104. In response, David Miller agrees with Carens that past policies that excluded immigrants by religion are morally wrong. See David Miller, ‘Justice in Immigration’, European Journal of Political Theory 14(4) (2015): pp. 391–408 at p. 406. 6 Like many other political theorists, Carens believes that ‘there is no reason for objecting to the use of linguistic competence as one factor in the selection of immigrants’. See Joseph Carens, ‘Who Should Get in? The Ethics of Immigrant Admissions’, Ethics & International Affairs 17(1) (2006): pp. 95–110 at p. 109. Relatedly, Adam Hosein notes that, ‘language, many philosophers have thought, is an acceptable basis for selection because linguistic competence can also be acquired’. See Adam Hosein, The Ethics of Migration: An Introduction (Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge, 2019), p. 103. CULTURAL INJUSTICE AND REFUGEE DISCRIMINATION through the context of colonialism.7 I explain that this cultural injustice encompassed not just religion but also language, and I argue that this historical context of cultural injustice makes both kinds of selection wrong. Thus, the paper shows that language selection is laden with cultural meaning, bringing with it the kinds of problems that afflict other more obvious cases of cultural selection, such as religious selection.8 To be clear, this need not be the core wrong of the cultural selection of refugees. Indeed, the material deprivation of being excluded from a country with important economic advantages or the lack of a chance to escape violence or oppression is clearly more significant. My aim is to draw attention to the ways in which language selection can be a kind of cultural selection that is, like religious selection, morally impermissible. The paper proceeds as follows. In section one, I set out my account of the wrongness of religious selection. On my view, this kind of selection is wrong because it demeans would-be immigrants on the basis of past cultural injustice. In section two, I consider three alternative accounts, showing why my account does a better job of explaining the wrongness of religious selection. In section three, I argue that language selection is often demeaning for the same reason that religious selection is demeaning. Thus, it follows from my argument that if we oppose religious selection, then we should also oppose language selection. Language, like religion, can be culturally laden in ways that make it impermissible grounds for the selection of refugees. Before I proceed, two clari (...truncated)