Legitimate Authority, Colonial Injustice, and Immigration Enforcement

I consider if (would-be) immigrants who experience colonial injustice are morally bound to respect the de-facto authority of the border regimes of states who are responsible for such injustice. I argue that they are not, and my argument unfolds in four steps. First, I recover the liberal principle that authorities can be legitimate only if they make continuous good faith efforts to systematically respect all persons’ equal moral worth. Second, I contend that the injustice of the colonial imposition – what I call direct colonial injustice – paradigmatically violates this principle. Third, I discuss how colonial injustice can persist even after direct colonial injustice has ended – through what I call structural colonial injustice – and explain why structural colonial injustice also violates my principle of legitimate authority. Finally, I analyse how structural colonial injustice can operate both within and beyond state boundaries, suggest that such injustice is ubiquitous in today’s world, and argue that powerful Western states bear responsibilities to remedy it. So long as they fail to make good faith efforts towards such a remedy, they cannot claim legitimate authority over the victims of colonial injustice, who must therefore be presumed to have self-defensive rights to evade and resist their border regimes.