Immigration and Freedom

by Chandran Kukathas

Families come in many shapes and sizes. When the family means, say, two parents and their children, the decision to increase its size, whether naturally or by adoption, is a matter for the members—or perhaps the adults alone. But when the family includes in-laws, aunts and uncles, and distant cousins, it is not evident that anyone’s decision to procreate or adopt is a matter in which Grandma should have a say, let alone a veto—and Uncle Fester’s views are perhaps best ignored.3 Matters are further complicated when one considers that families also grow when parents divorce and re-marry, or when adult children acquire partners—often acting unilaterally to bring into the fold outsiders who may not always find their new relatives entirely welcoming. Even nuclear families range in character from the Karenins to the Simpsons to the Brady Bunch to the Addamses. Extended families could be as different (or alike) as the Kennedys and the Corleones. For thinking about immigration control, the family analogy might be even less promising than the metaphor of a country as a kind of home.