Abstract

My paper explores the question of when it is wrong for a state’s immigration criteria to discriminate against people with disabilities, focusing on the idea that discrimination is wrong when it demeans a group, rather than when it disadvantages them. I argue that selecting against people with disabilities often demeans them but might not always do so even when immigration criteria explicitly exclude people on the basis of having disabilities – that is, in cases of direct discrimination. Moreover, I demonstrate that certain cases of less direct forms of discrimination that select against people with disabilities – in particular, when states apply health-cost limits on admissions – can function as proxies designed to exclude people with disabilities and thereby demean them. Finally, I explain why my analysis of discrimination’s wrong does not typically apply to health conditions in general, such as heart, liver, or lung disease or cancer, setting my view apart from a prominent view in the literature.