RT Article
T1 Sanctuary Cities and Non-Refoulement
JF Ethical theory and moral practice
VO 23
IS 2
SP 457
OP 474
A1 Blake, Michael 1953-
A1 Hereth, Blake
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2020
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1725246643
AB More than two hundred cities in the United States have now declared themselves to be sanctuary cities. This declaration involves a commitment to non-compliance with federal law; the sanctuary city will refuse to use its own juridical power - including, more crucially, its own police powers - to assist the federal government in the deportation of undocumented residents. We will argue that the sanctuary city might be morally defensible, even if deportation is not always wrong, and even if the federal government is legally permitted to demand that states participate in the process of deportation. We defend this conclusion with reference to a simple, but powerful, norm of international law: that of non-refoulement. As we will discuss, this norm articulates the idea that no state may rightly use its coercive power to move a person into a position in which their basic rights are at risk. We take this norm as a morally defensible principle, and ask what could follow from its acceptance. We argue that this norm has implications for a variety of actors - especially when we notice that those who are facing unjust risks of death are, in general, entitled to use defensive violence against their aggressors. This simple fact, we argue, can help offer a novel defense of the sanctuary city.
K1 Doxxing
K1 Non-Refoulement
K1 Non-violent resistance
K1 Refugees
K1 Sanctuary City
K1 Self-defense
DO 10.1007/s10677-020-10082-3