2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(1) the point. For example, the analogy with marriage is often used to demonstrate the view that, while there is a universal right to leave any state, there need not be any corresponding right to enter. David Miller says: Obviously, if no state were ever willing to grant entry rights to people who were not already its citizens, the right of exit would have no value. But suppose states are generally willing to consider entry applications from people who want to migrate, and that most people would get offers from at least one such state: then in this respect the position as far as the right of exit goes is pretty much the same as with the right to marry, where by no means everybody is able to wed the partner they would ideally like to have, but most have the opportunity to marry someone. 2 The point is that while everyone has the right to marry, they do not have the right to enter into any particular marriage relationship they choose — the proposed partner has the right to refuse. One does not have the right to marry a particular person, and one does not have the right to enter a particular state. Although Miller is talking about the right of entry, he is using it to discuss the right of exit, to show that the right of exit does not entail a right to enter anywhere else. However, when one exits a marriage, one does not need to have another marriage to enter, and this is the same with many associations — the right of exit does not require that one has another association to enter into. There is, if you like, a ‘space’ one can enter without difficulty, and where one can remain indefinitely. One never needs to enter into marriage, or a golf club, or any of the other kinds of associations that are often appealed to in the immigration debate. This is why it is plausible to suppose that here the right to exit does not entail a right of entry, because the right to exit does not depend on entry elsewhere. One can enact one’s right of exit from these associations and never enter another one, and what is crucial to notice is the existence of this ‘space’ outside of these associations that one can enter without restriction, and where one can develop one’s life prospects perfectly well if one wishes. This is dramatically and importantly not the case when it comes to nation-states. Exit from this kind of association does depend on being able to enter another one, both territorially and civilly. There is the ‘space’ of statelessness, but it is not one anybody would wish to enter — it is deeply problematic and dangerous, and nobody can develop their life prospects in that space to any degree. While it is plausible to suppose that the right of exit does not entail a right of entry into the other kinds of associations, like marriages and golf clubs (because there is no need to enter another association in order to enact the right to leave), in the case of the nation-state there is a need to enter another association in order to enact the right to leave. So in this case it is plausible to suppose that the right of exit does imply the right of entry. The absence of the concept, indeed the fact, of statelessness from the political theory of immigration has had an importantly limiting effect on the discussion. Original membership is simply assumed. 3 Discussions of refugees and asylum seekers take place within a slightly different theoretical landscape. There is still the paradigm of original membership, in that the refugee is considered a member of another state such that the receiving state can grant them temporary protection until it is considered safe for them to return to their home state. In the longer term, receiving states may grant permanent 2 3 David Miller, National Responsibility and Global Justice (Oxford University Press 2007) 209. See generally Christopher Heath Wellman and Phillip Cole, Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude? (Oxford University Press 2011) 202–10. 162