Is a Generous Immigration Policy a Way to Rectify Colonial Injustices?

Abstract

Migration from former colonies to former colonial powers represents a large portion of 20th-century migration. This migration has been facilitated by generous laws regarding immigration and citizenship. For example, after World War II Britain granted citizenship to hundreds of millions of colonial subjects. Every person born in the British Empire was, according to common law, a British subject and Commonwealth citizen. As a consequence many Indians, Pakistanis, and people from the Caribbean migrated to the United Kingdom and the non-white population grew from around 30,000 in the 1940s to 3 million at the end of the century (Hansen, 2000).