Who Can Change the Rules That Keep Outsiders Out?

How Outsiders Can Struggle for the Right of Entry

Imagine a woman who wants to make her home in another country.

She has learned its language. She has friends there, perhaps even an employer willing to hire her. She hopes to build a future in that community.

But she cannot obtain permission to enter and settle.

The decision rests with a government whose representatives she cannot elect. Her own government may be unwilling or unable to help her.

What can she do?

In From the Struggle for the Vote to the Struggle for Political Choice, I argued that the rights of Foot Democracy, like those of Hand Democracy, must be won through political action.

Entry presents a particular difficulty.

How can people outside a political community gain the power to change the rules that keep them outside?

The Political Problem of Being Outside

In most democratic countries, existing citizens elect the legislators who determine immigration and nationality laws.

People seeking admission generally cannot vote in those elections.

Earlier struggles for voting rights faced a similar difficulty. But many of those excluded already lived within the society they wanted to change. They could organize with neighbors, form associations, and demonstrate in public.

Someone outside the country may have none of those opportunities.

Even the courts may offer limited help.

In Department of State v. Muñoz (2024), the US Supreme Court considered the case of an American woman whose foreign-born husband had been denied a visa.

The Court held that she had no fundamental constitutional right to have her husband admitted to the United States.

The ruling did not mean that every immigration decision is beyond legal challenge. It concerned a particular constitutional claim, and other countries have different laws.

But it illustrates a problem.

Even someone with close family ties to a citizen may have little ability to challenge a decision excluding them from the country.

If a meaningful right of Entry is not recognized in law, courts cannot be expected to establish the entire right on their own.

The problem is therefore political as well as legal.

People seeking Entry must find ways to influence institutions before becoming members of the communities those institutions govern.

When Excluded People Organize Themselves

The 1996 sans-papiers movement in France offers a starting point.

People without regular immigration status organized to demand legal recognition of their residence.

Some occupied churches in Paris, including Saint-Bernard, where police forcibly removed protesters in August 1996.

The movement attracted support from associations, trade unionists, and other residents.

But those most directly affected were not simply receiving help. They organized and made demands in their own names.

The movement did not establish a general right of Entry.

Its participants were largely people already living in France. Their immediate struggle concerned residence, not admission from abroad.

That difference matters.

Still, the movement shows that people excluded from important legal and political rights can become political actors.

They need not wait for existing citizens to speak for them.

For Entry, the challenge is harder.

How can people organize before they have even entered the political community whose rules they want to change?

Political Organization Across Borders

Migrant Forum in Asia offers one example of what is possible.

Formally established in 1994, the network connects migrant organizations, trade unions, civil society groups, and advocates working across Asia and the Middle East.

They cooperate on problems such as recruitment practices, discrimination, and the rights of migrant workers.

These problems often involve more than one country.

Workers may be recruited in one state, employed in another, and affected by policies made in both.

Organizations working in different countries can therefore share information, coordinate their demands, and bring concerns to regional and international institutions.

Their political action does not depend entirely on one government negotiating for its own nationals.

That matters.

People whose lives are shaped by borders can organize across those borders.

But Migrant Forum in Asia has not won the general right of Entry proposed by the World Citizen framework.

Its work focuses primarily on the rights and conditions of migrants and migrant workers.

The next question remains open.

Could networks of this kind help people who are still outside a country organize politically to change its admission rules?

The existence of cross-border cooperation makes that possibility worth examining.

It does not guarantee success.

Allies Inside the Receiving Community

People seeking Entry may need allies who already possess political influence in the country they hope to join.

Canada’s private sponsorship of refugees offers an example of cooperation across this boundary.

Residents and authorized organizations can help refugees from abroad settle in Canada. They may provide financial and practical support through established programs.

Their willingness to help can make a real difference.

But sponsors do not decide who is admitted. Government authorities determine eligibility, procedures, and admission limits.

At the time of writing, in October 2026, Canada has paused new applications through the Groups of Five and Community Sponsors streams until December 31, 2026. Other sponsorship arrangements continue under government rules.

The program also serves people with particular refugee-protection needs. It is not a general right to migrate.

Its significance for this essay lies in the political relationship it makes possible.

People inside a community can cooperate with people outside it and accept responsibilities toward them.

But helping someone enter under existing rules is different from winning the right to change those rules.

Foot Democracy requires political action directed at the institutions governing admission.

Outsiders must participate in shaping those demands, not simply receive the benefits of decisions made by others.

Otherwise, their political future remains dependent on the goodwill of existing members.

Why Economic Support Has Limits

Economic interests may also support easier admission.

For example, the US H-2A program allows qualifying agricultural employers to recruit foreign workers for temporary or seasonal employment.

But it is not a general route to permanent residence or citizenship.

An employer may need workers for a season. Those workers may hope to build permanent lives and eventually become political equals.

The two interests can overlap without being identical.

This creates a challenge for Foot Democracy.

Greater access to foreign labor does not necessarily mean support for secure residence or full political membership.

A political alliance must therefore consider not only whether its members favor Entry, but also what they believe should follow after admission.

Reciprocity: Useful but Insufficient

Governments can negotiate agreements allowing their nationals to enter and reside in other countries.

The European Union, MERCOSUR, and arrangements between Australia and New Zealand provide examples.

Such agreements can establish valuable opportunities for cross-border movement, work, and residence.

But they have an important limitation.

Their benefits generally depend on holding the nationality of a participating country.

People born outside the agreement may remain excluded.

Reciprocity can therefore reduce barriers for some people while creating a new distinction between those inside and outside a group of states.

Where people enjoy effective democratic rights in their country of origin, they may influence their government’s efforts to negotiate mobility agreements.

That is one possible connection between Hand Democracy and Foot Democracy.

But not everyone has effective democratic rights at home.

Nor should someone’s opportunity to join another political community depend on the diplomatic influence of the country where that person was born.

Reciprocity may help expand political-community choice.

It cannot replace the struggle for Entry rights that do not depend on the political power of one’s country of birth.

From Support to Political Power

What would it take to turn these different forms of support into real political change?

Prospective migrants may need organizations that connect them with established immigrants, existing citizens, workers, civic groups, and other supporters.

Such organizations would have to influence public debate and the elected representatives who control admission laws.

But building an alliance is not the same as giving outsiders a political voice.

A coalition may accept compromises that serve its members who already possess voting rights while leaving prospective migrants excluded.

This is why the participation of outsiders matters.

They must be able to express their own interests, help determine the goals of the movement, and challenge proposals that treat their admission as a favor rather than a claim to political freedom.

These are demanding conditions.

Different groups may disagree about how many people should be admitted, what requirements should apply, and how admission should lead toward membership.

No existing movement can simply be assumed to represent everyone seeking Foot Democracy.

Nor do we know in advance which alliances might become politically strong enough to change national admission laws.

But the direction is clear.

Outsiders must become participants in the political struggle over Entry, not merely people for whom others negotiate.

What Would Winning Entry Mean?

A larger immigration program is not necessarily a right of Entry.

A government might admit more temporary workers while denying them any realistic opportunity to settle.

It might favor selected nationalities through reciprocal agreements while excluding people born elsewhere.

Foot Democracy requires something different.

People need genuine, institutionally protected opportunities to seek admission to communities other than those into which they were born.

These opportunities need not be unconditional. Receiving communities may establish legitimate requirements concerning admission and public responsibilities.

But Entry cannot remain merely a discretionary favor granted by existing members.

Nor can admission be separated from what happens afterward.

Meaningful Entry must connect to lawful residence and a credible path toward secure, equal political membership.

Otherwise, people may gain greater freedom to move while remaining permanently excluded from political equality.

The point is not simply to cross a border.

It is to make the choice of political community a real freedom.

Changing the Rules of Belonging

The struggle for Entry leads back to the Nation-Based Feudal Order.

In that order, nationality inherited at birth strongly influences which political communities people may enter and where they may become political equals.

Sponsorship programs can help particular people. Temporary labor arrangements can expand economic mobility. Reciprocal agreements can establish valuable rights for nationals of participating states.

But these measures do not, by themselves, remove the inherited structure of political belonging.

The World Citizen Revolution seeks to change that structure.

It does not require abolishing political communities or creating a single world government.

It requires political action capable of making membership in another community a meaningful possibility, while preserving collective democratic self-government.

Earlier struggles for Hand Democracy involved people who had to gain influence over institutions that denied them the vote.

Foot Democracy faces an even more difficult problem.

People outside a political community must gain influence over the rules that determine whether they may enter it.

The French sans-papiers movement shows that legally excluded people can organize in their own names.

Migrant Forum in Asia shows that political organization can cross national boundaries.

The Muñoz decision illustrates how limited existing legal claims to admission may be.

None of these examples provides a complete solution.

But they help explain why the struggle for Entry cannot depend on governments becoming more generous.

Those who seek the right must develop political organizations, find allies, and challenge the institutions that make membership depend so heavily on inherited nationality.

The right of Entry must be won through political action by those who seek it, in cooperation with others—but not in dependence on the government of their birth.

These outsiders may not yet possess the rights they demand. They may not even be permitted to enter the communities they hope to join.

Yet they are not merely asking others to decide their future. By organizing to change the inherited rules of political belonging, they are the people who give birth to world citizenship.

World citizenship, in this sense, begins as a political claim before it becomes a legally protected form of membership. The people making that claim are its political creators, not simply the future beneficiaries of reform.

But their struggle cannot end with admission. Entry must lead toward secure residence and equal political membership.

That is how the struggle for Entry becomes part of dismantling the Nation-Based Feudal Order.

That is one of the central political tasks of the World Citizen Revolution.

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Further Reading

Books

• The World Citizen Revolution — On inherited nationality and the Nation-Based Feudal Order.
• The World Citizen Society — On Foot Democracy, meaningful Entry, Resident Sovereignty, and political-community choice.

Related Essays

• From the Struggle for the Vote to the Struggle for Political Choice
• Why the World Citizen Society Cannot Be Created Overnight
• Why Exit Is Not Enough: The Missing Problem of Entry
• Who Gets to Decide Who Belongs?

References

1. Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, historical materials on the 1996 Saint-Bernard sans-papiers movement. 28 juin – 23 août 1996 : les sans-papiers de Saint-Bernard.
2. Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA), historical coverage of the August 23, 1996 evacuation of Saint-Bernard. Evacuation sans papiers.
3. Migrant Forum in Asia, “The Organization.” https://mfasia.org/migrantforumasia/about-mfa/the-organization/.
4. Supreme Court of the United States, Department of State v. Muñoz, 602 U.S. 899 (2024), decided June 21, 2024. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-334new_hfci.pdf.
5. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, “Temporary Pause Extended on Intake of Refugee Sponsorship Applications From Groups of Five and Community Sponsors,” November 21, 2025. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/temporary-pause-extended-refugee-sponsorship-applications-groups-five.html.
6. United States Department of Labor, “H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program.” https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/programs/h-2a.
7. MERCOSUR, Acuerdo sobre Residencia para Nacionales de los Estados Partes del MERCOSUR, Bolivia y Chile (2002). https://www.mercosur.int/documento/acuerdo-residencia-nacionales-estados-partes-mercosur-bolivia-chile.
8. Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “New Zealand Country Brief.” https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/new-zealand/new-zealand-country-brief.
9. European Commission, “Free Movement and Residence.” https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/democracy-eu-citizenship-anti-corruption/free-movement-and-residence_en.