Membership Security

Being a member must include a secure place to remain

Short Definition

Membership Security protects a full political member against involuntary loss of residence and membership through ordinary immigration law merely because that person retains a foreign nationality. In the proposed World Citizen Society, becoming a full member changes the legal character of residence. Remaining in the community becomes part of membership itself.

The Question

Can you be one of the people who govern a community while remaining removable from it on a basis that does not apply to other full members?

Imagine being recognized as a full political member. You vote, participate in public life, and share common duties. Yet your continuing place in the community depends on an immigration status that leaves you more vulnerable than otherwise equal members because you hold another nationality.

The question is whether full political membership has acquired enough substance.

How It Works

Resident Sovereignty makes durable residence the primary basis of ordinary political membership. Resident Equality rejects a lower civic rank for full members because of nationality or birthplace. Membership Security gives that relationship a necessary protection: the community cannot retain an ordinary immigration-law power to expel a full member merely because of foreign nationality.

This matters to democracy as well as to the stability of a person’s home. Political members must be able to oppose a government, join unpopular movements, challenge public authorities, and campaign for change without occupying a structurally weaker position because of another nationality. Voting cannot by itself remove that inequality if the legal power to terminate some voters’ place in the community remains.

The stable endpoint adopted in The World Citizen Society is called Model 3 — Full Membership Security. Once a durable resident has become a full political member, retaining a foreign nationality no longer makes the person deportable under ordinary immigration law.

The protection is tied to full membership. It is not triggered merely by crossing a border, visiting, or beginning residence. The route to full membership requires rules, and the book does not prescribe a universal residence period.

Reform can proceed through intermediate arrangements. Residents might gain some voting rights while still being removable, or receive stronger safeguards against removal before full protection is established. Such improvements may matter, but a demanding procedure for removal is still different from ending the ordinary immigration power over full members. Transition needs a credible direction toward full membership rather than a permanent second tier.

These are proposed institutional principles. They should not be read as a description of protections already available to every resident under existing law.

An Example

Consider two imagined residents who are both full political members and take part in the same elections. One holds the community’s nationality; the other retains another nationality. Both campaign against the government.

Suppose ordinary immigration law gives the authorities a power to end only the second person’s place in the community because of that foreign-national status. Even if the power is not used during this campaign, the two members occupy different structural positions.

Under Model 3, retaining the other nationality would not leave the second person subject to that ordinary immigration power. Both remain subject to the common criminal law. If either commits a crime, the response is investigation, prosecution, and punishment under that law, rather than treating foreign nationality as the basis for expelling a full member through ordinary immigration law.

Common Misunderstandings

Membership Security does not grant immunity from criminal responsibility. It concerns the legal relationship between residence and full membership, not exemption from common duties.

Nor does it rule out lawful extradition on an independent basis of criminal cooperation. Extradition transfers someone for a specified criminal process; it is distinct from using immigration status to remove a person from the community. This distinction is not a general exception allowing ordinary deportation to continue under a different label.

The principle also does not settle every question about acquiring or retaining membership. Multiple residence, prolonged absence, and related boundary questions require separate rules. Its clear claim is that full members must not remain ordinarily deportable merely because they retain another nationality.

Finally, secure membership does not require nationality to disappear. Political membership, residence protection, travel documents, and external legal ties need not all follow the same institutional rule.