Caring as a Civic Service

Abstract

This chapter argues that family immigration policies should be expanded to encompass caregiving duties performed by family members and fictive kin for dependents, including disabled and elderly adults. To make this case, it applies a public ethic of care to revalue caregiving services as socially necessary work and a civic duty that merits an earned pathway to citizenship for immigrants. A public ethic of care ensures that the polity’s most vulnerable members are continually cared for by their ongoing primary caregivers in their communities. It also provides a basis for recognizing the value of care work provided by immigrant caregivers. This chapter contends that immigrant caregivers of dependent citizens are providing a service to society that might otherwise have to be undertaken less attentively by the state at the taxpayers’ expense. For their services, those who care for dependents deserve a pathway to legalization and citizenship.