A Theory of Gratitude for Risk-Takers

This section describes a theory of gratitude for one individual benefiting from another, followed by a theory of gratitude for one group benefiting from another.

Gratitude to Frontline Workers

The above theory has far-reaching implications for frontline workers. This section focuses on implications for frontline workers with certain characteristics. The first two characteristics, to be removed in the next two sections, are that the workers are authorized to work in the country, and assuming risks that citizens have or would consent to being assumed on their behalf. In other words, just like someone benefiting from lifeguards cannot necessarily consent to lifeguards’ assistance, but would consent if asked, citizens cannot necessarily consent to frontline workers’ actions, but would consent if asked. This is a reasonable assumption for most authorized frontline migrants, given widespread public support for frontline workers’ actions (Ballinger Reference Ballinger2020).

A third characteristic is that the workers are taking risks beyond those morally required of their profession, as when health care workers suddenly find themselves at risk of dying from COVID-19, or experiencing “Long-COVID,” including extreme fatigue and damaged lungs (Logue et al. Reference Logue, Franko, McCulloch, McDonald, Magedson, Wolf and Chu2021).

I further assume, and will continue to in the next section, that the workers would (a) not be fired and destitute if refusing to take risks or (b) even if they would, they claim to be motivated by concern for others and (c) establishing if they speak truthfully would be wrong for reasons described in the last section. For example, a nurse might be fired and deported to a poor country if refusing to take risks, but claim to be assuming risks solely to help patients. Similarly, an agricultural worker might be destitute if she didn’t work, but claim she takes risks to ensure food security for citizens, rather than fear of destitution. Even if these workers are potentially lying, it would seem wrong to interrogate them to establish their motives. This would likely cause harm that violated duties of gratitude and nondiscrimination: if harming already-disadvantaged individuals is often wrongfully discriminatory, as argued in the last section, it might be wrongfully discriminatory to interrogate workers because of their extremely constrained options.

Finally, I assume that the workers in question collectively and substantially increase most citizens’ survival odds. Some do so by slowing the disease’s spread, reducing citizens’ odds of infection, as when delivery drivers reduce citizens’ congregation in shops. Others decrease risks by providing necessary help as described in the last section. For example, health care workers ensure citizens can receive medical care if the need arises, even if they never need this care. This is true not only for COVID-19 treatment: nurses, doctors, and technicians risking their lives during a pandemic help with a range of life-risking medical conditions. If healthcare substantially increases most citizens’ odds of survival, including citizens never requiring care, then health care workers facing risks during a pandemic collectively and substantially increase most citizens’ odds of survival.

The same holds true for workers contributing to general safe environments. Garbage collectors risk their lives during a pandemic to ensure sanitation that (pandemic or not) increases citizens’ odds of survival, and agricultural workers risk their lives during a pandemic to ensure food security that (pandemic or not) increases citizens’ odds of survival (FAO 2020). Importantly, all three—health care, sanitation, and agricultural workers—contribute to even greater combined increases in citizens’ survival odds.

If most citizens experience substantially increased survival odds because of these frontline workers’ contributions, and each worker experiences risks above those morally required of their profession (and does so freely or presumably to help citizens), citizens owe them duties of gratitude. This requires demonstrating concern for frontline worker’s welfare, keeping some type of communication with workers open, and protecting workers’ welfare.

This raises the question of how concern, communication, and protection are implemented. Implementation challenges were largely put aside in last section’s discussion, but highly relevant when very large groups benefit from other very large groups. Given this feature of frontline worker assistance, citizens cannot and ought not directly demonstrate gratitude in the way that Charles demonstrates gratitude to Beatrice.

This is for multiple reasons. One relates to privacy: imagine a nurse opening her door to find millions of thankful citizens offering to stay in touch and provide any assistance she needs. The offer might violate her privacy, as would requiring her to tell crowds of well-intentioned citizens whenever she was in dire need. Even if privacy were ensured, there would be epistemic barriers: a given citizen rarely knows who saved his life, given the collective and/or indirect nature of frontline assistance. If he passes a former frontline worker living on the street, he will not know whether he benefited from her, or if she was a frontline worker at all. There would be related coordination problems. With potentially millions of frontline workers, the diversity of needs would not be conducive to isolated acts of kindness found in two-party cases.

Epistemic and coordination problems can additionally create problems concerning fairness. If establishing one’s personal duties of gratitude requires establishing one’s relative wealth, and whether others are doing their fair share, each beneficiary would struggle to independently establish their specific obligations. It would be difficult for each citizen to know how well-off she was compared to others, what others were doing, and what beneficiaries needed, and so difficult to know what costs she must bear and to whom she must bear these costs.

There is a final problem relating to control, particularly applicable to migrants. As noted in the last section, gratitude requires avoiding harm entailing below-threshold costs. Citizens often contribute to harms of frontline worker migrants. This is because citizens pay taxes supporting immigration enforcement, including border officers engaging in extreme violence during deportation (Carens Reference Carens2013; Lister Reference Lister2020; Sager Reference Sager2017). Even when violence is avoided, taxes contribute to visceral psychological pain workers might experience if instructed to leave the state where they risked their lives for others. If showing gratitude requires avoiding some harm, but citizens lack control over harms they contribute to, it is difficult for citizens to control their ability to show gratitude.

Given epistemic, privacy, coordination, and control barriers for citizens, this poses problems for the state as a whole. This is because the state and its institutions have moral reasons to ensure that citizens can fulfil their duties in general, at least when these duties are held by most citizens and especially weighty (Quong Reference Quong2010; Raz Reference Raz1988; Tadros Reference Tadros2016). If citizens’ duties of gratitude toward frontline workers are especially weighty, states ought to institute policies helping citizens fulfil these duties. They should therefore help citizens avoid the epistemic, privacy, coordination, and control barriers toward fulfilling these duties.

There are good reasons to suppose the policy most conducive to overcoming the four barriers is granting permanent residency to frontline workers. By “permanent residency” I mean visas permitting frontline workers to

1. 1. work in the state without being deported,

2. 2. engage in public communicative acts, such as protesting and raising court petitions, and

3. 3. obtain access to essential welfare provisions, including unemployment benefits, education, and public housing for those in need.Footnote ⁴

Each aspect helps citizens fulfil their duties of gratitude. The first (1) ensures citizens avoid contributing to harms via deportation. In theory, of course, states could engage in deportation while ensuring citizens fulfill duties of gratitude, by ensuring harms from deportation were minimized, up until costs of avoiding harm fell below the obligatory threshold for duties of gratitude. While this is theoretically possible, individual enforcement agents widely ignore official state policies, even when legislatures introduce more humane policies (Sager Reference Sager2017). This leads to disproportionate harms in general (Lister Reference Lister2020). If harms are disproportionate in general, they are disproportionate for agents owed gratitude, given that harm permitted against those owed gratitude is less than harm permitted against those not owed gratitude (all else being equal). For states to ensure citizens are not contributing to impermissible harm, thus ensuring citizens fulfil their duties of gratitude, states ought to grant permanent residency to frontline workers.

The second aspect (2) refers to public actions that are directed at capturing the public’s attention, including protesting, striking at work, talking to reporters, approaching policymakers, organizing community meetings, and appealing to neighbors and friends. The opportunity to pursue these actions helps citizens and migrants communicate on a public level, even when personal communication is not possible or desirable. More specifically, migrants pursuing such actions while they are physically present in the state can more effectively gain citizens’ attention (Beltran Reference Beltran2009; Gloash-Boza Reference Gloash-Boza2014), such that citizens can more easily express concern in response. Once deported, electronic communication—Zoom and blogs—are thin alternatives for frontline workers communicating with citizens, and for citizens demonstrating concern by communicating back.Footnote ⁵

The above explains why being physically present is important for harm-avoidance and communication. It does not explain why frontline workers should access (3), essential welfare provisions. Many frontline workers come from countries offering essential provisions, and can return to their home countries if in need. While this may be true, if frontline workers must leave their country-of-residence to obtain such provisions, they will be unable to engage in public communicative acts that help citizens fulfil their duties of gratitude. Moreover, being unable to access aid in the country where they risked their lives diminishes citizens’ ability to demonstrate gratitude. Just like Charles fails to demonstrate gratitude if he is unwilling to provide aid to Beatrice, even if Beatrice never needs this aid because another individual will provide it instead, citizens fail to demonstrate gratitude if they are unwilling to provide aid to frontline workers, even if workers never need this aid because another state will provide it instead. By ensuring welfare provisions, citizens communicate a willingness they otherwise do not communicate, thus demonstrating gratitude they otherwise do not demonstrate.

Some might suppose that, though permitting continued residency while obtaining assistance is necessary, usual welfare provisions are not. States could just send a large one-off check equal to the maximum owed to frontline workers.

While such a check might seem sufficient, there are good reasons for citizens to instead provide welfare as needs arise. As noted, when many benefactors are owed gratitude, the upper costs they are entitled to vary depending on cobenefactors’ needs, as when only one lifeguard needs expensive cancer treatment, versus all needing such treatment. Because needs change across time, it can be difficult to know the help a given benefactor is entitled to at a given time. Providing frontline workers help based on need (as with normal welfare provisions) avoids scenarios where some are given money not covering important needs, while others are denied help to cover important needs.

There is a related problem with a one-off check. As noted with Charles, a beneficiary needn’t provide aid to a benefactor if then unable to help someone he has weightier competing reasons to help instead. States can account for this consideration by providing aid as needs arise. For example, if a state could provide housing to homeless frontline workers, but has weightier reasons to provide cancer treatment to nonfrontline-workers, and it can afford to provide either housing or cancer treatment, it ought to provide the latter alone. It fails to do so if preemptively handing out checks covering housing frontline workers might later need; the state cannot easily take back the checks if later learning that a more pressing duty has arisen. To systematically weigh competing considerations, workers should be subject to a welfare policy, rather than a one-off check.

Even if one rejects this conclusion, one can at least accept this: if frontline workers are not given a large check equal to the minimum threshold owed, they have grounds for not only permanent residency, but welfare provisions equaling or above this threshold.

The argument thus far focuses on migrants, but it seems citizen frontline workers assuming supererogatory risks are also owed gratitude. This poses a problem: when frontline migrants and citizens assume similar risks, it is not clear why frontline migrants are given a distinct benefit of permanent residency. Put another way: if permanent residency for frontline migrants is a substantial benefit compared to their current circumstances, while citizen frontline workers are not given such a substantial benefit compared to their current circumstances, citizens would be provided fewer gratitude-based benefits relative to their current circumstances. This seems inconsistent.

One response is to reject the claim that, when multiple individuals are owed similar gratitude, benefits owed must be similar as well. If Beatrice is Charles’ wife, already owing her assistance should she find herself in need, his duties of gratitude might not generate new duties of assistance. In the original case where Beatrice is not his wife, he does owe her assistance he otherwise would not, but this is consistent; sometimes a reason one owes certain goods can be overdetermined for some and not others, such that some and not others will gain new benefits when taking on comparable risks. Citizen frontline workers are already owed permanent residency, so they would benefit less than frontline workers, but this is consistent with the claim that frontline workers are owed gratitude-based permanent residency.

There is a second potential reason migrants are owed permanent residency, even if many citizen take on similar risks: the risks migrants face may be farther from baseline risks they have duties to accept. For example, even if no nurse is morally obligated to assume a 1/100 chance of dying, citizen nurses might still be obligated to assume greater risks than migrant nurses, such that when a migrant and citizen both assume a 1/100 chance of dying from COVID-19, the difference between the migrant’s risks and her obligatory baseline is greater than the difference between the citizen’s risks and her obligatory baseline. If risks migrants assume are farther from their obligatory baseline, granting them permanent residency is justified even if citizens’ gratitude-based benefits are not as great compared to their current circumstances.

Why might citizens have a higher obligatory baseline? Perhaps citizenship confers benefits, and benefits create duties—such as the duty to take on risks—not held by nonbeneficiaries (Moore Reference Moore2009). Alternatively, perhaps citizens have duties to assume greater risks to show solidarity to conationals. Such solidarity might be intrinsically valuable, or valuable when encouraging the fulfilment of certain cosmopolitan goals (Brock Reference Brock2002; Hurka Reference Hurka, McKim and McMahan1997; Moore Reference Moore2009; Seglow Reference Seglow2013). If citizens have a duty to assume more risks, this could justify granting special benefits to migrants in virtue of risks migrants assume.

If special benefits are warranted, and so permanent residency justified, this would have implications in a range of countries. The Canadian and French governments have already announced the granting of permanent residency for some frontline workers. Up to 50,000 can qualify in Canada, and though only 700 have qualified so far in France (Government of Canada 2021; Méheut Reference Méheut2020), far more have moral grounds for remaining permanently, including some of the roughly 276,000 agricultural workers in the country (Augère-Granier Reference Augère-Granier2021). While those taking risks to avoid destitution are not owed gratitude-based permanent residency, those taking risks freely or to help others are. The same applies to some or all of the approximately 200,000 agricultural workers in the US on H-2A visas (Flocks Reference Flocks2020), approximately 200,000 agriculture workers in Italy on six-months visas (Isaac and Elrick Reference Isaac and Elrick2020), and 40,000–80,000 seasonal agricultural workers in the UK.Footnote ⁶ It would additionally apply to potentially all 29,010 health care workers in the UK given temporary visas between 2017 and 2019 (Sumption and Kierans Reference Sumption and Kierans2019), and approximately 25,500 health care workers in the US on H1-B visas or without Green Cards (Painter Reference Painter2020).

Unauthorized Migrants

While implications for many authorized migrants are clear, implications for unauthorized migrants are not. This is because gratitude-based arguments presumed consent: citizens would consent to risks frontline workers assume, and so the consent condition for gratitude is met. This assumption may be untrue for migrants without visas, including over five million agricultural workers in the US (Budiman Reference Budiman2020; Dudley Reference Dudley2020) and roughly 100,000 in Italy (D’Ignoti Reference D’Ignoti2020; Isaac and Elrick Reference Isaac and Elrick2020). While citizens might consent to such workers tacitly—for example, Brock (Reference Brock2020, 96) and Rubio-Marìn (Reference Rubio-Marin2000, 83) suggest citizens tacitly consent to undocumented workers if knowingly benefiting from their work and raising no opposition—this is controversial. It is controversial to claim that knowingly benefiting and not opposing are sufficient for tacit consent (Pevnik Reference Pevnick2011, 167; Song Reference Song2018, 182–3). Even if they are, most citizens might not knowingly benefit from unauthorized frontline workers. They might therefore give neither tacit nor “hypothetical consent”; if asked, they would not consent to unauthorized workers picking fruit or collecting waste.

Even if citizens would not consent if asked in a simple manner, they might still consent in a world where other conditions were different. More specifically, they might give hypothetical consent in two ways:

1. 1. Citizens might consent if given information on risks frontline workers face and benefits they provide and

2. 2. Citizens might consent if they did not hold xenophobic views.

In what follows, I demonstrate that circumstance (1) is sufficient for fulfilling the consent condition for gratitude, but not necessarily circumstance (2). However, in both circumstances, and even when citizens would not consent with full information and no xenophobia, gratitude may still be owed when frontline workers cannot reasonably know what citizens would consent to if asked.

To defend the first claim—that the consent condition of gratitude is fulfilled in case (1)—I begin with a premise concerning autonomy: a benefactor assuming supererogatory risks is owed gratitude if respecting the beneficiary’s autonomy. This is why it matters that Charles would have consented to Beatrice saving his life if asked: it matters that Beatrice is saving Charles’ life in a manner that he autonomously desires, rather than against his wishes. If so, this raises the question of what sort of hypothetical consent indicates that autonomy is respected.

A recent theory of consent sheds light on this question. According to David Enoch, hypothetical consent protects autonomy if features removed in the hypothetical scenario are not features the consent-giver endorses and views as part of their identity (Enoch Reference Enoch2017).

For example, imagine Charles would not have consented to being saved if asked because he has strongly endorsed religion commitments that prohibit being saved. In a hypothetical world where he lacked these commitments, he would consent to being saved. This sort of hypothetical consent does not indicate that saving Charles respects his autonomy. For, in a world where he did not hold these commitments, an important aspect of his identity would be different. Saving him based on this hypothetical world would not be respecting the autonomy of Charles in this world. In contrast, imagine that Charles would not have consented to Beatrice saving his life if asked because he is temporarily confused and thinks Beatrice can’t swim, but would have consented if he knew Beatrice could swim. It seems Beatrice ought to save his life, assuming believing Beatrice cannot swim is not central to his self-conception. Saving him would respect his autonomy, and not the autonomy of some distant variant of Charles.

The above has implications for gratitude. Not only does Beatrice respect Charles’ autonomy by saving him if he would consent when aware she can swim; it seems Charles owes her gratitude, given that he benefited whilst having his autonomy respected.

This, in turn, has implications for frontline workers. If citizens are unaware of frontline migrants’s assistance and risks they assume, citizens are unlikely to view their ignorance as essential to their identities. If they don’t, removing this ignorance in the hypothetical scenario, and then asking what citizens would consent to in this scenario—in other words, asking if they would consent if given accurate information—is the right sort of question for establishing whether migrants are respecting citizens’ autonomy. If citizens would consent to undocumented migrants working if aware of risks assumed and contributions provided, these workers respect citizens’ autonomy. If undocumented workers assume supererogatory risks while respecting citizens’ autonomy, citizens owe them duties of gratitude.

In reality, many citizens would not consent to some or all frontline workers continuing their work even with accurate information. This is sometimes because of xenophobia and/or racism. We might think hypothetical consent is obtained so long as citizens would consent if not xenophobic or racist, because hypothetical consent can be obtained if one would consent were they to hold no wrongful views. For example, if Charles is sexist, and so would not consent to being saved if asked, perhaps Beatrice still respects his autonomy when saving his life. He therefore owes Beatrice gratitude, at least if grateful to be alive.

While the above may be true, it is controversial. This is because forcing individuals to accept life-saving interventions is wrong even if their motives are wrong. A sexist patient is permitted to refuse surgery to avoid having a woman conduct the surgery. If he is forced to accept this surgery, he is wronged, and so perhaps owes no gratitude. Hypothetical consent may work similarly, and a patient would owe no gratitude if the doctor performed surgery despite knowing he would have objected for wrongful reasons. Citizens who have objectionable xenophobia may be blameworthy, and perhaps undocumented workers ought to be given visas if undocumented because of xenophobia, but they are not owed permanent residency by virtue of citizens autonomously benefiting.

The above logic is clearer when citizens’ motives are not objectionable. Imagine increases in undocumented workers cause spikes in rental prices, and citizens prefer to adopt increased risks than suffer higher rental prices. Their views could be nonwrongful and autonomously derived, such that migrant workers are not providing citizens an autonomous benefit. Autonomous benefits, therefore, cannot explain why citizens owe such workers gratitude.

This leads to a question: whether autonomous benefits are always necessary for owing gratitude. While protecting autonomy may be part of a jointly sufficient set of conditions for gratitude—X owes gratitude to Y if Y assumes supererogatory risks for him and his autonomy is respected—perhaps autonomy is not necessary when a benefactor cannot know what a beneficiary would consent to if asked. If Charles would not have consented to Beatrice saving her life, but she cannot know this fact, she may not actually protect his autonomy, but in saving his life she nonculpably responds to what she reasonably thinks he wants. Charles has good reason to show her gratitude, given that she demonstrated concern for his welfare without intentionally usurping his autonomy. At least, he has good reason to show her gratitude if he is grateful to be alive. Many frontline workers likely do not know what citizens would want, especially during an emergency before polls have been conducted. If they reasonably presume citizens want frontline migrants to continue their work, then even if they do not actually respect the autonomy of citizens, they do the best they can. Gratitude may therefore still be owed, and with it permanent residency.

In contrast, if migrants can reasonably know that fully informed citizens would not consent to their work if asked, such migrants’ grounds for gratitude are more ambiguous. This is consistent with the claim that such migrants have other grounds for permanent residency, derived from alternative values.

Three Alternative Values

This section presents the values of reciprocity, membership, and equality as grounding rights to permanent residency. The latter two values explain why many frontline workers not owed gratitude are owed permanent residency. Some might suppose these two values justify permanent residency for all frontline workers. I demonstrate this is not the case; a full account of rights for frontline workers must appeal to gratitude alongside alternative values.

Beyond COVID-19

While principles of membership, equality, and nonexploitation have garnered widespread attention in discussions on immigration, principles of gratitude have been largely neglected. Yet, gratitude is relevant beyond COVID-19. Many workers benefit citizens via supererogatory risks, and so perhaps many have gratitude-based grounds for permanent residency.

This is uncontroversial for some workers. Migrants in the military are already granted permanent residency in a range of countries after serving a minimal number of years (Sullivan Reference Sullivan2019), with France waiving any time requirement for FFL soldiers injured in battle (Ferrillo Reference Ferrillo2012). Assuming many injured have taken supererogatory risks, this policy could be justified on gratitude-based grounds. Gratitude could also explain France’s broader policy of occasionally providing citizenship to individuals participating in life-risking acts of kindness, as when a Malian man climbed a building to save a child dangling from a fourth-floor balcony (Vandoorne, Breech, and Westcott Reference Vandoorne, Beech and Westcott2018). In this sense, the case for granting permanent residency to frontline workers is a case for expanding gratitude-based residency beyond soldiers and those engaging in random acts of kindness.Footnote ⁸

The case can be expanded to include additional migrants. Consider firefighters and health workers participating in long night shifts that reduce life expectancy (Laroche and L’Espérance Reference Laroche and L’Espérance2021; Vetter et al. Reference Vetter, Devore, Wegrzyn, Massa, Speizer, Kawachi, Rosner, Stampfer and Schernhammer2016). It may be that many are owed gratitude for assuming supererogatory risks. Nonresidents living abroad may be owed similar gratitude, and sometimes are granted residency rights for this reason. For example, the UK government granted residency to nearly 100,000 Nepalese soldiers serving as Gurkhas in the UK military (Pariyar Reference Pariyar2020), and the US government granted residency to roughly 26,000 Afghan and Iraqi interpreters and their dependents (Radford and Krogstad Reference Radford and Krogstad2017). If individuals living abroad can be owed gratitude, perhaps even more individuals are owed gratitude-based residency, such as West African health care workers who worked during the Ebola pandemic (WHO 2015), potentially increasing life-expectancy in high-income countries by decreasing the virus’s spread.

While many workers are owed gratitude, this needn’t imply a duty to grant all such workers permanent residency.

As noted in previous sections, there are limits to costs individuals must bear in showing gratitude, and this applies to groups: when many risk their lives to save many individuals at sea, costs should be allocated fairly between beneficiaries, and if many beneficiaries refuse to cooperate, there is still an upper cost any beneficiary must bear. This has implications for states: a single state may have no duty to grant permanent residency to all owed gratitude—including those abroad—when the costs this imposes are beyond those citizens are obligated to bear. This could be the case if certain employment sectors or public services would be strained. When this occurs, all states with benefiting citizens should cooperate to allocate residency permits to those owed gratitude, limiting costs any states’ citizens must bear. When impossible, a given state is still permitted to limit the number given permanent residency if this prevents costs from rising above the obligatory threshold for gratitude. While the threshold is greater than had the state’s citizens not benefited, this threshold is still finite.

When limits are justified, this raises the question of who should be prioritized. There are good reasons to prioritize workers living in the country. There are distinct membership-based harms imposed on someone forced to leave a state they are residing in compared with harms imposed on someone denied entrance to a state they have never lived in before. As noted in the last section, frontline workers are interacting regularly with state institutions and often citizens. Given these interactions, when subject to deportation, the harm they experience is generally greater than the harm of someone who never lived in the state, all else being equal. If the harm is greater, and the duty of gratitude requires avoiding harm, then the duty to avoid deporting migrants who risked their lives can be generally weightier than the duty to admit nonresidents who risked their lives.

While membership is one central consideration, another is equality. As noted in the last section, an individual can be owed gratitude and face unjust inequality, and the same is true for individuals abroad. An Afghan interpreter risking his life for the US military may face wrongful inequality if denied basic necessities should he refuse his services, but he is still owed gratitude if his motives are solely to help the military. There are good reasons to prioritize him for permanent residency before a doctor working in the US, assuming the doctor faces no unjust inequality. This seems especially true if the interpreter experiences inequality alongside membership claims, holding strong ties with US government institutions via his work.

There is a final consideration, related to what individual policymakers ought to do. Sometimes policymakers prioritizing some individuals legitimizes, amongst citizens, “an adjudication system that is … unjust to everyone else” (Silverman Reference Silverman2016). For example, US policymakers providing residency to Afghan interpreters may have reinforced the idea that those not taking risks were less deserving of residency rights. The popularity of this idea can constrain policymakers’ ability to protect other migrants’ rights. More specifically, policymakers granting permanent residency to those owed gratitude, and attempting to respect rights for other migrants, might fail to do so if their attempts quickly cost them reelection.Footnote ⁹ This worry, articulated by Maike Isaac and Jennifer Elrick when discussing residency rights for COVID-19 workers (Reference Isaac and Elrick2020, 8), is relevant whenever some migrants are deemed more worthy than others.

To establish what ought to be done in such cases, policymakers ought to consider who benefits and who is disadvantaged. If policymakers granting permanent residency to some privileged frontline doctors means they struggle to grant residency to far more refugees, refugees should be prioritized. In contrast, when most granted residency on gratitude-based grounds are also fleeing life-threatening conditions—as is often true for agricultural workers (Markham Reference Markham2019; Pelek Reference Pelek2019)—granting permanent residency may be acceptable even if this makes resettling a smaller number of refugees more difficult.

Moreover, it may be justified to grant permanent residency to a set of frontline workers when this improves citizens’ general attitudes toward migrants. This effect may arise during COVID-19, if COVID-19 is what Bonnie Honig calls a “transformative” emergency, in the sense of encouraging support for experimentation and change (Honig Reference Honig2014, 52). Historically, such experimentation and change has expanded the set of individuals given citizenship-associated rights beyond those owed gratitude, when citizens viewed the emergency as an opportunity to protect democracy and equality (Davenport et al. Reference Davenport2019). For example, the post-WWI UK government extended the franchise to all men to show gratitude for fighting in the war (Gottlieb and Toye Reference Gottlieb and Toye2013), but later expanded the franchise to women in 1928. More directly related to migration, post-WWII Canada extended rights to Chinese immigrants on similar grounds of having fought in the war, expanding rights to far more migrants by 1962 (Roy Reference Roy2011). There is some evidence that COVID-19 can expand the provision of rights to far more migrants. According to Isaac and Elrick, COVID-19 has heightened awareness of migrants’ general contributions, with resistance to calling agricultural workers “low skilled” (Isaac and Elrick Reference Isaac and Elrick2020). If the pandemic has shifted perceptions of what “skilled” means, popularizing the idea that many migrants are owed gratitude—beyond those assuming risks during the pandemic—perhaps permanent residency to frontline workers will help rather than harm the status of other migrants. Establishing if this is true requires empirical research, but such research is essential precisely because of the value of gratitude at stake.