I agree with many of Paulina Ochoa Espejo’s insightful points. Here I take up some her challenges that the book’s scope remains narrow by elaborating on how I see my project in relation to others working in a similar space, such as Ochoa Espejo. Why have I chosen to base my positive proposals and frameworks on a picture that looks surprisingly like accepting the state system along with states’ rights to exclude?

In my central argument I start from a place that I believe will maximally engage the intended audience; namely, from the assumption that we find ourselves in a world of states that assume they have rights to exclude. But by searching for a compelling argument for these assumptions, I hope to take my audience on a journey that challenges many of the sets of assumptions that go along with that worldview. As I argue, there is no plausible justification for these default assumptions unless we also accept a range of human-rights-related requirements, such as contributing to resilient communities that are human rights sustaining. By starting where I think most of the audience is, I believe my arguments will have widest impact.

Although I warmly welcome other approaches to migration that offer other promising normative frameworks, such as Ochoa Espejo’s rich model, I believe there is also much positive potential in the most widely endorsed framework for contemplating migration issues. I aim to highlight the resources that can be found from within the most widely accepted international system for analyzing migration issues. For instance, the International Organization for Migration has negotiated a wonderful framework for improving human rights protections for migrants. Given that 85% of the world’s states have agreed to abide by its terms and to be held accountable for performance on its objectives, we would do well not to bypass this important pathway for securing more migration justice gains.

Ochoa Espejo believes that my view requires only weak promises to make good-faith human-rights-relevant efforts and so does not have the force I claim for it. But this interpretation ignores one of the central rights for migrants that I champion: to participate in a fair process for determining their rights and to be entitled to a full accounting for that determination. A requirement necessary to state legitimacy is that states must commit to practices of accountability; legitimacy requires that states commit to practices of accountability for their performance and treatment of migrants. And states will be held to account by multiple stakeholders for their performance as others judge their credibility and human-rights compliance. Failure to offer a human-rights-compliant accounting undermines states’ legitimacy, along with their rights to control their borders.

In summary, although I welcome a diverse range of perspectives for analyzing migration issues, I have at least two reasons for championing the positive potential of the state-based model. First, it will have the broadest engagement with readers because it starts from the most widely shared assumption about how things ought to be. Second, that state-based system has come up with a very promising framework for making gains in our contemporary world while also committing to being held accountable for state progress. Agents within the international community have an important role to play in holding states accountable for the progressive migration-related commitments that states have made.