Recently, Teodoro Nguema Obiang of Equitorial Guinea was allowed into the US despite having been charged with numerous accounts of corruption. In particular, most of the money he earned was through stealing from the government of Guinea. I shall attempt to analyze the decisions of the US government through the lense of Robert Nozick's philosophy.
Nozick believes that if resources have been acquired unjustly, then society should have some principle of rectification in order to right what has happened. If one assumes for the moment that this man committed and injustice, then Nozick's theory would have that society right that injustice. The question is, how exactly does it right that injustice. In this case, how would not letting him into the country right anything? It may seem that we should not let morally questionable people into our country, especially given that there are so many other good people who are having a difficult time finding a visa. Yet this has nothing to do with rectifying his injustice. To the contrary, what should happen is that his money should be returned. One might then say that he should not be allowed to enter the country because if justice had occurred, then he would have not had enough money to travel. This can be extended to other ideas: a robber should not be punished, but the money should simply be returned. This might not be the case if the robber derived benefit for the money, for one could say that the robber had a more enjoyable life than would have been the case, and so the robber should suffer. But in cases of attempted crime, one applying Nozick's philosophy would clearly be required not to punish the robber.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/us/17visa.html?adxnnl=1&ref=global-home&adxnnlx=1258445285-kSHQxXMQnS2xk+97SFUtTw
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In the case of the robber's money being returned, I think the services used in returning the money to the original owner's should be considered. Even though the robber may not have spent any of the money for his own benefit, it is realistic that some public service such as the police or FBI had to be used in order to investigate and have the money returned. Thus, money was indeed spent. Though it was not from the source of the victim, the money spent on returning the robbed money came from society's pocket. I think it could then be concluded that the robber should indeed face some punishment proportional to the cost inflicted on society. The robber getting away completely free is not completely relevant even with Nozick's theory.
The scenarios discussed here, begin to reveal the fundamental impracticality of Nozick's principle of rectification for unjust inequalities proposed in his theory of justice. It seems that the perpetuation of injustice in a society creates an entangled and complex chain of interrelated further injustices that cannot simply be "causation-ally" traced back to an initial circumstance that is just easily. I would agree that in the scenario of the theft of money from the Guinean government, Nozick's principle of rectification would require that this money be returned. Consequently then, since the rectification of this injustice creates a scenario in which the robber would lack the funds necessary to have immigrated to the United States, it seems then it would also be appropriate for him to have to return to Guinea. Would he then be further penalized in Guinea for his committed injustices? Most likely. I do agree that the tracing the causation of these injustices according to Nozick's principle of rectification does become quite complex.
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