When public housing is scarce, long-term local residents may receive priority among applicants with comparable levels of need. In other words, a residency preference ranks otherwise similar applicants by length or continuity of local residence.

Veterans may receive a modest preference in public hiring because military service creates a special reciprocal obligation. In other words, a modest preference can affect ranking without guaranteeing selection over substantially better-qualified applicants.

A locally funded mutual-aid program may reserve some benefits for people who have contributed to it over time. In other words, mutual-aid programs pool contributions among members and distribute benefits under agreed rules.

A diaspora charity may reasonably prioritize members of its own dispersed community before assisting unrelated groups. In other words, a diaspora is a community dispersed from an ancestral homeland while maintaining shared ties.

Refugee admissions should prioritize vulnerability and danger rather than cultural similarity to the receiving country. In other words, vulnerability criteria can include persecution risk, medical need, family separation, and immediate danger.

After domestic high-risk groups are protected, surplus vaccines should be distributed internationally according to medical need. In other words, the domestic threshold is satisfied before the question turns to allocation of remaining supply.

Humanitarian aid should be allocated where it prevents the most severe suffering rather than primarily to allied countries. In other words, this contrasts humanitarian need with strategic or alliance-based allocation.

Charitable donors should be free to direct their money to the neediest people worldwide without tax rules favoring domestic beneficiaries. In other words, tax neutrality means the government does not favor domestic over foreign beneficiaries when recognizing charitable gifts.

As one policy package, a country should join a regional trade-and-migration union while reserving selected welfare benefits for its own citizens. In other words, the country would accept shared trade and migration rules while keeping specified public benefits available only to its own citizens.

Citizens should receive priority over noncitizens for scarce public housing and long-term welfare benefits when their levels of need are otherwise comparable. In other words, political membership should give citizens a stronger claim to limited public resources than equally needy noncitizens.

People who knowingly remain in a country without legal permission should normally be deported even after living and working there for many years. In other words, long residence and community ties should not usually defeat the country’s right to enforce its immigration rules.

A child born in a country should normally receive citizenship at birth regardless of the immigration status of the parents. In other words, children should begin as full members of the society where they are born rather than inherit their parents’ lack of legal status.

People should generally be free to live and work in another country when they pass reasonable security and identity checks. In other words, birthplace should not by itself prevent peaceful people from joining another society and labor market.