It is widely believed that immigrants, after some time, acquire a claim to naturalize and become citizens of their new state. What explains this claim? Although existing answers (may) succeed in justifying some of immigrants' rights claims, they cannot justify the claim that immigrants are owed the opportunity to naturalize because these theories lack a sufficiently rich account of the purpose of citizenship. To fill this gap, I offer a novel egalitarian account of citizenship. Citizenship, on this account, partially protects immigrants against social hierarchy by realizing social equality in a publicly accessible manner. This explains claims to naturalize.

中文翻译：

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移民、入籍和公民身份的目的

人们普遍认为，一段时间后，移民会获得入籍并成为新国家公民的权利。如何解释这种说法？尽管现有的答案（可能）成功地证明了一些移民的权利主张，但它们不能证明移民应有机会归化的说法是正确的，因为这些理论缺乏对公民身份目的的足够丰富的解释。为了填补这一空白，我提供了一种新颖的平等主义公民身份解释。因此，公民身份通过以可公开获得的方式实现社会平等，在一定程度上保护移民不受社会等级制度的影响。这解释了入籍要求。