r E s u m E n En un mundo independiente de identidades y membresias politicas superpuestas, los estados y ciudadanos democraticos enfrentan dificiles elecciones al momento de responder al fenomeno de la migracion a gran escala y a la cuestion sobre quien de be tener derecho a acceder a la ciu da ­ dania. En un influyente in ten to por establecer un marco norma tivo para un orden global mas jus to, El derecho de gentes, John Ra wls curiosamen­ te guarda silencio res pecto a que significado tendria este marco para las politicas de migra cion. En este articulo considero las complicaciones que causan la desatencion de Rawls en su vision mas amplia de la justicia global. Sin embargo, tambien intento mostrar como estos aspectos de la teoria de Rawls sur gen de una tension subyacente que confrontan todas las concepciones democraticas de justicia, en teoria y practica. En mi conclusion, esbozo una alternativa basada en las intuiciones del pluralis­ mo agnos tico que “rompen” el silencio rawl siano y teoriza activamente la legitimacion democratica de las fron teras politicas. p a l a b R a s c l a v e Inmigracion, migracion, cuidadania, El derecho de gentes. a b s t r a c t In an interdependent world of overlapping political memberships and identities, states and democratic citizens face difficult choices in respond­ ing to large­scale migration and the related question of who ought to have access to citizenship. In an influential attempt to provide a normative framework for a more just global order, The Law of Peoples, John Rawls is curiously silent regarding what his framework would mean for the politics of migration. In this piece, I consider the complications Rawls’s inattention to these issues creates for his broader vision of global justice. Yet I also attempt to show how these aspects of Rawls’s theory emerge from an underlying tension which confronts all liberal democratic con­ ceptions of justice, both in theory and in practice. In my conclusion, I sketch an alternative rooted in the insights of agonistic plu ralism, which “breaks” the Rawlsian silence and actively theorizes the democratic legitimation of political borders. k e y W o R d s