I think that the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen should be earned and made available only after someone has proven himself worthy. This includes not only immigrants, but also people born in the states united. Then one should have the option to decide for himself if he wants to be a citizen or to be a free sovereign that voluntarily selects and pays for the services he receives from government without any ability to vote or responsibility to serve the government (as a juror, for example.)

Good points. I have often wondered how the Gulchers would have handled this issue.

Yep. In that case we're only helping those who came with nothing to start with. Unfortunately it's been reported that they are now allowed to vote...

James and Orren, and Welsey would have followed the time honored tradition of taking the Gulch by force of arms or taxing the Gulchers into submission and slavery.

The age old question of whether an individual or group of individuals can claim a patch of ground as theirs and how much ground and by what warrant are they able to invite in, or, exclude others from crossing their borders remains unanswered.

Ayn Rand never thought of Galt's Gulch as a possible existent to my knowledge.

I remember on 9/11 when it was announced that President Bush ordered the borders closed. I thought then "how". Without some type of barrier that was impossible.

True.

Laws based on reason are better than laws based on emotional arguments. What's worse than both of those, though, is to ignore the laws, which has been our policy on immigration.

What Abaco says with irony, I say seriously. We're already becoming one big swirling mess of humanity. That creates huge value and opportunity. It's hard to stop even if we wanted to.

I agree with President Trump's idea, though, that we should enforce the laws on the books. It's absurd that we have an underclass of 15 million people living here under the radar, illegally. I don't know if a physical wall is the best method. It's mainly a symbolic way to assert we're going to take our laws seriously. I hope it encourages a national debate on what the law should be and that leads to radically more permissive laws on trade and immigration.

Very true. I am suspicious of Government doing anything and it is possible vetting can be over done. Makes it a difficult problem to tackle.

Reasonable vetting makes sense to me. Those opposed to it seem to use emotional arguments.

Yes. I understand the humanitarian argument but we aren't helping anyone if we are destroyed from within.

Good question. This recent debate has had me thinking that without control of a border there is no sovereignty. Without borders, why even have nations? Let's just let it become one big swirling mess of humanity. (Sarcasm, mixed with reality...)

I think it is reasonable. Criminals should be kept out. But people that come and respect reasonable laws and don't mooch are welcome.

Yes...but also, we all must observe that most of the worlds population, never mind their governments, Do Not Respect the Property of others. We can never have an open border society until they do...