You can stop right there, because there's no such thing as a recognized right to immigrate anywhere on earth, our aspiring Atticus Finch having pulled one from his suppository repository notwithstanding. Until you can demonstrate one of those, “cuz we said so!” is all the justification needed. The privilege of immigration is granted entirely at the discretion of the host nation. End of story.

Whatever.

Is there anything unjust about an American immigration policy of admitting only white people (not too different from what we've had in the past)?

I really can't tell your answer from your previous comment. Yes or no?

(1) My sense is that most immigration cases are either (a) claims of people asserting some right to stay in the US under one or another kind of visa, etc. (rights that are often contested by the government even when perfectly clear) or (b) various claims under the INA's asylum provisions and/or the CAT. I mean category (a) to include litigation conducted on behalf of businesses for foreign-citizen employees, visa claims from spouses of US citizens, and the like. I meant to lump all this under vague and imprecise term “right of entry” — shame on me. (He who lives by precise expression, it seems, dies by imprecise expression.) Immigration status and citizenship issues do get litigated in some criminal cases where the immigration or nationality issue is an element of the offense. But my sense is that cases in which the only fighting issue is whether the applicant is already a citizen are rare, in both the immigration bureaucracy and in the federal courts, but I haven't seen data on that question.

That said, the citizenship rules really are more complicated (and capacious) than people seem to think. It is, for example, just false to imply, as you do, that the only basis for US citizenship other than naturalization is being “born here.” The children of US citizens are, under the INA, almost always citizens at birth, no matter where they're born. (Though the rules can get really weird: how long the parent(s) lived continuously in the US, a citizen parent's gender, or year of the child's birth can end up making a difference.) In the big scheme of things, of course unusual citizenship are a sideshow, though an interesting one (and my guess is that the number of people in Canada and Mexico with interesting, litigible citizenship claims, while not very large, probably isn't trivial — data, alas, is wanting). (NB — I offered up the Tancredo-style reading of the Fourteenth Amendment only as an example of how these things aren't nearly as clear as people think. Regardless of their constitutionality, German-style citizenship rules seem to me to be really awful policy.)

(2) I don't know what you're trying to imply about Article 1, section 9, clause 1, but that clause really was meant to prevent the federal government from using the commerce clause to interfere with the slave trade in southern states. That's just true. The framers avoided referring to the slave trade by name, but the clause's purpose was abundantly clear. One could use the slave trade clause to argue that the ratifying population understood Congress to have had the power to exclude anyone it wanted — why else make an exception? I almost never hear anyone making that argument, though — probably because people think the Civil War Amendments repealed the slave trade clause, and it's therefore inappropriate to use clause in textual arguments. I don't know exactly what I was trying to say about the clause in the earlier comment, other than that it's the only provision of the Constitution that speaks directly to whether there's a plenary federal power to exclude. I suppose my view is that, even if it's permissible to enlist the clause in an argument for a purely plenary (and the word “plenary” does a lot of work here) exclusion power, it won't do the job. The precise text (“Migration or Importation”) and its history indicate that the clause had a very specific effect. And that the framers thought Congress's power over international trade sufficiently broad that, to shelter slavery from Congress's power, it was necessary expressly to carve out an exception prohibiting Congress from interfering with the states' rights to decide whether to allow slave traders to drop anchor in their ports doesn't speak to whether Congress has the power to regulate immigration for just any reason. The latter is the much broader claim the government, and then the Supreme Court, made in the 1880s, and the claim you make above.

(3) In this regard, it's interesting that you say Texas might go after Mexicans with even greater enthusiasm than ICE. (For what it's worth, I think there's a good chance this is actually false.) It actually seems plausible to me that the best explanation for the Constitution's deafening silence on the federal government's supposedly obvious and inherent power to exclude anyone from the US for any reason was that, in the 1780s, and for some time thereafter, the states actually exercised much more power in this area. Before the Civil War, federal citizenship was much less important in everyday life than various other identities. States were more important, and many states — especially the states with large, urban centers — were not much interested in turning people away.

(4) I'd have thought the relevance of immigration law's relatively recent vintage was clear. The supposedly obvious right of exclusion of just anyone for just any reason is not a natural or obvious consequence of sovereignty. The claim you made — that it is — really isn't true. (It could be true in a the trivial sense that the state's agents could, hypothetically, kill anyone who enters, but that sense entails a kind of radical positivism that would render talk of almost every existing state's immigration laws nonsense.) For much of American history (and for some surprising parts of European history), plenary exclusion was not the law, and, further, people just didn't think that way. Regardless, the idea is that these things are historical, political, and contingent. You can't argue that it's okay to to adopt an exclusionary immigration policy by opaque citation of the inherent attributes of sovereignty or with obviously flawed metaphors about your house. There's a lot of legwork that needs doing.

Considering that every other society, from your local bridge club to the United Nations, reserves the right to establish criteria for admitting members and allowing use of their facilities, why would I? But what would be the point?

I'm not dodging any issue, because the rights you are claiming are neither granted or recognized. I told you – read any standard title to property. “Owning property” is a layman's shorthand for a somewhat more complex situation. Most deeds will states quite clearly what rights you have purchased. It will state whether or not you are also the owner of mineral rights, water rights, etc. And if not, it will also state that you are required to make reasonable accommodations to the owners of those rights allowing them to exercise them. More accurately, you haven't purchased the property, you have purchased specific *rights* to the property. And that doesn't preclude other parties holding other specific rights to it.

In my view, one might say we “collectively reserve certain rights to the territory”, but this is only permissable if it enhances individual rights. This seems to me to be basic liberalism, of the sort that anyone who supports the principle of the constitution should support. Do you disagree?

This is good example of why I've come to hate libertarians – they present an idealized vision of liberty that has never existed, never will exist, and couldn't possibly exist, and then use the fact that reality falls short of that idealized vision to attack the institutions and conventions that protect what liberties we do have. It's straight out of Saul Alinsky – ““Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”

You were almost honest enough to acknowledge the problem with your example of the prohibition of murder – almost, but not quite. The fact is, that if some liberties are recognized, they'll preclude or inhibit the exercise of other liberties. So, like it or not, not all liberties are equal, and you're going to have to assign a relative value as to which ones have priority. And among those criteria is considering which parties obligations are owed to. Which obligations take priority? The ones to my family, or to your family? The well-being and comfort of your fellow citizens, or of foreign nationals? To your descents, or their descendents?

Do you believe that any law passed through the democratic process is legitimate? I'd imagine you'd answer “no”, so in what cases is it and isn't it?

Let's put it this way – democracy may be an imperfect arbiter of justice – but if the alternative is government by armchair intellectuals in the blogosphere, I'll take democracy, warts and all.

You seem to be entirely ignoring one of the other primary responsibilities of government – keeping the peace.

You can call for unlimited immigration over the heads of the citizenry if you like, just be aware you're going to be overruled, and when you've sufficiently antagonized the native population, who want no such thing in any country, things are likely to turn ugly. Which won't be conducive to anyone's freedom. You can already see the precursors to that confrontation arising in Europe. When legitimate parties refuse to address the concerns of their citizens, you can bet illegitimate ones will fill the vacuum.

What individual rights are protected through immigration restrictions? ( Though I suppose if you answer 'yes' to the above question, this isn't an issue)?

The relationship between immigration control and protection of rights is quite simple – preservation of the social, political, cultural and economic environment that makes protection of those rights possible!

Consider – there are 300 million people in America. There are 1.3 billion people in China. Now, contrary to popular belief, most Chinese people happen to like China, and they like their government. A recent poll found that 64% of Chinese approved of their government. Which is a helluva a lot better than our government is doing with it's citizens. Well, good on the Chinese! But consider that even a small percentage of the Chinese population immigrating here would overwhelm our electorate, what kind of government do you think they'd vote for? If we couldn't politically segregate ourselves from the rest of the world, what kind of government do you think we'd wind up with? Not knocking the Chinese or their government (I actually think they're a very admirable country), but clearly the Chinese value different things in government than we do. Whose vision of government do you prefer to live under?

Do you follow current events in Europe? Do you want Sharia law legitimized here as it has been in Britain? Do you want rioting here like in France? Can you explain why, if an election were held today, Geert Wilders would be the prime minister of the liberal Netherlands? How do you account for the popularity of parties like Vlaams Belang in the Belgium, or the SVP in Switzerland, and the growing popularity in the BNP in Britain? Berlusconi in Italy?

You might want to keep in mind that when you've antagonized enough people, philosophy will go out of the window, and people will more likely be expressing their displeasure with bullets than blogs. The only thing they'll likely be using “On Liberty” for is kindling when they're burning you at the stake.

1) Jose buys a plane ticket on (privately owned ) United Airlines to SFO.
2) I pick Jose up at the airport in my (private) car and take him to my (private) home.

See how that's done? Peaceful, voluntary trades. At no point, does Jose ever “access property” that isn't voluntarily granted to him.

Of course, we have immigration laws. And as a result, immigration officers can show up with guns and threaten to kill me, Jose, and everyone else in that chain if we try to make those trades without jumping through their hoops.

So it's not me that's accessing property that isn't theirs. It's you, under the color of law, trying to dictate to me who I can and cannot let into my own house.

No, immigration lawyers litigate the cases of foreigners whose right to be in the country is unclear or contested. I suspect the number of cases where citizenship is contested are few or non-existent.

Citizenship is unambiguous. If you're born here, you're a citizen. If you've completed the naturalization process, you're a citizen. If you can establish proof of either (not difficult), then there's nothing to contest.

I can imagine a future in which populist politicians, hopped up on power and demagogy, enact a federal statute stating that people who sneak into the US illegally, and their children, have no claim on any US government benefit or on any protection from the US government, and therefore aren't “subject to [the United States's] jurisdiction.” In fact, I understand that to be the basis of Tom Tancredo's loathesome bill denying citizenship to “anchor babies” (God, what a disgusting term).

So what? Most EU countries require at least one parent is a citizen as condition to recognition of citizenship. That doesn't seem to be any kind of unreasonable to me.

And the only express limitation on the power to exclude is the slave trade clause (Article 1, section 9, clause 1), which states: “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.” This clearly has to do with slavery (it actually says “importation”!).

Um, and it also actually says “migration”. But let's assume your reading of the phrase is correct: since the Constitution doesn't explicitly grant the Federal government power to regulate the slave trade either, why would a clause limiting it's power to do so be necessary, if that power wasn't assumed? Your argument proves too much.

Further, even if we're to assume the Federal government has no authority to regulate immigration, then, per the 10th Amendment, that power devolves to the states. Who do you think is going to be more efficient about applying boots to butts? ICE or the Texas National Guard? Be careful what you wish for….

Until an astonishingly late date, the US had no immigration law whatever.

And in 1928 we had no drunk driving laws, either. The next time you get popped for a DUI, try telling the judge it was legal when your grandfather did it. What is the relevance of this again?

I consider the late 1880s an astonishingly late date for this sort of thing. I understand that entry quotas showed up somewhat earlier, but not by that much. I hope for enlightenment from someone whose nerdery exceeds even my own.