I live in Phoenix, Arizona where illegal immigration has a huge impact of the state and life in general. I suggest and support 6 months+ imprisonment before deportation for repeat offenders or those caught committing crimes.

Step on my property without my consent and you will be challenged and/or detained, if necessary. Step on my property at night without my consent, you will be challenged and theres a damn good chance you'll be taken away in an ambulance, wishing you were arrested.

Thats my reality living in this border state. My family's safety is not trumped by anyone's individual "right to travel." My property is private.

I'm amazed the numbers of anti-Objectivist and anti-freedom members that are being brought out by these discussions and posts on immigration and property rights. Individual freedom (including the right to travel) and property rights for all men are core principles of Objectivism as well as Locke's work that went into the founding documents of this country.

I see a lot of Pragmatism and Relativism and near Fascist Nationalism of the conservative type, in many of the comments as well as a lot of mis-understanding (maybe outright mis-statement) of Ayn Rand's thoughts. There's also much misdirected anger against the immigrant---not against those government actors that have bastardized our institutions to such an extent through government programs, non-prosecution, stupid and ignorant drug policies and wars, and outright scare mongering where the anger should be aimed.

Take a step back and review the principles of Objectivism and you will find solutions to your anger. While you're at that also do a little review of Hitler's promises to the German people if they'd just let him handle the Jewish, Gypsy, and mentally and physically deformed and weak problems. Germany would then be a country of prosperity and success again. Compare those promises to Trump's if we'll just let him handle the immigrant problem.

"Private property rights can never be used to imprison people."

This reminds me of anti-private property rights arguments I used to hear claiming that property rights allows someone to "buy up a 1 inch strip of land around you to imprison you." It makes no more sense than claiming that someone could drop a steel cage over you to imprison you and you have no right to get out because he owns the cage. Or, someone could get away with shooting you because he owns the bullets.

DB, I live in Tucson, AZ...in the illustrious 100 mile zone that the feds ignore the Constitution. I have some good friends on the Border Patrol, and I can tell you for a fact that you are incorrect in this statement, "No armies are crossing our border.". Armed federalies commonly cross the border, and when they are stopped, they claim that they did not realize they were on the U.S. side. S.O.P. dictates that they are returned to Mexico, with their firearms. Now, maybe they are just lost...maybe G.P.S. does not work at the border, or maybe they are escorting in illegals, drugs, etc.
Growing up in Chicago, I knew nothing about what went on down here, until I moved here. There is a constant flow of people, drugs, weapons, sex slaves, and other bad things flowing across the border.
I firmly believe that we are a country, not a charity. We should have sovereign borders and they should be protected.

Here is an island nation, call it Islandia ( http://www.professorsopportunities.co... ). Its land is owned by three people: A, B, and C. Its two roads, shown in red, are owned by the people whose land they cross, but maintained by the government of Islandia. They are toll roads, and anyone who is not a landowner and desires to use a road must pay.

I maintain that Islandia can deny access to anyone they want, and noone can set foot on their land without the permission of the land owner.

People, therefore, are not free to travel: they may not travel in Islandia for free.

But noone is being imprisoned by Islandia. And Islandia is not keeping two people from meeting - they can meet by simply traveling via water, or they can pay the toll and use the roads.

Now how does this differ if the size of a nation is increased, or the number of its property owners, or the number of roads?

The argument is good but I do have some unease, here goes-

Starting from the concept of property rights is correct. Then, it is necessary to put the question, Who owns the thoroughfare? The answer is- the people, the nation, the citizens. The owner has delegated management to an agency - the government. That agency has fiduciary duty as it is impractical for the owners to take on the management. The agency may legitimately restrict access (of non-owners) if that decision has the ok of the owners. Such restriction does not need to be defended to any outsider, it derives from property rights, it only needs acceptance from the owners.

" This argument shows a flawed understanding of property rights. You obtain property rights in something because you made it productive or created it. "
Yes, but this is not a full definition unless inheritance is denied. The thoroughfare is owned by citizens who have ownership by a process akin to inheritance.
Much the same conclusion would be reached by defining the owner as government with government in turn being owned by the citizens.
A logical way you could disagree would be by legitimizing government having more power than most Objectivists would allow- by banning discrimination on grounds the political class de jour does not want. This detracts from property rights.
Or, you could propose that every living person everywhere has an equal share in ownership of all land not privately owned, I wouldn't.

" the gulch is private property and that private property did not limit anyone’s ability to travel freely."
To my reading, the border protection fence was quite effective in keeping people out. Technology that can not be seen beats fences and guards.
Wrt getting out once in, you could argue about Dagny being a prisoner or not.

What I really like about dbh's paper is what I call a timetable, it starts from "There is a principled solution .."

What drivel. An overflowing stack of non-sequiturs and straw-men attacks to derive a hilariously bad conclusion that those who want everyone to equally play by the rules are xenophobic and hate freedom. God damned laughable.

There is a free road to travel across our border...they are very obvious; it's called a 'Border crossing'. Crossing anywhere else is in violation of someone's or everyone's property rights.
And; the article ignores the moral standard most of live by...it's called knocking upon your neighbors door and asking to come in out of respect for their right of property.

"My postion is fully consistent. Not only the post office, but streets, roads, and above all, schools should all be privately owned and privately run." -Ayn Rand, the Playboy Interview, 1964.

” The logical opposite of the freedom to travel, is imprisonment."

So the individual's freedom to travel gives them the right to traverse any place on earth, private or public, as long as they (the traveler) have no clear intent to harm anyone.

This implies that any tribe, country, or nation can have no control of its borders, that all humans are citizens of the earth who can live wherever they choose.

So if America wants to control immigration by controlling its borders, they are, in reality, imprisoning 7 billion humans who might want to come and live here.

What would this stateless utopia of yours look like? What form of government would it have? Would this "right to travel" supersede all private property rights as to ownership of land?

The reason a number of us keep bringing up The Gulch in this discussion is that it represents at least Ayn Rand's fictional attempt to describe a community of producers who followed her philosophy.

The fact that it was the private property of a single individual as well as the secrecy, oaths, and exclusiveness demonstrates the problems that constructing such a thing in the real world entail.

Single ownership would not be attractive to most of the individualists on this site who would like to own their own land, thank you. And once that happens you have to have ways for them to jointly manage any land that is considered for common use.

While the basis of rights is the individual, many of our commercial activities are carried out by many individual acting jointly. Frequently property is jointly owned. I am a major shareholder of a company that owns our office unit. The office unit, itself, is part of a condominium structure and fourteen other companies or individuals own the other units. There is a common area owned by all of us, but we can jointly control access to that area.

This is very common.

I am going to respond here to DBHalling's insulting comments. I do not agree with your article. Even though it is poorly written, I will attempt a rebuttal in plain English.

1) "...self-ownership means that you can travel freely. If that was not the case then someone could control where you went, which means you do not own yourself."

Your logic here is faulty:

Statement A: "self-ownership means that you can travel freely"
NOT A: "self-ownersnip does NOT mean that you can travel freely"
Thus your conclusion does not follow logically from your premise. In fact, I like the logical conclusion better.

2) Private property means property that is owned by someone. If a person owns property, then he has a right to control who can enter it. So the owner of private property controls where you go. This is freedom.

3) "There is a principled solution to the immigration problem..." Admitedly, your "solution" is desirable. But it does not solve the "immigration problem", unless your meaning is that people could then enter the country without anyone having the need to stop them. But private property owners - meaning the whole of the country - would still require them to have permission to enter their property, so there would be no place for the immigrants to go. This is the reason for border controls.

4) "Anyone who continues to push ... limits on the immigration and travel of people across the US border can no longer pretend they are freedom." I maintain that you have not shown this to be true. In fact such an "anyone" is sticking up for freedom, by insisting that such "people" have permission to travel on private property before entering the US.

Heard some conehead on Faux SNews the other day. Wishes we had more immigration. Thought there should be no borders. Wanted to reach in to the screen and pull his bow tie and ask: "No borders? How about taking the locks off your doors, then?"

I do see a large flaw in the authors argument....He sates..." There have been cases in which a person sold a land locked plot without an easement. The courts have uniformly ruled that there was an implied easement, because otherwise land would be an island or a prison and the sale of the land would have to be considered fraudulent. The sale of the land implies being able to use and access the land. "

however...just because someone buys land next to mine...that happens to be landlocked...it does not impose on me a duty to provide to him an access. He may well have been defrauded by the seller...but that has nothing to do with me and does not impose a duty upon me or make me a slave to the purchaser.

I cannot totally agree. I understand the point but I hate anyone to tamper with what is mine. Does the government own property? Yes. Does that make the government a private property owner, or does that make the citizens co-owners of the property with the government just controlling it for us? If I take the problem down to a more personal level; Say I own a very expensive watch. Should I allow an illegal to take it from me if he doesn't have one? Could he 'borrow" it without my consent? Let us face reality, we don't live in a free country. OK, I understand Atlantis will be free(er) and the ideal will be more likely, but not here -- not now.

Thanks for this DB.

You know, I have been reading all of these posts for days now, and it occurs to me that some are making this issue of Property Rights seem so complicated when it really isn't. Just check your premise. Objectively speaking, no one has the right to force anyone to do anything unless they are violating your personal rights to your life and your property. You can throw all the extreme examples at this that you want, but the truth still remains the same. We are not talking about "laws of the land" here as we all know that some laws are corrupt and do not represent Objectivist ideals. We are talking about what is right and what is wrong. A is A. 1 + 1 = 2. No one can change that no matter how complicated things become.

And it is exploited by traditional conservatives to promote statism.

Just to be clear. You are not advocating that anyone has unfettered access to any piece of property are you? Only their property I assume, and that the freedom to travel is only extended to public thoroughfares.

Some horribly flawed arguments in here.

"Your rights in say land are limited by the activity you undertook to obtain those rights."

Your rights to property are defined by what you lay claim to and the control you exercise over it, I agree. This is also usually extended to recognition by legal authority due to filed claims, etc. for external enforcement purposes (executive and judicial actions).

"It also does not mean you can put a huge pigsty on the edge your land next to your neighbor’s house."

This is the same logic the EPA uses to tell people they can control the waterways. It is a collectivist argument. You sure you want to go there?

"your property rights in land cannot be used to make someone a prisoner"

The first implied argument (sorely flawed) is that freedom of movement trumps property rights. This is nonsense. Property rights by definition mean control over and access to a physical entity delineated by boundaries. If you argue that one has the freedom to go wherever one desires regardless of anything else, you are arguing that there is in fact no private property because you are arguing the invalidation of jurisdictional boundaries of geography.

The second blatantly false assertion is that I am emprisoning or coercing someone else by refusing them permission to cross my land. This whole notion is patently absurd.

"self-ownership means that you can travel freely."

Not so. It means that one has actuation/control over one's own thoughts and to extension one's own body. However, the universe beyond that is not part of your inherent ownership, as it lies outside and distinct from you. That you have the ability to move is one thing. That you are permitted to move in a particular place is another matter entirely. Your argument is that the ability to move predicates the right to move anywhere one wishes. This is false. When one travels, one is asserting control over that territory - even if only briefly. But what happens when that claim of control is disputed? Who's use takes precedence? The owner's of course.

By your argument, I should be permitted to travel freely through Groom's Lake and Area 51 in Nevada - being public lands - and open a shop there for business. Yeah. Good luck with that.

"Property rights cannot be used to imprison someone or to keep two free people who want to meet or trade from doing so."

Again, you presume the right to passage through another's domain regardless of permission. In so doing, you completely eschew their property rights. You may have permission (such as in the case of general use or "public" property), but this is far from being a given. I would note that the Constitution specifically identified and prohibited the US government from placing restrictions on travel between the individual States, but made no such prohibition on travel outside the States.

"Public thoroughfares are controlled by the government. The government does not own these public thoroughfares, but it does police them."

Police can certainly haul away a broken-down car from the side of the road as a travel nuisance. They can put up traffic signals on roads to control and manage the flow of traffic. And are not all of these restrictions on use of "public" thoroughfares? Absolutely. Use is conditional - never absolute as your argument holds.