I would like to think that AR would argue the same case I do on this issue: We can never have open borders until Everyone on earth respects the property rights of others; the basic unit of which, is the individual.
If we as a global society ever reach that point, we will have no need for government either.
I don't see this happening for thousands of years if ever.

Also: I use the example of a neighbor that would knock on your door and respectfully "Ask" to come in. Coming into our country is like entering our home.

That's probably why the open border creatures are against property ownership too!...except their own property of course...they would be the favored class as in every socialist, communist or marxist country...soon to be progressive countries as well, lest we all wake up in time.

One can not maintain a nation-state without borders. While many in the ARI like to cite Adam Smith and the free movement of labor as the sign of a free economy, it is forgotten that the underpinnings of that free movement of labor are a common set of laws and culture (philosophy). Part of declaring one's borders is to declare which set of rules and allegiances are expected to be followed within a geographical area - especially the rule of law. To advocate open violation of immigration laws to advocate a "free market" exposes the poor logic behind such and the evidence of that can be seen in the meltdown of American culture in the past 50 years. Indeed, today we have many who describe themselves as hyphenated Americans - people who want to be attached to two different cultures at the same time - even when some of those cultural mores directly conflict. Compare that to the immigrants of the 1800's who came over and were willing to set aside their old ways and cultures to become Americans. The mind which can openly embrace such antagonistic values is not a logical or rational mind at all.

The borders of Galt's Gulch was closed even to Dagny until she would agree to accept their basic beliefs and assimilate.

Open Borders == Looter Invite. If there is no limit to those entering the country, there is no limit to the number of looters that will come in. In fact, Producers will avoid coming in because of the number of looters waiting for them .
so I think MS Rand would oppose open borders.

In an ideal Randian world, everything would be private property. If people still wanted to group themselves into territories, nation states or self-defined associations, roads would be available for anyone to travel, probably for a fee. So anyone could go anywhere that open roads exist. Individuals from anywhere else could visit, and if they found jobs, lodgings, properties for sale, they would be free to relocate, subject to practical considerations like language and fiscal responsibility. There would be no government welfare whatsoever, only voluntary charity. The functions of government would be limited to protecting individual rights, dealing with crime, and its basic Constitutionally specified areas of responsibility.

When the land was open and supposedly not owned (never mind the tacit shared possession of territory by tribes), any number of migrants could show up and stake out sections for themselves. Early ownership was catch as catch can, soon bureaucratized by improvised rules. If the King owned everything and could dole it out at his pleasure to favored individuals, initial notions of private property took a foothold and became established as social norms.

With property came power, and vice versa. Such a system could become abusive against a fast-growing population who would be left impoverished and consigned to a lower class. Keep that going long enough, and a class war would start. Since not everyone was equal in ability, intelligence, opportunities for productive work and commensurate prosperity, more and more people would be left to virtual serfdom and misery. In such an atmosphere, it is easy to sow the seeds of envy and claims of injustice. Property rights were thrown into doubt, and the great divide between individuals and collectives formed and grew. After all, before property rights became a thing, clans and tribes lived in states of communal sharing, ruled by chieftains, the alpha males whose power was accepted until a rival overcame. Reverting to that formula in an industrial age took on names like socialism and communism, professing to be the new ideal.

The meme of leaders and followers has not been weeded out. It may have social survival value, as with herds and hives. The dream of an individualist society is a long way off in evolutionary epochs. If there were not so much contention for land by ever-growing populations, societies would not be driven to rule-making for crowded conditions and resort to wars for acquisition and territorial control. Borders get closed when new arrivals would compete too much for diminishing resources. New arrivals would be considered as potential predators and a threat to available life support, and the degree to which the threat is severe, resistance will arise. Close the borders, build a wall, eliminate the unwanted, decapitate the tyrants. History is splattered with the harsh results of survival struggles, including redistribution of wealth to those most willing to resort to violence.

Yes, in a "free world" borders could be open, with no fear of expropriation to either side. Galt's oath, if universally accepted, would protect both.

Respect for the property rights of others is a basic requirement for a free society, unless the means of acquisition can be drawn into doubt. There the totalitarian formula raises its ugly head: unobstructed acquisition by individual merit, or equal distribution to all by government edict and enforcement. A world of progress, or a world of universal poverty.

Now we are in an era of universal exploitation, political power games, and mutual cultural rejection. Whether borders are open or closed is immaterial. Borders don’t stop bombers and missiles. The world is heating up with fear and hatred, instant animosities, brainless emotions. What is needed is an end to physical violence and its threat, an end to interference in other nations’ internal affairs. Our preemptive hostilities only serve to create and reinforce enmities and backlash. Stop all wars now, use diplomacy only. Build our country by our best values as a model for the world, one that others will want to emulate. Then someday we will have world peace – and open borders.

From the #1 Comment in the linked article by hughaxton, In Rand's own words:

You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist. Once, you believed it was “only a compromise”: you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe.

from Galt's speech

The so-called Constitutionality (I would argue it is not) and availability of welfare is the key to the whole discussion (and the existence of many if not most politicians). Absent welfare, and without education or English language knowledge, those desiring to come here would be reduced to a legal and manageable trickle.

Not under present conditions. Immigration is nothing like it was in her day. It has devolved into a poker game with a bunch of card counters.

I believe she would have our nation act in its own ethical self interest.

Open borders is not in our nations self interest.

A non discriminating immigration policy.
That has a pre determined limit .
Screening candidates By deciding who could be a threat.
Who would have a negative impact on our prosperity.
Who would assimilate to a free capitalistic country.
Who would not interfere with our happiness
Who would respect the indivduals freedom and private property.
Who does present a health risk ( infectious disease ) without a healthcare provider contracted for care or treatment.

If they didn't meet that criteria they would be rejected.

No. Ask yourselves why Midas Mulligan carefully hid his Valley, cutting off every road but one (and hiding that with 100 percent effectiveness). And why John Galt insisted that until Dagny "got it," he would not let her stay. Free movement of labor is fine, so long as worker and employer alike accepted the same rules.

She would sooner agree with Robert Frost's pithy aphorism: "Good fences make good neighbors."

Ayn Rand defended the right to immigrate but not open borders. She was not an anarchist. There can be literally open borders between regions like states with a common individualistic culture and laws in common defending rights and defending the nation, but to equate that with any country with any kind of culture and any kind of government is to abdicate both the entire field of foreign policy and the right to internally maintain a country defending individual rights.

Ayn Rand defended immigration against the conservative's collectivist economic protectionism of today that insists immigrants should only be allowed to "improve the country" and not come at the expense of "jobs", but she did not advocate submitting to what amounts to an invasion by terrorists, illiterate religious fanatics seeking to change the form of government to sharia law, or those exploiting 'entitlements' as welfare for the third world as they overwhelm us in numbers to replace capitalism by socialism. Immigrants can come from anywhere, but must be checked at the border to see what they are and whether they pose a threat to us.

She defended the right to immigrate, as a basic human right, in the context of normal life and normal economic affairs in a free country, and that is all she said about it. Specifically, in answer to a question in 1973 she properly opposed blocking people from coming to the country out of protectionist fear that they would compete.

Rights are a moral concept. Individuals have rights in accordance with their nature as humans requiring the use of reason to think and act in order to live; they do not have rights depending on what part of the planet they were born on or what government decides to give them to "make society better" or "protect jobs".

But there is much more to the broader question of immigration as a legal principle and how to implement it, especially with today's problems, which were not an issue in 1973 and which Ayn Rand was not asked about when she spoke about immigration in a brief response to a question limited to protectionism for economic interests. She was not discussing hoards of religious primitives coming to this country for welfare statism and/or the spread of sharia law. She simply rejected using force to prevent another human individual from peacefully pursing his own productive economic interests under economic freedom by moving from one country to another.

1. Her sole public statement on immigration was in a spontaneous answer to the question on protectionism at her 1973 Ford Hall lecture on censorship. I don't know if the question period is included in the recording, but you can listen to the Ford Hall recording at https://estore.aynrand.org/p/16/censo...

The edited transcript is in Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of her Q&A, edited by Robert Mayhew, 2005, p. 25. The question addressed there is: "What is your attitude towards immigration? Doesn't open immigration have a negative effect on a country's standard of living?"

2. She once disparaged in a single statement the leftist hippie mentality of objecting to the legal necessity of passports, showing that she did not approve of the idea of open border anarchy.

The topic is expanded on by Leonard Peikoff in two of his podcasts:

3. "What is the proper government attitude toward immigration?" 7/5/10, 10 min http://www.peikoff.com/2010/07/05/wha...

4. "You said that if a country had laissez-faire it should not control immigration. What if New Zealand, with a population of 4.5 million people, had laissez-faire? Would it be obligated to accept all immigrants, even if that resulted in its becoming Muslim and having Sharia imposed?" 9/13/10, 4 3/4 min.

The current "Objectivist" position of literal "open borders" by Yaron Brook and Harry Binswanger is not Ayn Rand's. It seems to be based on a combination of taking Ayn Rand's 1973 position out of context and the fallacy of trying to base political philosophy on "free markets" or "freedom" as a floating abstraction without regard to the fundamental moral principles of rights and the proper purpose of government.

Perhaps this will put to rest the false alternatives that either the country should restrict immigration on the conservatives' collectivist grounds of what is best for the "economy", or the misrepresentations that Objectivism promotes "open immigration" no matter what -- including terrorists, welfare statists, and supporters of sharia law -- based on a "right to travel" in border anarchy or anything else.

No. Ayn Rand was not a pathetic pinhead.
Open Borders=A Darwin Award

Here is a Prime Example of what happens when a diametrically opposed culture is forced upon a civilized country.

Just tell me these are conscious beings...

https://conservativetribune.com/offic...

Culture matters. Western culture, which included France in the not-so-distant-past, respects private property and understands that destructive actions have consequences.

Sure, criminals can be found in every country, and pranks or boisterous celebrations aren’t a new phenomenon. A thousand cars up in smoke and flames goes far beyond a prank, however. It is not “boys being boys.”

As some of my liberal friends like to remind me "Everybody pays taxes."

I think their purpose in this statement is to both eliminate the focus on exactly who pays how much of the taxes (or rather, from whom the majority of the taxes are taken) and that when an individual receives state benefits (welfare), that is all fine and well since everybody, including the welfare bums, pay taxes (such as sales tax when purchasing their breakfast bottle).

“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” ― Frédéric Bastiat

Another way of saying this -- The State is the great fiction under which we all survive through mutual parasitism. Of course the math doesn't work -- it can't work -- but never let reality stand between a liberal and their parasite-endorsing ideology.

Roy Beck Of NumbersUSA, which is a group advocating lower immigration to the US and stopping illegal immigration, gives what is perhaps the clearest explanation as to why open borders and even liberal immigration policies are doomed to fail. In what I call his “Gumball Video” he explains that there are some 4.6 Billion people in the world who earn less that the average Mexican. And this mass of humanity adds some 85 Million additional people to the world’s population each year. He also explains that even at our current level of immigration the country will soon be overwhelmed, and the cost astronomical. See the Gumball Video here:
https://youtu.be/FM1YU-Ni_84

I believe that Rand would never stand for open borders because it would mean the total and complete exploitation of Producers to the point where they would by necessity have to become “moochers” themselves in order to survive. It would be the end of our country as we know it, the end of the American Dream, and the end of Capitalism. Even now there is talk about a “guaranteed minimum income”.
If Piekoff et al are standing for open borders, they are and have betrayed Rand’s Principles at the most basic level.

I am kind of simple. There are borders around my property. I am careful about who I welcome on my property. No lottery to select guests, no chain migration, no refugees selected in basis of THEIR need. I pick guests who offer something to ME. If people get together to form a country, additions to that country should be selected on the same bases.

I go for merit based immigration of people who are consistent with my values.

We are not talking "immigration Law" here. We are talking No Law, No Barriers, No countries, no states...one big happy family. At the same time, open bordered creatures are not talking one culture made up of many (America), one language made up of many, (English language) nor one currency, although there has been a push for that.

That world requires everyone to be conscious, have the ability to introspect and control the temptations of their brain. It also requires a unified moral and ethical system. The new world disorder creatures advocate none of those things, therefore would create chaos, confusion and a world without a standard of behavioral norms.

At the rate of the present de-evolution of the conscious mind, it doesn't appear we will ever be a society in consensus at any time in the future.

This is such a great question... Because if she could see the Refugee nightmare in Europe, I am certain she would say they are violating OTHER peoples property rights, and they are simply coming over and becoming looters.

Besides. What refugees are 95% fighting age males? Who do they intend to marry? How do they intend to start families?

I guess the other question for AR is: Would she have accepted the Trojan Horse as a gift?

Based on what I have read, Yaron Brook appears to think the opposite of these comments. I think he is deviating from AR's beliefs, and perhaps living in California, has succumbed to their far left radical ideas.

I think not. The old adage of "Good fences make for good neighbors," applies here.

RE: what values and culture is allowed in. Excellent perspective from a Peach Corps survivor:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articl...

After I heard Rand lecture in Boston, 1973, she was asked about immigration. She positively came out in favor of immigration. "You have no right to bar others." What she would NOT favor is any form of "public assistance" for anyone, including immigrants. And owing to increased terrorist activity since 1973, she'd very likely be in favor of vetting immigrants. I have some rare original Ayn Rand material on this and many other issues -- including many signed items. Archangels@att.net

I don't know. I think she did not like others trying to
speak for her.
If the owner of private property decides he is willing for a foreigner to come on to it, perhaps he has that right (although even then, certain principles should have to be satisfied: medical examination for contagious diseases, maybe criminal background check, etc).
We do have to worry about criminal, physical, foreign aggression, (such as armed invasion).

As a libertarian, I can visualize the possibility of open borders but only after all government social programs are eliminated. The current inhabitants would also have to be free to own any kind of weapon including tanks and more to be able to defend themselves from the resulting wave of incoming looters.

She would favor open borders with the caveat that the people that came to this country would be responsible for themselves. No free government health care, free phones, food stamps, disability, etc., etc., etc.