What if Nebraska created a huge welfare state and poor people from around the country flooded it?  And they all got on that sweet, sweet welfare.  When the elections roll around, certainly they wouldn’t be voting for “freedom.”

Would Nebraskans have the right to restrict the movement of these people?  Would the Nebraska government be justified to round people up trying to get into the state and physically force them out?

What would the general response by people looking to solve this problem be?  They would say, “Get rid of the reason why people are storming in: the welfare.”  By continuing to allow the welfare to exist and by using violence against certain people within the Nebraskan border, you are not actually helping anyone.  Everyone is a victim in that case.

Whether actually true or not, this scenario concedes to the closed borders advocates that immigrants to the country all take welfare, which doesn’t amount to much of the government spending anyway (that does not mean that it isn’t a problem, but it won’t be what sends American society into a death spin).  But how would Americans, including the supporters of closed borders, react to the closing of state borders?  I would imagine not very well.

It is true that in one case the borders are between states and in the other between countries, but what difference does it make to our obligations to people?  Are we not justified to commit violence against Kansans for being on the wrong side of an imaginary line but we are justified to do it against Mexicans?  And is the only reason because they’re from Mexico?  That wouldn’t make any sense at all.

At the very least, we owe all peaceful people nonviolence.  Don’t allow the bad ideas of citizenism get in the way of that.