Advocates of immigration controls oftentimes use the concept of a front door of a person’s home to justify their support of immigration controls. They say that since a homeowner has the right to determine who comes into his house, the government should have the authority to decide who comes through the “front door” of our national home.
The problem, however, is that they are thinking Cuba, not the United States. In a socialist country like Cuba, the government owns everything. Therefore, it is easy for Cubans to think of their nation as a national home, with the Cuban government owning and controlling the front door and determining who can come into the nation.
The United States, on the other hand, is founded on the principle of private property. In a private-property system, homes (and businesses) are privately owned. Under private-property principles, each homeowner has the right to decide who comes into his home, whether it’s through the front door, back door, or side door. That’s because it’s his home, not the government’s. In common parlance, a person’s home is his castle.
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Thus, a homeowner has the right to lock his front door (and other doors) and not let anyone in. Or he has the right to let in anyone he wants. At the same time, he has the right to discriminate against people who he lets come into his home on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, gender, or any other reason.
Thus, if a homeowner is prejudiced against foreigners, he has the right to prevent them from coming into his house (or even setting foot on his property). If a foreigner persists and enters a person’s house without permission, the state will arrest him and charge him with the criminal offense of trespass (or he might legally be shot dead by the homeowner).
That’s what the principle of freedom of association is all about. It comes with a system that is based on the principle of private-property rights.
By the same token, another person might love foreigners. Since he owns his home, he has the right to invite foreigners into his home. No one has the right, either directly or through governmental force, to interfere with the right of a private homeowner to invite whoever he wants into his own home. It’s his home, not the government’s. If he wants to invite foreigners into his home, he has the right to do so.
In the United States, the way that people travel from private property to private property (e.g., from home to work to retail businesses) is by roads, which are owned and operated by the government. Under our system, the government is prohibited from discriminating against anyone as to who uses the roads. That’s the way it should be. Roads are simply a way for people to get from point A to point B.
Thus, in a private-property nation, there is no national home and no government-owned front door. That’s a collectivist notion, one that is associated with collectivist regimes — that is, regimes where the government owns everything and where there is no concept of private-property rights. In a private-property system, everyone has the right to use the government-owned roads and, at the same time, private owners have the right to determine who comes into the front door (or other doors) of their homes and businesses.