2.9 Immigration

Any person is free to leave the State Territory.

Admission to citizenship

Citizenship is membership in an association, whose existing members may set admission conditions subject to the constitution. The State provides UBI and services to citizens, but this does not oblige the association to accept everyone who wishes to join. Freedom of association permits the State to deny citizenship, subject to the constitution and in particular the Non-Discrimination Principle (NDP).

The NDP permits admission criteria based on:

• First-come, first-served priority up to a quota.
• Merit-based suitability for tasks, including relevant skills.
• Promises of allegiance to the constitution.
• A history of violations of the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP).

Territorial ownership and entry

Citizens are assumed to constitute by far the majority of people within the State Territory. On that basis, their association collectively owns the territory. Disputes concerning the exercise of that collective ownership, including the laws governing the territory, are resolved through direct democracy, subject to the constitution. Where non-citizens own parcels of land within the territory, it may be appropriate to give them voting rights.

Collective ownership carries the right to exclude. Citizens may therefore determine immigration rates and conditions of entry and residence through direct democracy. Permission to visit or reside does not itself confer citizenship, and non-citizens may be required to leave when their permission to remain expires.

Unauthorised entry or remaining after visiting rights have elapsed violates the collective property right and therefore the NAP. Citizens may defend that right by using force to prevent entry or enforce removal. As required by the constitution, defensive or retaliatory force must be proportionate.

Comparison with Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe likewise grounds admission in property rights and freedom of association. His account includes communities whose owners establish contractual conditions for entry and membership, and distinguishes permission to work or reside from citizenship and access to publicly funded benefits. He also requires hosts or immigrants to bear the costs of admission rather than impose them on others. These principles support selective admission, although they do not establish his agreement with VoTa's provision of UBI to citizens. See his extended interview.

The justification for territorial ownership differs. VoTa grounds citizens' collective ownership in their overwhelming majority within the territory. Hoppe grounds ownership in property acquisition and contract; for existing public property, he treats officials as trustees acting on behalf of the taxpayers who funded it. His account does not establish territorial ownership merely from citizenship or numerical majority.

This difference matters where a landowner wishes to admit someone whom the territorial association excludes. In Natural Order, the State, and the Immigration Problem, Hoppe describes state interference with an owner's properly arranged invitation as forced exclusion. The closest counterpart to VoTa's territorial admission rules would be a community covenant under which individual properties are already subject to common entry conditions.

Hoppe's opposition to political majority rule does not necessarily exclude voting within a voluntary association. He allows community covenants to change through procedures established in their bylaws. VoTa's direct democracy could resemble such an arrangement where its authority follows from the owners' agreement, although this would not supply Hoppe's justification for VoTa's majority-based ownership premise. See his interview on the private-property order.

The NDP also makes VoTa's admission rules more restrictive on the association itself. Hoppe permits owners and contractual communities to select entrants on broader grounds, including culture and religion. VoTa instead binds the State to the constitution's specified exceptions. Allegiance to the constitution resembles acceptance of a community covenant, while first-come, first-served priority up to a quota is a particular allocation rule rather than a requirement of Hoppe's theory.