America: Open Up That Golden Gate by Steven Brockerman -- Capitalism Magazine

Open, unrestricted immigration (with appropriate medical and criminal screenings as done on Ellis Island in the late 19th Century) poses no threat to the U.S. Rather, open immigration is the means for renewing the American sense of life and injecting "new blood" into the nation. People who come here, come here for the freedom; thus, they usually wind up being more patriotic and harder working than many of those who were born here.

For those fearing immigrants come here for the welfare loot, please consider the following:

Those entering the country illegally, of course, have not even that recourse. Consider, too, how few immigrants actually wind up pursuing the welfare loot:

In 1994, 7.1 percent of households headed by a foreign-born person received AFDC cash assistance (later incorporated into TANF) and 12.6 percent received food stamps; in 1999, 3.2 percent received TANF cash assistance and 6.7 percent received food stamps. [emphasis added] (Fix and Passel 2002; Fremstad 2002).

For those who fear that a spike in the population would crowd the nation, please consider the following:

REGION	LAND AREA (in sq. km)	POPULATION	DENSITY (pop per sq. km)
US	9,161,923	295,734,134	32
France	545,630	60,656,178	111
Connecticut	12,549	3,593,604	286
1/2 world's pop in US	9,161,923	3,300,000,000	360
England	130,346	50,093,800	384
Netherlands	41,526	16,407,491	395
New Jersey	19,215	8,698,879	453
World's pop in US	9,161,923	6,600,000,000	655
Staten Island	167	457,383	2,739
1/2 world's pop in CA	403,970	3,300,000,000	7,426
Queens, NY	293	2,220,000	7,577
World's pop in TX	678,357	6,600,000,000	8,845
Hong Kong Island	77	1,407,600	18,280

As for the threat of terrorists, there is no way to patrol the approximately 10,000 miles that constitute America's borders. There is, however, a way to end the threat from Islamic terrorists: Get off the defensive (& out of the nation building business) and go on the offensive. Declare war* on and destroy (preferably with nuke armed cruise missiles*) the one country that has been at the center of state sponsored terrorism and jihad ideology since 1979 and that now threatens to acquire nuclear bombs: Iran.

Open immigration will do America a great deal of good. Becoming xenophobic, though, will not, either economically or in terms of security. Indeed, if history is any guide, it will do a whole lot of harm.

*Proceeding in this manner has the virtue of a) placing such action within the purview of the Constitution, thereby limiting such "war time" legislation, e.g., the Patriot Act, airport searches, etc., to the duration of the war; and b) not placing our GI's at risk.

My thanks to Dr. Harry Binswanger, Ph.D. for providing me the data sources on his HBL. He has not read and is not responsible for the content of this article.

Steven Brockerman is a writer for Capitalism Magazine.