Immigration is the process of human beings moving from one place to another. In the current context, this nearly always means migration across an international boundary. Immigration policy, therefore, is the process of restricting—or not restricting—the movement of these persons. In practice, the question of immigration policy necessarily raises the question of whether or not government authorities ought to restrict migration by various regulations. Immigration regulation necessarily involves the regulation of property, whether we’re talking about the property of the migrant—in his physical person—or the property of landlords and employers (and other market participants) who seek to contract with migrants.

Naturalization is something different altogether. Naturalization is the process by which persons gain access to political institutions. This requires an administrative act of a government agency. Citizenship can bring with it greater access to taxpayer-funded amenities like the welfare state, but the most crucial aspect of citizenship, in democratic states, is that citizenship provides access to the ballot box and to public office. Unlike immigration policy, naturalization policy does not involve the regulation or property.

Indeed, citizenship is not any type of property and there is, therefore, no natural right to citizenship. In the libertarian view of property, one can acquire property either through homesteading or through contract. Citizenship, in contrast, cannot be obtained through the same means of obtaining property. One cannot “homestead” citizenship or purchase it from the “owner” of citizenship in the private sector.

Moreover, property exists in nature regardless of the existence of civil governments or states. Citizenship, however, does not exist independent of government institutions at all. Citizenship is fundamentally a creature of the state.

This important distinction between bona fide property and citizenship is clear in the real world, as demonstrated by the fact that, worldwide, many millions of immigrants are free to live and work in places where they are not citizens. In the United States, for example, countless non-citizens are free to own property, hold a job, and travel freely. It is not necessary to become a citizen to enjoy natural property rights or even to enjoy procedural rights such as due process rights for criminal trials. In other words, non-citizens can enjoy the same property rights that citizens enjoy.

The libertarians don’t see any property rights in citizenship, they only see voting rights. Immigrants are looking for voting rights and the right to determine how government should spend more money on them. This is what voting is all about, since people have found they can empty the treasury with their votes. You have seen it and are seeing it right now with DOGE and USAID, the vote has determined that money should be spent the way it was being spent. This is the exact reason why Bi-Den opened the borders and left them open, he and Mayorkas understood that whole dynamic.