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Humans are a migratory species; always moving, always competing for resources. Every human society has been a society of immigrants. Most still are. What percentage of U.S. citizens move from one town to another, one county to another, one state to another, just within the current U.S. borders at least once in their lifetime? Personally, I've lived in 5 different states up to this point. Every time I move, I cross someone's border. Of course, that's "legal," since those borders are all inside the borders I'm "legal" in. I'm not "legal" outside of the empire I was born in. If I want to cross the "big" border, suddenly there are all kinds of legal complications.
Personally, I disagree with the whole concept of restricting me to the empire of my birth. As long as I follow the laws of the local region I'm in, why shouldn't I go where I want to? Migration is part of being human, and there is no human that doesn't spring from a migratory people.
If some other empire suddenly showed up and forced the U.S. border east of the Rockies, I wouldn't feel like I didn't "belong" here any more. If people east of the Rockies wanted to cross that new border, should they be "illegal?"
Having spent most of my life on the left coast, I am particularly aware that my homeland has been claimed by 3 different nations since European "discovery" of the continent. Spain, Mexico, and then the U.S.. Who knows who may "claim" it in the future? Empires come and go, but the people remain. Why not value the people more than the empire? Why not choose the family of humanity over nationalism?
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