Why do you make this analogy at the level of a country? Why not at the level of a street, or a town, or a county, or a state? Would you be okay with, say, Massachusetts limiting immigration from Michigan? Would you be okay with people on 51st street refusing to let people from 120th street move in? If not, what makes you feel different about immigration at the national level?

Because a country is home to all its citizens, limiting internal immigration like that is stealing bits of the country from other citizens. And since doing that is illegal (I'm guessing in most countries), you'll have to conquer those bits by force... at which point you'll just have a new, smaller country.

The statement "an X is home to all its citizens" is true for any X.

That's a misleading metaphor. A country that includes 300 million people cannot be a safe place like a home, or even a workplace. Anything you might be afraid of is already here, somewhere.

It may be there, but in what quantity? Please don't imply all countries are equally safe.

And why should fear be the only cause to bar entry? Is that the standard you'd use for your home? I'd start with close friends and family, myself, then go from there.

> Is that the standard you'd use for your home?

One doesn't (and shouldn't) run a country like a house.

Do not confuse a house with a home. After all, you have a homeland, not a houseland.

I'm not interested in semantic gotcha games.

You get to limit your house to friends and family. Have at it.

You don't get to limit your country to that. Hell, you don't even get to limit your property to that, if you've got a sidewalk on it.

The difference between a house and a home is much more than semantics.

And much how the members of a household influence who to let in, the citizens of a country decide that as well, via voting.

Or do you consider yourself a higher authority on what they 'get' to decide on?

Our system, at times, doesn't let us vote to impede human rights. Gay marriage is now the law of the land, because the Supreme Court deemed there to be a right to it despite legislative efforts. The right to a fair trial isn't always popular, but we don't get to vote on it. The right of the KKK to march and speak isn't popular, but we don't get to vote on it.

Same with immigration - courts have blocked plenty of enforcement measures and violations of human rights like long-term detention of children. There's a reason "majority rules" isn't the only way we do things in the US and most other democracies.