My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about open borders. All right, here is how I feel about open borders:

If when you say open borders you mean jobs stolen, welfare for scroungers, forced integration, that violates freedom of association, dethrones self-determination, destroys institutions, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of our own children; if you mean the utopian seduction that topples the goose that lays the golden eggs from its precious perch, plunged down into the bottomless pit of socialism, and violence, and backward cultures and values, and tyranny, then certainly I am against it.

But, if when you say open borders you mean the lubricant of globalization, the lifting of unjust barriers, the prosperity that obtains when good people can move to good jobs, that enables the sending of needed remittances, and the warm glow of remitted liberalism and democracy; if you mean expatriate adventure; if you mean the stimulating diversity that brings variety to our restaurants and corporate boardrooms; if you mean the capability which enables a refugee to magnify their opportunities, and their happiness, and to forget, at last, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that essential liberty, the exercise of which calls forth trillion dollar bills out of the void, and is used to revitalize our economy, to begin anew hopeful lives, to taste freedom, to escape persecution, to add the power of exit to muted voice; to build a world where one’s place of birth is not one’s destiny, then certainly I am for it.

This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.