I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

Foreign countries have no obligation to admit you within their borders.

There’s many points you could make about the United States and immigration, but I don’t think this is one of them.

He's not talking about other nations, he's talking about the US and saying if you are not a citizen of a nation, its a foreign nation to you and they have no obligation to let you in.

> Foreign countries have no obligation to admit you within their borders.

That doesn't sound relevant.

Nobody said that they were obliged to admit you, they complained that the reasons for declining admittance were unfair. Unless you think "no obligation to admit" means carte blanche to decline for any reason, and to treat you however they like?

If so, then that is unreasonable. It is a much stronger condition than "I don't have to let you in".

Yes, "no obligation to admit" means they don't have any obligation whatsoever, and that includes doing so for any reason they see fit and not having to disclose those reasons (if any) to you.

It is exactly the same as "I don't have to let you in".

No, it isn't.

For example, I do not have an obligation to let people into my house. I can choose to let them in or decline them entry. But there are certain preconditions I cannot apply. I cannot, for example, say "you may come into my house only if you murder my neighbour". That's because I'm legally bound not to induce people to commit murder. It would obviously be disingenuous to say this means I have an "obligation to admit" them.

It's the same with immigration. They actually are legally bound in certain ways - an immigration official can't assault you for instance. It's not hard to imagine them being legally bound not to search people's phones. That doesn't mean "they have to admit people".

You're confusing yourself with irrelevant analogies. You can say, "you may come into my house only if you give me your unlocked phone," and an immigration official can't assault you because there are certain protections granted to foreigners against being randomly assaulted. It's also not hard to imagine them NOT being legally bound not to search people's phones, and if you're trying to say someone's breaking the law here then it's your burden of proof.

> But there are certain preconditions I cannot apply. I cannot, for example, say "you may come into my house only if you murder my neighbour".

How is that a relevant argument?

This is not some debate competition where you try and come up with useless analogies to try and win the contest.

Because the thing we're arguing about is whether it's ethical to apply certain preconditions to entering the US. What's unclear about that?

I am not confused :-)

Of course I can say that. I can say "you can't come into my house if you're black" too. The point is that it's unethical. It would be unethical for me to search your phone before you entered my house, too. This is not complicated, I'm not sure why you're having trouble understanding it.

Your house has nothing to do with this.

The United States does have some rides about what border agents can and can not do. They can not sucker punch you, for example. They can request to see the contents of your phone and if you refuse they can choose to refuse you admittance into the country.

It’s not a question of fairness.

For what it’s worth I’m very much in favor of immigration and people visiting the United States, but this country and all others have the right to admit or not admit whomever they choose.

> Foreign countries have no obligation to admit you within their borders.

This is obviously a general statement about any nation, comparing the US to its peers.

In the context of the conversation it is clearly an argument that “we don’t have to let you in, we can require whatever we want, including trampling on your rights as an individual”, which is unamerican.