The Open Question Sept 9: Who is a country for? Who decides?

Hey y'all,

Let’s bring rigor and reciprocity into a conversation about immigration, trusting that healthy disagreement can be creative in a way sticking to the middle or polarization can’t:

Who is a country for? Who decides?

Thematic variations:

What are the facts, what are the base rates, which ones are disputed? How many is too many for a given time period? Percentage or absolute? (of what: population, housing starts, school seats, prison beds, welfare caseload?) What's your number?
Who's the "who" that decides: voters, congress/parliament, a gov agency, a judge? How much does your answer move depending on who has the power? Are your answers different for different parts of the world? Different stages of the country’s development?
If you support enforcement or open borders, how do you stop your side from going too far?
The Gulf model: permanently resident, permanently not citizens, no pretense otherwise. More honest than what your country does? worse?
If you’re enraged and offended, what’s the personal bit underneath that? What’s the projection? What clarity remains?
Is there someone you love you can't have this conversation with? What do they see that you don't?
What keeps you from welcoming immigrants into your own personal house (if you don’t), and why is a country different (if you think it is?)

Some recent news to ground it: Salvadoran protected status for about 170,000 people was set to lapse today but missed deadlines, official notices and a recent Supreme Court ruling make it totally unclear what's legal. Canada cut planned temporary intake by about 43% and new-student targets by about half. In February the European Parliament voted 396–226 to let states send asylum seekers to “safe” third countries. In Qatar and the UAE, roughly 88% of residents are not citizens, their children generally won’t be either, and that's considered a deal they're agreeing to (not a crisis).