  A related but distinct argument for closed borders focuses on the distribution of state benefits like welfare payments and health insurance. The basic idea here is that countries like Sweden and Canada, for instance, must limit immigration in order to sustain anything like their current provision of state benefits. If an affluent welfare state placed no restrictions on who could enter, then masses of poor people from around the world would flock to this country in order to take advantage of its provision of health and welfare benefits. Indeed, presumably so many would immigrate that there would be no way for this state to continue distributing these benefits at anything like their current rate. Thus, given the existing levels of global poverty, it appears as though you can have open borders or welfare states, but you cannot have both.