With the topic of illegal immigration once again rising to the top of American minds, it got me wondering how a SW planet would deal with this problem. Once again, I'm trying to stay neutral politically, (although please leave me feedback if you'd like me to drop my objectivity,) and I hope I'll be able to do so in this ultra-charged topic.

The first thing that comes to mind is nationality. Would visas (or the SW equivalent) be required from country to country, as they are here? Or only continent to continent? Or even planet to planet or system to system? I suppose that would depend on size or some central decision in the Senate. But even that would have to be dependent on size. I mean, if you fashion all of the laws after a 1-planet system, what will you do with all of the multi-planet systems that may want special laws?

Therefore, my guess is that the Senate (and the Empire, for that matter), left it up to the system's/planet's government to decide the basic procedures for immigration/visiting, with the Senate making sure that certain guidelines were enacted.

Anyway, that's not what I want to get into right now. What I want to discuss is the topic of illegal immigration. With star ships being able to land almost anywhere, how would there be able to be any sort of border control?
If I wanted to enter a planet illegally, what would stop me? You can't put a fence around a whole planet?

If you look at England, you'll see they're working on a new identity card. The point is to lower identity thefts, but in the SW world, maybe it can have an ulterior motive as well. When someone flies into a planet, he'll probably be caught on Air (or Space) Traffic Control's radar or satellite. So if people have their ID card, maybe the radar would pick it up, confirm the identity through a secret question or biometrics means, and proceed to give him landing instructions. If they didn't scan an ID, they'd contact the ship and ask for "cargo and destination" or something like that, to see if he's visiting or something, in which case they'd go through proper procedures. If the person doesn't respond, they could probably call Immigration Control and advise them of the person's position. (It has to be Immigration Control and not Border Patrol because this isn't relying on borders. He can land anywhere.)

But what happens if some people enter the planet illegally? Well, then there are laws. Deportation might follow, or whatever it is. The real question comes up what as follows: What happens if somehow, it gets out of control, regardless of the security?

This is where the discussion gets interesting. When you're dealing with a country, 8,000,000 people is a lot. With a planet of 5,000,000,000 people, that number becomes less significant. So would planets actually be affected by this? Or are planetary economics figured by country also? It all depends on how global(s) their economic structure is. (Someone else can cover that. That's not my field )

I think that just the idea that people are coming in un-invited would frighten planet administrators. Remember, where there are no borders, there are no limits. Therefore, the fears are much greater than just drug-trafficking, they're on the magnitude of nuclear attack. So chances are there'll be more concern than here.

P.S. I know that this entry is not exactly my best. I had to finish it over a long stretch of time, so it's not really following one mind process. Hopefully I'll come back someday and fix it up. In the meantime, I'm interested in what you guys think about this.