Do states have a right to exclude prospective immigrants as they see fit? According to statists the answer is a qualified yes. For these authors, self-determining political communities have a prima facie right to exclude prospective immigrants, which can be overridden by the claims of vulnerable groups such as refugees and children born in the territory of the state. However, proponents of open borders have accused statists of providing a theory that cannot in fact protect children born in the territory from being excluded from the political community. The grounds for exclusion that affect newcomers by immigration, also affect newcomers by birth, or so the accusation goes. In this paper, I defend statism against this line of criticism and provide a justification for the inclusion of children born within the state's borders that is in line with other statist commitments. My account leads to some surprising implication for citizenship law, as well as immigration arrangements in the area of asylum and unauthorized immigration.