President Trump’s decision that the United States needs to distinguish between nations, societies and cultures as it provides opportunities to become American was overdo and ethical. However, the utopians of the American Left, surely humming the tune of “Imagine” as they gnash their teeth and curse the President to the skies, are still stuck in its disastrous multiculturalism delusion that began in the Sixties.
In “We Rejected This Practice 60 Years Ago. We Must Do So Again Today,” immigration law professor Amanda Frost extols the United States abolishing immigration restrictions based on nationality in 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared that the legislation he was signing “corrects a cruel and enduring wrong” and makes Americans “truer to ourselves both as a country and as a people.” LBJ was also responsible for welfare and the increased expansion of socialism in the United States, laws that tried to make some states permanent second class members of the union, and other ideas that seemed good at the time but have proved to have unfortunate unanticipated consequences. It is ironic to look back on an immigration policy change that was supposed to make Americans “truer to themselves” that we now know makes the United States less American, stable and viable by the year.
Let’s see…In 1965, the U.S. had about 6 million Spanish-speaking residents. There was no question that the U.S. was an English speaking nation with a culture rooted in Anglo-Saxon Protestant traditions and values. Immigrant communities felt that it was essential to learn the language and adopt U.S. values and norms, as they needed to in order to succeed and thrive. In 2025, the U.S. has between 40 million and 70 million residents who speak Spanish as a primary language. Common language is one of the anchors of a stable society, but Jimmy Carter and the multi-culturalists simply ignored this rather well established reality, fracturing the culture with a fissure that would only lengthen and deepen over subsequent decades.
The deterioration of European cultures from open border policies and unregulated immigration from Muslim nations, with their particular fondness for exploiting and subjugating women, demonstrates the undeniable corrupting effects that this expert chooses to ignore. In her brief, the professor relies on irrelevant historical episodes from a hundred years or more in the past. What use is the murder of Mary Phagan and the anti-Semitism demonstrated by a 1913 lynching in evaluating 2025 immigration policy? Her historical lessons have no purchase today. The Ku Klux Klan, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Red Scare—all interesting and worthy of study, but in an age of falling middle class birthrates, high levels of abortion, social media, international terrorism and drug cartels, plus third-world cultures that have proven themselves incapable of advancement and international moral relativism due to the decline of organized religion outside of the Muslim world, the Statue of Liberty’s generous welcome is divorced from 21st Century truths.
The essay’s argument that a malignant culture can still produce an outstanding individual is appealing from an altruistic viewpoint and clearly true, but immigration is now about large numbers and populations as well as the survival of Western civilization. Policies must be built around probabilities, not exceptions.
An activist New York Times writer recently seemed to concede the validity of the much reviled “Great Replacement Theory,” which holds that the left is using mass immigration to essentially replace American-born citizens with foreigners who will support a collectivist, totalitarian, anti-American agenda. It has been dismissed by the liberal media and scholars from both sides of the partisan divide as white supremacy paranoia, but in a new video from New York Times columnist Wajahat Ali, the Middle East-born progressive activist openly cheers what sure quacks and walks like that metaphorical duck.
“We are everywhere, I’ve traveled this country and speaking as a brown person, brown people are everywhere,” says Ali. “I want you to realize this, you have lost. There’s a bunch of us, and we breed, we are a breeding people,” boasts Ali. “And the problem is you let us in in 1965—there were a few of us here beforehand—but once you let one of us in, you know what happens with brown folks? Our grandmother comes, our grandfather comes, our uncle comes, our aunt comes!” The writer is celebrating chain migration, and the process that begins with an exception that may yield a potential benefit to the U.S. carried with it the burden of additional representatives of toxic cultures.
President Trump’s decision to try to refocus American immigration policy on bring in individuals who are good bets to want to be part of American culture rather than seeking to import their incompatible cultures to an opportunity-rich environment is wise and ethical from a utilitarian perspective. Protecting a the integrity and values of a culture that has been as successful as ours has been is not discrimination. It is responsible and competent.
Ethics Alarms 
“. . . brown people are everywhere,” says Ali. “I want you to realize this, you have lost. There’s a bunch of us, and we breed, we are a breeding people,”
Does he realize that a significant number of those “brown people” are staunch Catholics who will not bend to Sharia and renounce their beliefs. These alliances they form are tenuous at best.
I wonder if the expert understands that if we had open borders there would be no need for her to teach immigration law and she would be superfluous and unemployed.
Excellent thoughts on the destruction of our culture.
We definitely should oust all of those who do not use English as their primary language because they do not fit American culture. But, that does not go far enough.
In the USA, there are thousands of ethnic restaurants. Among those are Greek, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Indian, Mediterranean, Cajun, Creole, British, Caribbean, German, Vietnamese, Chinese, Polish, French, and many, many more, too numerous to mention. Not only is the food served in these un-American, but often the workers speak a language other than English, and, as a further insult, some even wear the clothing of their own ethnicity. Intentionally or not, these restaurants are destructive of ‘American culture’ and they must be shut down, especially those that are not a part of ‘Western civilization’ (whatever that is). And, the sooner, the better, before our culture is completely destroyed and America falls.
Sarcasm, however, is very consistent with American culture….
BUT, to be fair, there is no question that a positive development arising from multiculturalism is a greater variety of foreign food restaurants. There is no question about it.
I can do literal as well.
On my morning walk this morning, about 7:15 AM, I saw a group of workers rebuilding a roof in the next neighborhood over. They all were industrious and they all were speaking a language other than English. That scenario is played out over and over in the area where I live, an area still recovering from back-to-back hurricanes last fall. I suspect many are on temporary work visas while others are either citizens or in the country illegally. But, if it weren’t for these ‘destroyers of American culture’, it would take far more than the 15 months (and counting) it has taken so far to get people back into their homes.
There is a good argument that these kinds of workers undercut wages for American citizens. It’s easy to find reports that farmers are desperate for workers as well as reports that easing the H2A visa requirements will depress wages for all farm workers. But, with about 1/3 of the work force neither employed nor looking for work, we would be in a world of hurt without them. So, no easy solution here.
But just as difficult is stating clearly what is this ‘American culture’ that we are desperate to preserve. It certainly is far more than the primary language someone uses. That difficulty is shown by the argument often coming down to, ‘They don’t speak our language’. If there truly is an American culture it is far more than language, and it is multi-ethnic.
Spanish is the primary language of roofing crews in my area as well. It doesn’t seem to impede their ability to do their jobs.
But of course, along with “stealing” the jobs of those second or third generation Americans who are desperate to work in the cushy roofing industry and can’t get jobs, they are ALSO creating a huge burden on taxpayers by somehow also (simultaneously?) being lazy leeches who just live on SNAP benefits while refusing to work for a living.
Contradictory? Some may think so! But that is a shallow analysis inconsistent with the prime directive to “save American culture.” One should not let a little thing like logic impair the proper functioning of our wise ministers of “information” who are intent on saving the country from disaster.
In the 21st century, the question comes down to, ultimately, whether the ethical duty of the United States government, charged with overseeing an unusually fortunate nation in terms of natural resources, climate and geopolitical placement, is an altruistic one, to make the unique benefits of the U.S. available to everyone in the world less fortunate than those who happen to be born here, or to enact policies that maximize those benefits for U.S. residents and subsequent generations of them going forward. There was a time when those two objectives were not in conflict, but mutually supportive.
That time has passed. Since it has passed, I believe that the answer should be obvious.
The time has not passed. We depend on immigration to protect us from the demographic crisis that many European countries and some Asian countries (Japan, South Korea) are facing due to low birthrates among the native population. It is cheaper and more effective to import young people who will have children than deal with a declining percentage of working age people and rapidly increasing burden of seniors (see Japan).
Our economy also depends on immigration, from those who pick fruit and care for our elders to the tech industry, including foreigners who have violated terms of their initial visas to stay here — Elon Musk comes to mind.
Tensions in absorbing newcomers are not new, they are a central theme in the American story, from the flood of Irish escaping the potato famine in the 1800s to the threats posed by Chinese rail workers (they were disturbingly effective work teams, and were unfairly hired based on the anti-American merit principle) to the present day. Propaganda blaming the newcomers and pushing the idea that the latest wave of immigrants will destroy the country are also an enduring theme in the American story.
Same as it ever was….
What do you honestly think is the best approach to supporting a strong multi-ethnic society, hostility and hand-wringing based on the idea that the country is incapable of facing challenges or appreciation for what immigrants have to offer and assistance in promoting integration into the workforce and our society more generally?
That comment doesn’t relate to the issue. The US can have as many legal immigrants as it wants in any ethnic mix. There is no shortage of people who want to move here. The “they take jobs Americans won’t do” is unethical and lame: companies need to pay more for such jobs. How can you, or anyone, claim the conditions aren’t substantially different from the last century, changing the analysis? The problem isn’t foreigners, but foreigners who are not going to accept American laws and values, and who come from nations where survival needs have obliterated ethics over centuries.
I don’t know how a cultural vetting process can be created or administered fairly, but it is still a valid and ethical goal.
Yes we need new rules about food. Anyone eating tacos or pad thai or pizza should be treated as suspicious. Yes I know that Italians are now not reliably considered swarthy intruders with intrinsic criminal tendencies (see Mafia!), but since we are turning the clock back…. hmm, and then there is the problem of the Polish hordes and their spawn… including my ex! Yes his grandmother changed her name from Majieski to Majestic, but blood matters! Purifying the blood again will be a Herculean task!
Spend some time in England or Holland or Germany where after World War Two they brought workers in from foreign countries, including often times their former colonies. Pakistan for the Brits, Turkey for the Germans, Algeria for the French, Morrocco for the Dutch, even Sardinia for the Italians. For some reason, probably because the European countries don’t really accept foreigners and these foreign populations don’t really pursue education, those immigrant groups have formed pretty toxic, multi-generational minority enclaves and populations in those countries that don’t seem to be assimilating at all.
One word: “intermarriage.”
I’ve experienced the influx of Cuban refugees first-hand as it occurred in the ‘Sixties and ‘Seventies and thereafter. Growing up in Miami, Florida, before the Castro brothers stole Cuba from Fulgencio Batista, there were any number of Spanish surnamed parents and kids in our middle-class neighborhood two miles from the Orange Bowl. Miami Beach was Jewish, but Miami proper was Southern, mixed with some Jews and expats from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Central America. Many worked in the airlines for foreign carriers. Others had been in the U.S. for decades via Tampa and the cigar industry. But regardless, all their kids, Baby Boomers, spoke English, American English. We were all Americans. There were French surnames and Italian surnames and Spanish surnames and Irish surnames and German surnames, even Dutch surnames. But we were all Americans. No one spoke NPR Spanish where they rolled their Rs or lisped as if they were Castilian. Then the Cuban refugees arrived in the mid-‘Sixties. They overwhelmed Miami and took control. After all, they were the top ten percent of Cuba who were used to running a country. The Cuban guys I went to high school with all spoke perfect American English, but they hung out mostly together and married Cuban girls. But their children have very often, if not almost exclusively, married American kids. They’ve gone off to northern colleges and universities. I taught high school English in the mid-‘Seventies. I had one class, my first one, my last year teaching, that was one hundred percent Latin surnames. There were four Maria Fernandezes. I had to distinguish them by their middle names. But noticeably, they were to most Americanized Cubans of any age I’d seen.
My point? I think the massive immigration blunders of the last fifty or sixty years may be correctable because of the kids, and maybe even more important, the grandkids of immigrants will grow up American and want to be American. The Muslim grandkids in Dearborn won’t want to be stuck in Dearborn. They’ll fall for an American or Christian kid and make their own way.
A few, more recent, random observations from Miami: A Venezuelan rental car shuttle bus driver in Miami asked me, “You know why the Cubans love Miami so much?” I didn’t. “Because it’s so close to the United States!” The Cubans are now being pushed out of Miami by the Venezuelans. Finally, I was explaining to our Cuban cab driver I was in Miami from Arizona for my 50th high school reunion. He turned to me and said, genuinely, “Thank you for letting us take over your city.”
But a further note: I do not understand why there are so many public intellectuals and federal judges who are first generation Indians and Pakistanis and Palestinians. This is Amy Wax’s objection. Aren’t there enough American candidates for these jobs in the Federal judiciary and at universities and think tanks and in the media? Why don’t they buzz off? See, e.g., Mamdani. These first generations ones, I do not trust.
On further thought, I think these high-level foreigners are people who came here as foreign students and instead of going back to their country of origin, they stayed here instead of going back to their you know what hole countries and making them better, they way they were supposed to do, as a foreign policy matter. They stay here and then try to ruin the U.S. to be like their home countries. It’s a problem.
A classmate from my big law days attended Harvard as an undergrad with Benazir Bhutto. Much to her chagrin, she went back to Pakistan.
She was in my sister’s dorm at Radcliffe.
Ask your sister if she ever crossed paths with a wild man from Buffalo named Peter Santin.
My family is doing its part!
My younger sister (a Dutch-American dual national) married a naturalized American whose parents are Syrian and had two children who are completely international and grew up fluent in American English, Arabic, and Dutch.
Other “married on” (my grandma’s term) elements of my family (whose born-in-the-USA heritage goes back CENTURIES before our son and grandson of immigrants POTUS) include Americans with parents born in India, Venezuela, Argentina, and Canada (with grandparents from Korea).
For further proof of American values, one of my cousins was married in a Hindu ceremony, just like our current VP!
None of which proves there isn’t a problem currently.
ugh why can’t I type without it being erased…. Anyways my girls had a homework assignment that was “where are you from” unfortunately for them American wasn’t an option. Even though it’s where we are from. Our family has been here (as in same 3 counties and same state) I the US for over 8 generations on all sides. We don’t have any culture or specific foods or anything else not from the US. We don’t have family in other countries that I’m aware of, not even a distant cousin on my mother’s side or something else ridiculous. And yet… when asked “where are you from” I can’t say here. They want some other country. Even though our families have been here (homestead act and everything) for 5+ generations. I guess my point is that even if you want to say you are from the United States they still want to know your ethnicity even when you’ve got family ancestry that has been here since before the US was declared the US. With that most have the melting pot ethnicity to match that pedigree. Or at least I do, probably European with a smattering of others. I am sorry it’s not very clear. When I deleted my comment it gets completely erased.
In his 1964 State of the Union address, Johnson told the nation that it should ask prospective immigrants, “What can you do for our country?,” not “In what country were you born?” Johnson was right, whatever the Trump administration would like to believe.
What they are being told now is this:
They are from an oppressed group, so America owes them.
They are from an oppressed group, so they are not responsible for crimes they commit.
They are from an oppressed group, so they are entitled to handouts.
But where some immigrants were born is a strong clue about what they can do for the country (or against it.) Haiti and Somalia are perfect examples.
The social class into which the immigrant is also a huge factor. Immigrants from China, India, Nigeria, Russia tend to be upper class and well-educated, and that makes a difference as these immigrants have the necessary intellectual and social capital to be successful in the United States, with well paying jobs.
Immigrants from many African countries tend to do much better economically than African Americans. Many of these try to keep a distance from African Americans due to the attitudes and ethics among African Americans (call this a form of black fatigue).
Immigrants from Morocco to the USA tend to do much better than immigrants from Morocco to the Netherlands; the difference can be explained by social class, as the Netherlands imported low-skilled and unskilled workers from Berber communities to do manual labor. In the Netherlands the second and third generation of Moroccans have assimilation issues, such as high unemployment, high crime, and poor Dutch language skills.
A lot of immigrants from Somalia and Haiti are low skilled and have poor command of the English language, which impedes a successful immigration, and makes it highly likely that these immigrants need to be supported by the taxpayer.
But even when an immigrant is successful, some of these immigrants have values that are inimical to the interests of the USA and its existing population, such as Wajahat Ali.
“But where some immigrants were born is a strong clue about what they can do for the country (or against it.)”
I think this is the crux of the issue. Can we say that all Somali refugees will undermine our values. Of course not. Just as we can not say that anyone under 18 is not educated enough or mature enough to vote in a national election or enter into binding contracts. It is the experience of those who are elected to make judgements as to whether or not the experience remains a valid reason for exclusion. Sometimes exclusion is warranted to preserve the values that are held by the majority. I for one would not want to see an influx of persons for the British Isles who would work to promote legislation that jails people for thought crimes like they have over there. This has nothing to do with race but ideology.
The claim that we need more of X to offset declining populations of one sector flies in the face of environmentalists who demand we reduce our carbon footprint. I can argue that unfettered immigration increases the US carbon footprint unjustly. Every added car, house, mouth to feed requires production and every bit of production requires energy that increase carbon emissions. So reducing our population effectively reduces our carbon footprint and reduces demand on housing which makes housing more affordable for all who remain,
Silly argument I know, but no sillier than the argument that we need people to do things cheaply. Boiling immigration down to mere transactions which elevate GDP we do not account for spillover costs. Prisons add to GDP so does rebuilding burned out businesses from riots because the people were told to fell oppressed but neither add to well being.
We fought a war over the idea that some wanted or needed cheap labor. Personally, I don’t know how slaves were considered cheap when the average cost was about $1000 ($800 – $1200)for a plain field hand or $20K-80K in todays dollars and that did not include the ongoing costs of housing, feeding and medical care. Skilled slaves like Blacksmiths could command significantly higher prices.
How often have we heard that major corporations fail to pay a living wage and rely on the government to offset those costs through SNAP, housing subsidies, Medicaid etc. We pay substantial amounts to maintain federally funded child care in the form of Head Start and NGO’s get grants to provide after school programs that allow mothers to work at below equilibrium wages due to federal subsidies. Someone is paying that bill and the answer to that is future generations. Migration depresses wages in the lesser skilled ranks and cause the Lorenz curve (income distribution) to be more skewed in favor of the few.
If anyone took the time to read the article and looks at the claims made, one of them was that immigrants or children of immigrants created more than half the Fortune 500 firms. The firs one listed was Thomas Edison founder of General Electric whose father who emigrated from Nova Scotia. Using that criteria every Fortune 500 firm was founded by some person whose family hailed from somewhere else. The article touts stats that fail to identify from where the migrants proving most entrepreneurial come from but instead lump all migrants together. It would be interesting to learn the sources of capital these immigrant entrepreneurs use to finance their new enterprises. It seems to me that if these immigrants have the money to open businesses then they have the resources to enter through the legal channels and all will be well.
Collectively all the statistics look like a formidable argument in favor of open borders. That is usually the case when other stats are omitted such as numbers of permitted immigrants receiving social benefits, numbers of persons below 150% of the poverty level etc. Another fact that people forget is that minority/ethnic communities close ranks when crimes are committed by others in their community. The idea that immigrants commit fewer crimes relative to native born persons fails to consider that many crimes go unreported out of fear of being deported or they facilitate justice their own way. When that occurs others wind up paying the bills.
Ultimately, vetting requires discrimination. To discriminate in a manner that will provide for the greatest amount of immigration that maximizes the benefits to both native and immigrant we must start with some type of screening method. Eliminating who are effectively failed states or reprioritizing nations, our obligations to those people in failed states are no more that any other nations. Refugees should be taken in by countries closest to them where they are safe. That is typically the rule for asylum seekers. Consequently, in order to arrive at which countries get priority because the expected gains for both are relatively high then we must identify those at the bottom. Working from the top to bottom efficiency and equity will rule the day.
The primary criteria for allowing immigration should be
Take for example Sergey Brin. He was born in 1973 in the Soviet Union, and immigrated with his parents to the USA in 1979, during the Cold War. He is one of the two founders of Google. I would say this his immigration is a success story on both criteria. The Soviet Union at the time was the main adversary (some say enemy) of the United States at the time.
This means that we need to be careful with solely looking at country of origin as a criteria for immigration eligibility. We may want to exclude immigration from certain countries, however allow immigration on humanitarian grounds for those who flee the country due to persecution (e.g. Christians from Iran, Jews from Nazi Germany), and seek asylum.
At the other hand, a country needs to be smart, as mass immigration from dysfunctional and war-torn countries such as Somalia (USA) and Syria (Germany), with immigrants who do not integrate but instead import the dysfunctional cultural attitudes from their home country into their host country. And then I am not even talking about all those adventurers and luck seekers (basically illegal immigrants) who pretend to be asylum seekers….
For all legal immigration that is non-asylum related, the USA needs to be smart by only allowing immigrants a) who have skills needed within the USA b) who are self-reliant and have proper sponsors, so they will not need public assistance c) speak decent English d) are law abiding e) display a friendly attitude to American values.
Question: Is it in the best interest of affluent nations to drain the intellectual, entrepreneurial, and capital resources of poorer nations for its own benefit through liberal immigration policies if equity is a goal? In other words, should we take the people most likely to elevate the standard of living of the masses in poorer countries simply to elevate the standard of living for the few we allow in? If so, how does one argue that the accumulation of capital is something that should be done away with?
Does a negative answer require us to take in those most likely to reduce the standard of living for majority who live here in order to provide equity or can choose to we reject both to achieve equitable treatment for all classes within a given nation?
I would say that a sensible immigration policy for the USA prioritizes the interests of the USA. If a high-skilled individual from India wants to emigrate to the USA, and he is sponsored by a company with an office in the USA willing to employ him, why should the interests of India in retaining that individual even matter to the USA?
What does matter is whether that company could just as well have hired a USA citizen instead of somebody from India on an H1B visa. The H1B visa is often abused to hire people with skillsets available in the USA in order to reduce labor costs: employees on an H1B visa are often paid lower wages as an H1B visa does not allow an employee to find employment with another company. Abuse of the H1B visa system thereby suppresses wages for US citizens, which is not in the interest of the USA.
Given the unemployment rate of people with lower skills or work experience I would surmise that at this moment we should not need to import guest workers or sponsor immigration for low skill jobs. Those jobs that Americans won’t do should simply be better paid. Those apples in Yakima, WA can just as well be plucked by people from low income neighborhoods in Seattle than workers from Mexico; it would also be good for the labor statistics.
So the rule should be that immigration policy should benefit the host country; in exigent circumstances humanitarian reasons may given priority (asylum) as long as the host country is smart about it and does not fall for sob stories.
Glad to get a response to my questions. I agree that the interests of the US must be paramount but we must consider that the benefits to individual firms by hiring the best and the brightest of other countries may not be offset by the costs of dealing with failed states.
If all those hard working Somalians in Michigan and Minnesota are advantageous to the US you should also conclude that the marginal benefits of their labors in Somalia would be far higher if they stayed there and worked to build that country. I only pick that country because it is in the news and Somalia is considered a failed state.
This issue will probably not be resolved until an equilibrium poverty wage permeates the global labor market. It might be in the best interests of the US not to seek the lowest price for labor because it often leads to higher costs socially.
Somalia is a failed state because of civil wars. The emigration of good Somali citizens is a result and not the cause of civil war.
How do you know they are “good Somalis”? Once they knew the jig was up, a lot of Nazis left Germany….
Chris was referring to hard-working Somali’s in Minnesota and Michigan, and I translated that as “good” for the sake of argument.
However, in practice there are a lot of issues with a mass influx of migrants from dysfunctional war torn countries such as Syria, Somalia, and Afghanistan:
As a result immigrants from certain countries tend to wear out their welcome. This decreases the overall trust level in society, and increases aversion to foreigners in general. We see this in countries like the UK, the EEC countries, and also the USA.
If their report is to be believed, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy has recently released a 200-page report detailing that some people, specifically Muslim Brotherhood, have immigrated to the US and other Western countries for the sole purpose of infiltrating and undermining educational and governmental institutions to destroy Western democracy and culture. “The 200-page analysis provides a detailed account of how the Brotherhood has spent five decades embedding itself within Western institutions while maintaining ideological opposition to democracy and pluralism.”
The immigration discussion is not about different languages, clothing, and foods, which can be enriching and interesting. The discussion is that at the very least we should not be welcoming with open arms people whose native culture is so antithetical to American principles, that melting-pot assimilation is not possible, especially if they are here to destroy us, however slowly.
Grandma Lisa