America’s open borders have put huge strains on our social services, schools, and police departments, let alone facilitating drug addiction and human sex-trafficking.  Donald Trump has promised to shut the door on day one of his administration, but even if Trump is elected, the damage will continue for decades.  Graphic pictures of cities inundated with illegals only reflect the beginning of a disaster.

The deeper problem is that nearly all illegals arrive embracing values against core American principles.  They are “aliens” both legally and in terms of our political culture. 

Modern immigration is wholly unlike that of the earliest days, when most immigrants were of English ancestry and quickly integrated into society.  Today, by contrast, those flooding into the  United States arrive from almost every nation on the planet, including places like El Salvador, Kazakhstan, India, Ghana, China, Syria, Cuba, and Vietnam.  Those newly arrived Muslims  clustering in places like Dearborn, Mich. have altered the political landscape thanks to their vociferous support for Hamas, and this new voice may be a harbinger of future Balkanization.

No precise definition of America’s political culture exists, but central is patriotism — subordinating all loyalties to national identity.  As Teddy Roosevelt put it in 1907, “there can be no divided allegiance here. ... We have room for but one flag, the American flag. ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Further add the values explicitly embedded in the Constitution: the rule of law; the rights of free speech and freedom of religion; freedom from government tyranny; the primacy of individual, not group rights and similar rights vital to ordered liberty.  Further add elections, not violence, to settle disputes.  To be sure, this catalogue can be murky, and exceptions exist, but at their core, “American political values” are well understood.  Alas, these values are exceedingly rare in third-world countries, the overwhelming source of today’s illegals. 

There is both good news and bad news regarding the possible absorption of these new arrivals.  The good news is that America once experienced a similar problem, and we solved it.  Yes, people may not initially embrace an American identity, but this can change, and our history demonstrates that this transformation is possible.  According to one estimate (p. 45), between 1790 and 1990, about half of American’s population growth was due to immigration, but overwhelmingly, everyone embraced an American identity as their primary identity.  Especially between the 1880s and World War I, the influx of immigrants from dozens of nations, most not speaking English, with multiple religions, exceeded a million a year.  Nevertheless, the principle of E pluribus unum, one out of many, prevailed.

Successful assimilation was hardly spontaneous and reflected herculean efforts by both the private sector and government at all levels and transcended the partisan divide, attracting such elite notables as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Ford.  In fact, Ford offered factory workers six- to eight-week courses on Americanism, with a graduation where each employee received a certificate preparing them for citizenship.  US Steel, among countless other businesses, similarly provided civic education classes together with patriotic messages in its pay envelopes and subsidized after-work civics classes.  In cities with significant foreign populations, local affiliates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce provided free English classes and civic literacy (Huntington, p. 132).  Assimilation was voluntary, and those who rejected Americanization often returned to their homeland.

Private groups such as local YMCAs, the Colonial Dames, and Sons of the American Revolution — together with religious and ethnic organizations — taught English to newcomers while helping them find jobs and housing.  Over thirty states passed laws to facilitate Americanization, and by 1921, some 3,526 localities were participating in the federal government’s Bureau of Nationalization program.  Public schools were at the forefront of this Americanization, and, ironically, this push was led by self-defined “Progressives.”  These pro-America messages filled patriotic textbooks, while nationalistic pictures and American flags were inescapable.  Schools also offered evening English classes together with lessons on the Constitution necessary to pass the citizenship examination.  Leading pedagogues of the era such as Horace Mann shared this patriotic enthusiasm that transcended ideology.

This massive assimilation effort paid handsome dividends.  The United States survived a terrible economic depression without a political upheaval.  And when the U.S. entered WWII, the country was totally united, though millions of immigrants had come from nations that were now enemies.  During the Cold War, Americans remained steadfastly loyal, paid their taxes, and enlisted in the military, and the internecine conflict endemic in heterogeneous nations elsewhere was unthinkable.  Assimilation had triumphed and, at least then, seemed inevitable.

Could a similar all-hands-on-deck assimilation effort succeed in today’s political environment?  Highly unlikely.  It is hard to imagine today’s political elites, notably educators, insisting that recent arrivals must learn English, all the while becoming red-blooded American patriots who embrace our traditional constitutional rights and liberties.  Proponents of resurrecting past pro-assimilation school lessons would be denounced as right-wing fascists or worse.

More likely, modern outreach efforts directed at recent arrivals would be the very opposite of past absorption campaigns.  George Washington would be demoted from honored Revolutionary War hero to evil slave-owner, and capitalism would be taught as exploitation, not the creator of wealth.  Lessons would dwell on how America is fundamentally racist, sexist, and transphobic.  Imagine how Google employees would react if their foreign-born colleagues were required to enroll in nightly civic education courses celebrating America’s greatness!  Many would go on strike in protest.  Requiring schools children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance might “trigger” many parents, and thus would be banned. 

Nor would current financial burdens associated with immigration abate if Trump were elected.  Only job descriptions would change.  Yet more functionaries will have to be hired to accommodate the unassimilated arrivals.  Currently, there are 96 different languages spoken in Los Angeles public schools, and the Tower of Babel problem will expand nationally.  The presence of unassimilated youngsters will also require fresh hires to ensure that cafeteria food is culturally suitable, that everything is translated into exotic native languages, and school practices such as mixed-gender activities do not offend religions practices.

The failure to stress English will severely retard learning and only exacerbate already declining test scores while the inevitable ethnic conflicts will be handled by employing yet more social workers to keep the peace.  And schools will be only one of many settings requiring expensive accommodation.  This is a far cry from an earlier era, where the immigrant himself was primarily expected to adjust to America, not vice versa.

The modern immigration problem is just the first installment of Balkanization.  As turmoil in France, Germany, and the Scandinavian nations demonstrates, assimilation of migrants from radically different cultures is not the default human option.  Tellingly, their “no go” ethnic enclaves show no signs of disappearing.  It is hardly surprising that the rise of American campus anti-Semitism reflects an influx of students from Arab countries.  It is delusion to believe that illegals will embrace our values out of gratitude for America’s generosity.  

We have the blueprints for a proven solution, but the current political environment precludes implementing it, and conceivably, the fans of open borders are getting the destruction they want.  Perhaps today’s Progressives hope that Americans will assimilate to the Third World, not vice versa.

Image: JSMed via Pixabay, Pixabay License.