As the U.S. deals with the consequences of mass immigration, important lessons can be learned from our oldest European ally.

Over the past few weeks, France has been engulfed in riots after a 17-year-old boy was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop.  The rioting and looting have largely been centered in communities with many migrants from North African and Islamic nations.  The rioting has caused more than one billion dollars in property damage and has led to thousands of arrests.  It has also led to a renewed debate in Europe about the costs of mass migration and whether or not those costs are worth it.

It's not just the U.S. that has experienced an influx of foreign nationals in recent years.  France took in a record number of migrants in 2022, both legal and illegal.  The European Union resettled nearly one million migrants last year, not including refugees from war-torn Ukraine.  The main countries of origin for these refugees were Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Venezuela, and Colombia.  Just as we've seen in the U.S., these large influxes of migrants have had a destabilizing effect on the continent's cultural, economic, and political life.  The carnage occurring in France is the result of long-simmering tensions finally coming to the surface.  It's the result of migrants from third-world, war-torn countries not assimilating into their new country, but bringing the baggage from their old countries with them.

During the France riots, a group of North African migrants could be seen chanting, "F--- France" and "We're just here for the welfare!"  The crassness of these migrants certainly isn't representative of everybody seeking to come from the Third World to prosperous Western nations, but it is indicative of a larger problem with mass immigration.  Many of these foreign nationals come from countries where violence and chaos has been normalized, and the importation of migrants from these types of countries can also serve to normalize the same type of disorder in their new countries.  This is why what's happening in France should serve as a warning sign for Americans.

More than five million illegal aliens have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since Joe Biden took office, according to a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform.  With some exceptions, these migrants tend to be low-skilled, poor, and from countries where violence is normal and women and certain minorities are degraded.  By importing millions of foreign nationals who come from countries with cultures and values that are diametrically opposed to ours, American leaders are setting the stage for exactly the kind of strife and turmoil that is occurring in France.

Other nations in Europe that have taken in fewer migrants are not experiencing the same disorder and breakdown in national cohesion that France is currently experiencing.  Take Poland, for example, which has much stricter immigration controls and far more national self-respect than most European countries, and as a result has largely remained peaceful and united.  Poland prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki used the French riots to present a stark dichotomy between the two nations.

"Compare these two images.  Today's suburbs of Paris: massive riots, looting of shops, broken windows, burning cars.  Then quiet Polish cities, quiet Polish villages.  Poland opted for peace," Morawiecki said.

While the Polish prime minister was remarking on the riots in France, his comments should also resonate with Americans worried about the future of their nation.  If U.S. leaders do not begin tending to our borders and our sovereignty with more care, what's happening in France will soon happen in America as well.  It's only a matter of time.

Benjamin Franklin once described the U.S. as "a republic, if you can keep it."  Our immigration policy will ultimately decide whether we're able to keep our republic, or if we become another once-great nation that self-destructed.

William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

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