Flashpoint Immigration, Part III

What makes this debate fascinating is that it’s forcing a reassessment of not only who America is, but what America is.

Elon Musk, the epitome of the high-skill immigrant. Would America die without him?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I also hope that it served as a respite from the unpleasant realities of the world. Unfortunately, an argument erupted over the holiday, one that’s still ongoing, which I feel the need to address.

I can’t find the tweets that kicked this whole kerfuffle off and I’m not going to waste time doing so. The gist of it is, both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, major players in the incoming Trump administration, spoke of the need for greater legal immigration of high-skilled foreign workers. This kicked off a furious response from the more nationalist wing of the MAGA movement, who believe all immigration, legal and illegal, needs to be decreased, with a greater focus placed on ensuring Americans benefit from the supposedly availability of high-skilled jobs.

The argument has snowballed and comes with many different threads attached, far too many for me to cover. So much of it centers on the H-1B visa, which allows for the employment of foreign workers in specialty industries, like information technology. I don’t want to wade too deep into that debate, but I do want to share my thoughts about immigration as a whole, and what I think this latest headbutting on the Right reveals about our country.

Nobody Is Entitled To Come To America

Let’s begin with what’s likely the most needlessly controversial of claims anyone can make about immigration: nobody has a “right” to come to America. I’ve been speaking a lot recently about how the Civil Rights Act has unleashed forces which have sowed chaos and disorder in our society. The most pernicious of these forces is the idea that everything is a “right,” meaning no restriction can be imposed on it, ever. This is obviously not true - all rights have their limits - but fashioning something as a right generally means it’s supposed to be permissible by default.

However, foreigners aren’t Americans. As a result, they’re not supposed to enjoy the benefits that come with citizenship (more on that in the next section). Therefore, foreigners aren’t supposed to have any rights, anyway. It doesn’t necessarily mean foreigners ought to be violated, but it does mean they shouldn’t receive the same level of guarantees and protections as citizens do. So, even if the whole matter of “rights” has gotten way out of control, foreigners shouldn’t be asserting any kind of rights, period, beyond that of not having their person violated.

A country is a defined geographic area along with a people administered by a state. Sure, a country can decide to bring in anyone and everyone, but this will sow disorder. Even in a country as large as ours, resources are limited, along with habitable land, not to mention challenges in governance. There’s a reason why you limit entry. It’s the same reason businesses don’t allow too many people in their establishment at one time. Even if America could bring more people, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Bringing in large numbers of people is a decision with profound long-term consequences. If that weren’t so, immigration wouldn’t be a hot-button issue.

Point being, the default answer to immigration is “no.” If a country decides it doesn’t want to take in more people, that’s it. It doesn’t need to justify its decision to anyone. If anything, it’s those who want to bring more people in to the country who need to justify it.

Of Course Americans Should Be Prioritized Over Foreigners

You know our society has completely lost the thread when the above statement stirs so much controversy. What’s the meaning of citizenship if the citizenry is going to be forced to compete with the whole damn world? Why even have citizenship? The state is supposed to prioritize its own over that of anyone else. The idea that America must provide economic opportunities for the entire globe isn’t just preposterous, but physically impossible.

This gets at something much deeper, which is that America has completely lost any sense of who it really is. This ongoing identity crisis has been a major story for most our lifetimes, but we finally appear to be hitting critical mass now. We are beginning to see, whether most Americans realize it or not, what happens when a country suffers this much discord over who it is or isn’t. It’s not pretty.

The identity which does exist is defined around diversity, though I think there’s enough evidence to prove unity cannot be forged out of it and it’s not for a lack of trying. The amount of cognitive dissonance involved in, “We’re All Different, So We’re All The Same!” The only values we’re allowed to recognize are “Mind Your Own Business” and “Let People Enjoy Things.” But a society isn’t defined by what it allows. It’s defined more by what it doesn’t allow. More specifically, it’s defined by the expectations it sets of its citizenry, the responsibilities we hold towards one another.

In America, it’s impossible to set any expectations of its citizens nor establish any responsibilities we have towards one another because we share no real identity, no commonality beyond our shared humanity. But shared humanity, like it or not, has proven to be a very weak form of social tie. As a result, Americans are all foreigners to each other, the only commonality being that we occupy the same geographic space and we hold papers stating that we’re citizens. Beyond that, there’s no anchor to which we’re all tied to. We share no common story, aside from “being from somewhere else,” and we certainly share no common destiny.

The lack of binding ties, the absence of expectations and responsibilities to one another, that’s how you end up with Americans being forced to compete with foreigners for jobs. The argument in favor of immigration is almost entirely driven by economics, meaning Americans hold no value beyond their ability to contribute to the national GDP. If a foreigner makes more money than you, that person is a better American than you. It’s depressing to see how much currency this argument actually holds.

Here’s the thing, though: we don’t apply that same logic in other contexts. Not a single person would tolerate expressing the thought that the corporate CEO is a better American than the custodian who cleans their office. America, if it doesn’t outright worship them, at least pays tremendous lip service to service workers and those who work hard for less pay. We don’t ever so much as suggest they have less worth as an American versus that of someone who makes more money, because we rightfully recognize money doesn’t mean everything.

So why does that ethos get tossed out the window when it comes to immigration? Why does it suddenly become acceptable to say that certain people provide more value than others because they make more money? Why are people being judged on their ability to generate wealth, despite it being socially unacceptable to do so in any other context?

Like so many things in our world, it doesn’t make sense, but it makes perfect sense when you’re trying to bring the whole world into a single country.

Immigrants Are Looking Out For Themselves. So Should America.

Those who support liberal immigration policies often tout the contributions immigrants have made, how they’ve made the country better than what it could’ve been, and that immigrants have done a great service to this country. Some of this is true: many immigrants do in fact go on to do great things for America. And yes, many of them have made this country better. I don’t think it makes me a “squish” to say so. It’s just a fact.

But this must be caveated by the fact not all immigrants are of equal measure. Not every immigrant ends up becoming Elon Musk or the CEO of some IT company. Most don’t. More important, not a single immigrant came to America because they thought America needed them. Instead, they came to America because they needed America.

Thanks to the way our society worships them, there’s a sense of hubris and narcissism that’s developed among immigrants to America, as though they came and saved a sinking ship. Ask yourself, though: who in their right mind goes aboard a sinking ship? The fact is, you don’t risk it all, leaving behind everything you know or in some cases love unless you seek a better life. Either that, or you leave for greener pastures because to remain where you’re at will likely lead to a life of deprivation, suffering, or even death.

I think this is something difficult for prideful immigrants to confess: they came here because their homelands were deficient or, in some cases, outright unlivable places. So they need to instead boast that they came here to save America from its own stupidity. We often talk about chauvinism as if its something only natives are capable of, but as an X mutual often points out, everyone’s a right-wing ethno-nationalist for their preferred in-group.

Now, I don’t hold any of it against immigrants. History is the story of people moving about in search of greener pastures. That’s who we are. It doesn’t make a person villainous, but it doesn’t make them virtuous, either. Often times, people end up somewhere and prosper in part because they were allowed to by their new country. Immigrants ought to be honest about the fact they came here because they wanted to be part of something different and America let them. They’re not here because we needed them to save us.

It won’t fix any longstanding issues. But recognizing this key fact would still go a long way in terms of establishing some much-needed boundaries to both the debate and the relationship immigrants have with their new country.

No, Immigrants Aren’t More Patriotic Than Natives

Forget what you see in polling. The heart of the problem is that America means something different to immigrants than it does to many natives. For most foreigners, America represents the land of opportunity, the melting pot, where the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free gather in a multicultural commercial paradise, where one’s personal loyalty isn’t required, only submission to the state is, along with money.

This isn’t patriotism. Even if it were, what the immigrant is patriotic to isn’t a nation, let alone a country. It’s an idea they’re patriotic to, but ideas aren’t real in it of themselves. If America were truly a nation, it’d be no great mystery what our language is, what our religion is (even while recognizing separation of church and state), what our culture is, even what our core ethnic is. But these are questions which must never be answered, unless the answer is “anyone and everything.”

The biggest problem with the idea that immigrants are more patriotic than natives is that humans are tribalistic creatures. We are always more loyal to what we know best. Expecting a first-generation immigrant or even their children to be uber-patriots is impossible, because their new country isn’t what they’re familiar with. What you should expect is that immigrants retain greater loyalty to the land they left, even if they left it in duress, because that’s what they know best. Again, this isn’t a slight against immigrants. This is just who people are. Expecting anything else is foolish.

As a result, you see that a key preoccupation with many immigrants is to bring more of their own people to America and to ensure their origin country’s interests are represented. You see this in how the flags of foreign lands, including many hostile to the U.S., are waved more proudly than the Stars-and-Stripes themselves. There are many reasons for this, but one is that these other countries provide a much stronger form of identity and kinship than being an American does. Much as immigrants might say they like living in the U.S. more than their country of origin, you’ll also find that they have many strong opinions on Americans themselves and the lifestyles they lead, often wondering why they can’t be more like people they knew from back in the homeland.

That all said, millions of natives hate this country with a burning passion. So maybe, in that sense, immigrants do appreciate America better than these natives do. However, this should never be confused with patriotism. They’re here because of what America offers them in material terms. Again, that’s fine. They wouldn’t move here, otherwise. They do have a responsibility to assimilate into the culture, however, and they certainly shouldn’t be denigrating the people they now consider their countrymen. Being a patriotic American means, at the very least, you identify much more strongly with your fellow Americans, with being American, than with any other identity beyond maybe that of your family and community. It means being culturally American. “Both” isn’t an option.

Except America has no culture, as we’re so often told. So, what exactly are they assimilating into? If nobody knows for sure, then do we even have a nation?

None Of Us Are Irreplaceable. None Of Us.

A common thread I’ve found among proponents of high levels of immigration is a belief that nobody, them especially, are in danger of replacement. That nobody’s going to take your job so long as you remain competitive in the market.

The problem with the argument is that it’s false. The “free market” is more of an idea than it’ll ever be, and while I generally support market economics, I also recognize, as you’ll see in a bit, that an economy cannot exist apart from a state or society. The economy is a reflection of a state or society’s preferences.

Where am I going with this? The H-1B visa, supposedly aimed at bringing over to America the world’s best and brightest, had a much more nefarious intent from the start:

That study was a key link in a chain of evidence leading to an entirely different view of the real origins of the Immigration Act of 1990s and the H1-B visa classification. In this alternative account, American industry and Big Science convinced official Washington to put in place a series of policies that had little to do with any demographic concerns. Their aims instead were to keep American scientific employers from having to pay the full US market price of high skilled labor. They hoped to keep the US research system staffed with employees classified as “trainees,” “students,” and “post-docs” for the benefit of employers. The result would be to render the US scientific workforce more docile and pliable to authority and senior researchers by attempting to ensure this labor market sector is always flooded largely by employer-friendly visa holders who lack full rights to respond to wage signals in the US labor market.

It’s a controversial argument to say the least. I ask, as its author, Eric Weinstein, implores, at least give it a look before you take too hard a stance for or against the H-1B. My point is that it’s very easy to support unlimited immigration when you think there’s no price you’ll ever personally pay for it. It’s a big reason why Americans by and large support immigration, because they don’t think they’re any worse off for it. They do pay for it in subtle ways, but if you don’t notice it, does it really matter?

The thing is, the idea that immigrants are needed due to labor market shortages never made sense. In fact, the subtitle in Weinstein’s article is:

Long term labor shortages do not happen naturally in market economies.

He goes on to say:

“Upcoming labor market shortages will devastate Science and Engineering.

This was a mantra heard through much of the 1980s. And yet, the predicted “seller’s market” for talent never materialized as unemployment rates actually spiked for newly minted PhDs in technical fields. In fact, most US economists seemed to think that the very idea of labor market shortages hardly made sense in a market economy since wages could simply rise to attract more entrants.

There’s a lot going on here, a much deeper, dare I say darker, story behind it all. For now, it’s enough to know that nobody, not even scientists, not even PhDs, are irreplaceable. The jobs of today’s immigration proponents may be secure, but that won’t necessarily be the case for future generations. If they can’t see why that’s a problem, that’s because they never cared about the country nor its future.

Like the immigrants they so champion, they only care about themselves.

“Import Infinity Immigrants Or The Economy Will Die!”

The argument I find most intolerable in favor of immigration is the absurd idea that America’s economy depends on immigration so badly, it’d effectively collapse without it. At best, we’d cease to be “competitive” in the global marketplace. This is the same argument they made when it came to stopping illegal immigration: if we don’t allow millions to cross the border without our permission, we wouldn’t have anyone to do our domestic labor or do repairs around the house, since Americans apparently never wash our own toilets, mow our own lawns, or do any in-home repairs. It makes you wonder how Home Depot ever became a multi-billion dollar corporation, doesn’t it?

Ironically, Indian immigrants are more accustomed to having cheap (more like free) labor do their messy work, due to the country’s notorious caste system and levels of inequality. Putting that aside, the same logic is being employed when it comes to high-skilled, legal immigration: if not one applicant from India or elsewhere is permitted to enter the U.S., the country’s economy will crash. I’m overstating the argument somewhat, but not really. That the economy will suffer mightily and make all of us poorer is a core component of the argument in favor of open borders.

Here’s the problem with the argument: if our economy really depends that badly on imported labor, then we have a fake economy anyway and it’s not long for the world. I’m not saying that’s the case, but my point is that the economy has to be self-sufficient on some level, otherwise, what’s the point? We’re just a wealth-generating machine for investors who can always take their money elsewhere, a shopping mall where the entire world shows up to buy stuff or set up a shop of their own. Just remember: shopping malls are on the downswing, and the country is littered with abandoned malls. Ever take a look at your local strip mall, lately? I bet you it’s not anywhere near as vibrant as it was a generation ago.

Richard Hanania, in his fervent attempt to defend immigration in all its forms, ended up scoring an own goal in the process:

If racists were smart, they’d understand that mass immigration is good for their own people. Under a system like UAE, Americans could live like gods. Even as is, immigration is a benefit.

But they’re economically illiterate so genuinely believe exclusion serves their interests.

The UAE is a fake country, comprised of almost 90% foreign population, most of whom are low-wage laborers working with very few protections from their employers. Even their military is comprised of foreigners, veterans of the Bangladeshi and Pakistani armed forces. Their economy is heavily-dependent on oil and natural gas, along with foreign investment. The gleaming cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai give off the impression of a prosperous, vibrant economy, and maybe it is for some. But an economy based on natural resource export and extensive foreign investment isn’t that of a great power like the U.S. This isn’t something to aspire to.

But none of this really matters. That’s because, at the end of the day, America isn’t just an economy. It’s not just a prosperity machine. America is a people. And yes, it has a culture. We’ve just been forced to forget what it is. America has and continues to be an Anglo-Saxon society, English speaking, and culturally Christian. On that last point, certainly not to any meaningful degree, but we still celebrate Christmas, for one. The remnant of that cultural Christianity is still there.

Rod Dreher

, a deeply spiritual man, offering his two cents on the controversy, said:

All of which is to say that while I think America should always be a place where talented and hard-working people can make the most of their gifts and their dedication, that must be restrained and bounded by other virtues. Canada has turned itself into a country where nobody knows what it is for, other than the pursuit of economic vitality and progressive ideals, which includes mass migration. Nobody really wants to live or die for a placeless, soulless economic zone, do they? I want my country to prosper, but I don’t want an America that exists to serve the interests of tech bros above the common good. Nor do I want “the common good” defined solely by the metrics of corporations, sophisters, calculators, and nerds.

Vice President-elect JD Vance once tackled the topic of American nationhood on the campaign trail:

“One of the things you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.”

I’m more invested in the belief that America has what it takes to be a sort of nation than, say, my friend Nicole Williams:

We are an incredibly culturally and geographically diverse federal - meaning decentralized - republic made up of 50 states, 50 states that are sovereign, that surrendered a limited amount of authority to the federal government. Emphasis limited, and the states’ are supposed to retain everything else, and the fact we are now fighting with each other the way that we are is because we are an incredibly diverse federal republic and we all want to push our beliefs that may fly in our corner of the world onto other Americans who have different beliefs about how the country ought to be run and the responsibility of government and what should be appropriate cultural norms where they live.

She’s not wrong. Historically, American nationhood is a fairly recent development. While even in the early days, there was an emergent national identity, until around the mid-19th century, America was understood as a union of sovereign states. I’m not trying to give a history lesson here (we’ll have to give Ms. Williams another go-around here), but it’s to say that if America isn’t a nation, it’s not what the immigration proponents think it is, either, which is an “idea.”

What Are We? Nation? Empire? Or Something Else Entirely?

I’ve said a lot here and I could say a whole lot more. This has been a thought-dump for me more than anything, just a stream of things that came to mind in the wake of this debate, still ongoing as I conclude this piece.

What makes this debate fascinating is that it’s forcing a reassessment of not only who America is, but what America is. We’ve been forced to swallow a lot of misconceptions, along with some outright lies, about who and what we are, and the bluff is now being called. Beliefs such as “Nation Of Immigrants” and “America Is An Idea” are so entrenched, I doubt we’ll see a shift away from this worldview any time soon. However, the goal is to at least shift the Overton window and make it so these ideas can at least be challenged. Cynical as this might sound, I think if Americans get anything right these days, it’s that nothing is sacrosanct. Civil rights, nation of immigrants, America an idea, challenging these notions shouldn’t be beyond the pale. We question the very existence of our country, for goodness sake.

America faces a crossroads in this Fourth Turning. The country has play-acted as a nation following the end of World War II. We’re now in a moment where the viability of America as a nation is in serious doubt, along with an emerging realization in many quarters that the country is no nation at all, never was, and probably lacks the capacity for it.

Which begs the question: if we’re no nation, then what are we? We hear an increasing number of voices also describe America as an empire in more serious terms. It has merit - the central government in Washington, D.C. has ever more control over the country, exercising power across a geographic expanse and population more akin to a continent than the average state. For comparison, the U.S. has an estimated population of 340 million across 3,796,742 square miles of territory; the European Union has 449 million across 1,631,322 square miles.

But it’s the multiculturalism and multiracialism which gives America a more imperial character. The country as it exists today incorporates people whose ancestors have been here for generations alongside those who’ve only recently arrived from all over the world, all united in their allegiance to the federal state. Pluralistic states aren’t empires by default, but governing a large territory and a large, diverse group of people in a centralized manner is what empires do. America may not be there yet, but you can see it from here.

If not an empire, what else could we be? Some new kind of society yet to be discovered? There’s no way to answer this question, not in this essay, but discovering what we are is going to be one of the most critical narratives of the 21st century. It’s going to play a big role in whether America will live on to see the next century, let alone survive through the middle of this century.

It’s a precarious time to be alive. Yet I also can’t help but feel a bit excited over it.

Nations Aren’t Built By The Talented. They’re Built By The Brave.

In closing, the last thing I want to address is the assertion by immigration proponents that “talented” people from all over the world built America. That’s wrong. Not remotely true. Talented people certainly made America better. But you can’t build a civilization off talent. You can’t build it off tech bros and PhDs. That’s because civilizations are built off violence and sacrifice. That means nations are built by the brave and courageous. Sure, they can be talented as well, but bravery and courage is something entirely different.

When I think of bravery and courage, two names come to mind: Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart, U.S. Army soldiers who were part of the elite Delta Force unit:

Gary Gordon (L) and Randy Shughart (R).

They fought in the Battle of Mogadishu on October 3, 1993, immortalized in the book and film adaptation Black Hawk Down. Two U.S. helicopters were shot down during the battle; when the second one went down, Gordon and Shughart were voluntarily inserted on the ground to secure the crash site. There unfortunately wasn’t enough soldiers available to assist, however, and the rescue team couldn’t reach the crash site in time. Gordon and Shughart fought courageously to defend the incapacitated helicopter crew, losing their lives in the process. Their bodies were desecrated by Somalis and dragged through the streets, acts of inhumanity caught on video and broadcast around the world.

But their sacrifices weren’t in vain. One man did survive - Mike Durant, one of the two pilots of the crashed helicopter. One survivor out of several others dead is still tragic, but if not for the efforts of Gordon and Shughart, nobody would’ve survived.

The moral of the story isn’t that Gordon and Shughart are better Americans because they wear the uniform and fight wars. At the risk of saying it was all for nothing, many of our wars were fought for reasons which aren’t fully clear, even decades after the fact. Instead, the moral of the story is that a country is created by men who are willing to make sacrifices on behalf of others. Countries are built by those who feel a sense of responsibility to others. Not just anyone, either. To a people. Their people. Gordon and Shughart come from a long line of men whose roots run deep in this country, whose ancestors fought and died just as they did, so others may know a better life.

Immigrants can be perfectly wonderful people. But they don’t come here with a sense of responsibility to anyone beyond themselves or their families. They wouldn’t come here unless there was already a country built to begin with. Again, that’s all fine. We’re all looking for a better life. But never confuse it with being brave and courageous. Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart didn’t want to die that day, but they also wouldn’t let another man die, even if that meant losing their own lives in the process.

Nobody can say with even a shred of seriousness that someone who steps foot in America today, yesterday, or last year is as American as Gordon and Shughart were. Nor can they say immigrants are just as indispensable, that this country would collapse without them. It’s insulting to say so, frankly. What would collapse this country is a lack of brave and courageous people who see America as a homeland and its people as a community they share something common with, as to be invested in. Even with our lives.

It’s why we so often regard war veterans as the embodiment of what it means to be a citizen. A nation is, after all, a giant foxhole. Nothing reinforces the responsibility we have toward one another more than to know we hold each other’s lives in our hands, that we must be willing to die for each other and that this is the way it must be.

It’s not that immigrants can never join us in this foxhole. It’s that far too many have no idea they’re in a foxhole. If we’re to be any kind of community, or even a nation, it starts with ending the immigrant-worship and for everyone, immigrants included, to humble themselves. A citizenship can be applied for, but becoming an American is to be earned.

In the last post of an eventful 2024, I pose to you the following questions: what do you think of the debate ongoing concerning legal immigration? Would America collapse if even a single foreigner is denied entry into our country? What is America, anyway? A nation? An empire? Some new iteration of human civilization? Finally, what makes an American?

Talk about it in the comments section. Have a happy New Year and I’ll talk to you in 2025.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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