(Lee Steinhauer, Headline USA contributor) President Ronald Reagan observed that “a nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”
By Reagan’s definition, America’s nationhood hangs precariously in the balance, as open borders and mass immigration threaten its dissolution.
But while the current administration is undoubtedly feckless—if not outright complicit—in this regard, there are powerful interests that will do everything possible to see that the border is never secured and the invasion of mass immigration never ceases, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.
Among these are the businesses profiting immensely from the abundance of cheap labor mass immigration supplies and the suppression of domestic wages it causes. Others see political advantage in adding hordes of favorable new voters to their column.
Then there are the elites of the World Economic Forum sort, who desire a borderless world where global capital—and those, like themselves, who control it—reign supreme as feudal lords. Through mass immigration and open borders, they are colonizing America for this purpose.
They understand, as Reagan did, that borders are more than geographical demarcations. Borders define a nation, as do those residing within them. For, like a random group of strangers does not constitute a family, so too is a population not a nation simply because it dwells within the same physical area.
Far more is required to forge a common unified national identity, such as shared culture, history, traditions and values. Without these ingredients, instead of a nation we become merely a weak colony of disparate rootless people devoid of true sovereignty and national self-determination, ripe for global capital’s exploitation—as, indeed, is already happening.
While immigration is part of American history, and immigrants are valuable contributors to it, the last few decades have been something entirely different. Unlike in the past, the current waves of immigration have been unceasing and unrelenting with no pause to digest the millions of foreigners from all over the world pouring into the country for now well over half a century. This has resulted in the rapid and drastic altering of the country’s demographic composition, virtually overnight by historical standards.
Nor have the new arrivals been required to assimilate, as in the past. To the contrary, the very idea of it is now derided, as multiculturalism—the antithesis of assimilation—has taken on an almost religious zeal. Predictably, this has led to the severe disintegration of social and national cohesion in America.
Moreover, America is now flooded with predominantly economic migrants. One could even call them economic mercenaries, for they view America as more akin to a temporary employer than a permanent homeland; to whom any allegiance goes only so far and only so long as the economic benefits one derives from it.
Many of these new migrants also have no real intention of ever becoming loyal US citizens or renouncing their former homelands. Increasingly, however, citizenship is not even required to reap all the benefits of America, including voting, with any differentiation between citizens and non-citizens rapidly vanishing.
And what about the American citizens themselves? Over the last few decades, Americans have hardly benefited from mass immigration. Schools have gotten progressively worse; services and resources overwhelmed; wages have stagnated; income inequality has grown dramatically; housing prices have gone through the roof; and crime has run rampant, to list just a few. For these reasons, polling consistently shows that Americans overwhelmingly want their borders controlled and illegal immigration to end.
However, not only have the desires of American citizens been disregarded in this respect but they have been rendered largely irrelevant.
Globalists, fearing an inevitable backlash from angry locals, have ensured that, over the last few decades, ever more governance is transferred from the national to the supranational level, in the form of multilateral organizations, which they control, and international laws, which they write and enforce.
Among other things, this has allowed them to constrain nation–states from regulating even who and what traverses their own borders.
But speaking of the “Will of the People,” such as it remains, as multiculturalism and identity politics balkanizes America into hyphenated tribes, mass immigration is increasingly becoming a political and demographic arms race, with future political power determined not by those who have lived here for generations, but by the number of new pliant voters each side can import from across the border.
Nor does this race show any signs of slowing, as the proponents of open borders and mass immigration have purchased politicians of both parties to do their bidding—providing campaign contributions in return for selling out their fellow countrymen. Meanwhile the media and other institutions keep the American public unfocused, divided and fighting over the relatively trivial rather than the existential: warring over Woke while their nation is stolen from them.
Additionally, mass immigration is falsely portrayed as an economic necessity, with the refrain that immigrants do jobs that Americans won’t. What they really mean, of course, is that they will accept far less in wages and worse conditions than American citizens. It is not a matter of American unwillingness to work, but of certain businesses adequately compensating for it.
Deprived of this cheap, and very often illegal labor, they would have to invest in an American workforce and labor-saving technology or go out of business. And while cheap immigrant workers may drive down costs for some, they suppress the wages of American workers generally while placing massive burdens on already stretched public resources, which in the end, we all pay for dearly—a fact that New York City is currently learning.
Finally, propaganda and fallacious tropes such as America being a “nation of immigrants” are advanced to establish the premise that there is no such thing as a distinct American people or identity.
Instead, the nation comprises only an unrelated collection of foreigners, none of whom possess any real claim of ownership upon the country, and therefore cannot refuse others from it. Indeed, they have even gone so far as to call America not a nation at all, but simply an “idea.” And to question these purported shibboleths is to be denounced as heretical, xenophobic, or, ironically enough, Un-American.
All of this is purposefully designed to make the country interchangeable and disposable, much like the people themselves, so that it can be easily divided and conquered; and to stave off what the elites fear more than anything else: a strong, prideful sovereign nation of patriotic unified American citizens.
Like with all feudal lords, they fear their ruled revolting against them. To that end, their nightmare is an American people realizing again that they are the true owners and rulers of America.
After deciding to secure the border and reject mass immigration, they might opt instead to govern America, not for the sake of foreigners or global capital, but for the sole and absolute benefit of American citizens, just as the Founding Fathers always intended when they threw off their own colonial masters.
To paraphrase another president, it is time to “Make America a Nation Again” and put American citizens first.
Lee Steinhauer is author of The Art of the New Cold War, an expert on U.S.–China policy, and a political & government affairs consultant. His book and analysis on China have been featured in national media outlets from Fox and Fox Business, to The Daily Caller. Steinhauer is an attorney and the president and founder of The Steinhauer Group, a strategic government and legal affairs firm located in Central Florida. Lee lives in Central Florida with his wife Allison and his son Alexander.
