Washington, D.C. (June 2, 2022) - On this week’s episode of
Parsing Immigration Policy, Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, discusses America’s history and values as they pertain to immigration. Carl stresses the importance of understanding what it means to be a nation and asks the question: Is America a nation
of immigrants or a nation
with immigrants?
Carl suggests that it might be more accurate to refer to America as a nation of settlers, since the original colonists did not integrate themselves into the existing Native American society, but rather formed their own new society which eventually formed American culture. Prior to the late 1960s, those immigrating to the U.S. mirrored this American culture.
Carl draws an interesting comparison between Emma Lazarus, the author of
The New Colossus, the poem engraved on the 1903 bronze plaque located on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty ("Give me your tired, you poor…"), and today’s “limousine liberals”. Lazarus and many of today’s liberals treat the idea of a “nation of immigrants” as an ideology to push for higher levels of immigration. Carl walks the audience through an abbreviated immigration history lesson to make his points.
In his closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of
Parsing Immigration Policy, highlights
a new analysis from the Center, which shows that the foreign-born population has exploded to a record 47 million, an increase of two million just since Joe Biden’s inauguration. This increase has been driven largely by illegal immigration and new
reporting by the Center's Todd Bensman reveals that the large illegal flow appears likely to continue. A border conveyor belt continues to shuttle thousands of illegal aliens into the interior of the U.S. by bus and plane, despite the nominal presence of Title 42 expulsion orders. Policies have consequences, and the rapid growth of the foreign-born population will continue until federal policy changes.
