The Real Questions of the Immigration Debate

Recent migrant scandals force us to consider who, how, and how much.

Political campaigns are symbolic ventures, designed to drive attention to certain issues and to marshal facts, language, and emotion to deliver a material advantage. From Cicero’s campaign for the consulship to Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s campaigns for the presidency, it has always been thus.

This is a useful lens through which to view the current immigration debate. For several weeks, two migrant-related stories have dominated national attention: Venezuelan gang members apparently seizing apartments in Aurora, Colorado, and tensions resulting from large-scale Haitian migration in Springfield, Ohio. Beneath the surface of their rhetorical heat, the controversies point to three key questions of immigration policy: who, how, and how much.

Let’s first clear away some misconceptions. Both Trump and Harris’s stated views on immigration—which may not, of course, reflect their actual views—are more nuanced than commonly portrayed. In 2021, Harris warned illegal migrants that “if you come to our border, you will be turned back,” acknowledging, at least rhetorically, that Americans have the right to decide who enters the country. Likewise, Trump, despite his restrictionist reputation, often interleaves calls to “build the wall” with appeals to build a “big, beautiful door.” In other words, between the candidates, the questions of who, how, and how much are ordinal, rather than categorical.

The first and most controversial of those questions is “who.” Progressives believe that human beings are interchangeable, and that all differences are socially constructed and ultimately arbitrary. At first glance, this position seems grounded in the theory of natural right encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence’s famous phrase, “all men are created equal.”

But this ignores a critical distinction. Yes, all men are born equal—that is, they are all born with the same human fundamentals—but this does not imply that all cultures, or civilizations, are equal. Culture is the product of tradition, not unmediated nature. Among the principles that cultures adopt and inculcate in their members, some are better, others are worse; some are compatible with America’s traditions, some are not. For American immigration policy, this means that the “who” matters.

The question of “who” has historically involved considering migrants’ national origin. A more refined approach would include other characteristics, such as educational attainment, employment history, language skills, and cultural values. The United States, which has an interest in admitting immigrants capable of integration and economic productivity, is well within its rights to prefer, say, an English-speaking software developer from Venezuela over a violent, uneducated gang member from the same country.

On the same principle, we must acknowledge that immigrants from some cultures are more capable than others of assimilating to America. In much of the Muslim world, for example, majorities believe that honor killings are justified and that Sharia law ought to be enforced by the state. While many Muslim immigrants embrace Western values, some emphatically reject them, as demonstrated by the widespread pro-Hamas protests that have broken out in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre in Israel. Pluralism is valuable, but it has limits, and America ought to select newcomers who share its core values.

The next question is “how.” The answer is not to be found at our southern border today, which has become an anarchic, free-for-all zone. While there will always be some degree of undocumented migration—the United States is, after all, still the land of opportunity—the numbers we have seen in recent years are unprecedented. Americans have the right to insist on a rational, orderly process of immigration, with clearly defined standards and a carefully crafted selection process.

The final question is “how much.” To answer, one must consider not only the sheer number of immigrants but also the amount of migration-driven demographic change occurring over time. Both the absolute size and pace of recent migration give reason for America to be more cautious in the current moment, despite our unique ability to assimilate newcomers. Both that scale and speed of recent migration—some 8 million new arrivals since Joe Biden’s presidency began—is putting enormous pressure on each level of government. Localities have struggled to meet surging demand for housing, medical care, and education, particularly given the proportion of migrants with limited earning potential and English language proficiency.

The debate in Springfield, Ohio, is relevant here. There is a material difference between assimilating 150 Haitian migrants and 15,000 Haitian migrants into the fabric of a small town. The former is easily done; the second represents a transformative challenge. And for towns like Springfield, accommodating these newcomers is made harder by progressive ideology, which discourages integration into the national culture and claims that assimilation is a form of racism, colonialism, and xenophobia. As the Left reorients our institutions away from assimilation and toward multiculturalism, our capacity to integrate newcomers will continue to degrade.

Across the developed world, mass migration is undermining native-born citizens’ quality of life and sparking a global anti-immigration backlash. Instead of insisting that these concerns are racist conspiracy theories, defenders of mass migration would do well to take them seriously.

The best outcome for the United States, in the closing stretch of a presidential campaign, would be to engage in a real discussion about these questions, which the Left is intent on avoiding. For them, mass migration is a potential source of patronage and votes, best cultivated surreptitiously. But the country at large must grapple with immigration, in all its complexity. The nation’s future depends on it.

This article was originally published in City Journal.