Why Republicans Worked With Democrats To Bring Illegals To America

An interview with Mark Krikorian

For the last 10 years, immigration has been at the top of the list of the most important issues facing the United States, and one of the experts who has been working on this issue for decades has been extremely influential: Center for Immigration Studies’ Mark Krikorian. In this week’s episode, we’re going to have our first guest, and it is a must-listen. We talk about the changing dynamics of immigration, the difference between Europe and the United States, the imperative of assimilation, and particular tactics the Trump administration can use to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in this country.

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The following is an edited transcript for paid subscribers. Sign up now for premium access.

Rufo: Mark, I’m really excited to talk to you, and we’ve been discussing your work on the show since we launched a number of weeks ago. It really seems to be the case that immigration has been the underlying force in American politics over the last decade, thanks mostly to President Trump, who brought it back into the conversation in a totally new way. The headlines recently are about Somali fraud and about looting the treasury of Minnesota. But can you help us set the frame and tell viewers who may not have been tuned into it, what are the big stakes? What are the big changes? What are the big stories about immigration that have changed over the past decade?

Mark: Well, the big fact is the numbers. As the, for some reason, disgraced Enoch Powell always used to say, numbers are of the essence. We have now reached not just a record number of immigrants in the United States, which is not unexpected. We have a bigger population—well over 50 million immigrants now. We now have the highest percentage of foreign-born people in our population ever recorded. And that’s new, and that’s a big deal. There’s no decline projected. There’s nothing going to happen that’s going to make that go down. It’s just going to go up unless policy changes, the way Congress changed policy a century ago. So really, that’s the starting point of the whole discussion: the numbers have now reached a level that is unprecedented.

Lomez: First of all, I am so honored to have you on the show. Your writing and work on the topic of immigration is something I’ve had my eye on for as long as I’ve been politically aware, and you can correct me if I have this wrong, but you’ve been at the Center for Immigration Studies for about 30 years or so.

Mark: Thirty, is that right? Yeah, 30 years this year, okay? And doing this before it was cool.

Lomez: Yeah, I guess so. When I started paying attention to this topic—I grew up in California—immigration was top of mind as I was going through my formative years in politics. I would see stuff on your—on the Center for Immigration Studies—and I would see it cited, Larry Auster or Steve Sailer, whomever. At the time, while immigration, as Chris alluded to, was a central feature of American politics, the idea of being against immigration or opposed to mass immigration—and the numbers that people were coming in then, let alone how they’re coming in now—was on the fringe of politics, both Left and Right. Occasionally, you’d have someone like Bernie Sanders on the Left, or remember at one point, the Sierra Club was even immigration restrictionist. But certainly on the Right, that idea was Pat Buchanan and then these fringe internet elements. So I’m wondering, before we get into the meat of what exactly is going on, how do we remedy this situation, can you help explain to our viewers how we got to this point? What was going on in the Republican Party and among conservatives throughout that long period of time since you started at the Center for Immigration Studies that has kept this issue on the sidelines?