America’s Immigration Problem Won’t Be Solved By Letting Illegal Aliens Come Back Legally
On Monday President Donald Trump floated the idea that illegal aliens who voluntarily self-deport could be given a chance to come back legally, as though the only issue is mass illegal immigration. But this position represents a dangerous misdiagnosis of the real problem.
It’s not that illegal immigration is a problem simply because it’s, well, illegal. Mass migration — whether legal or illegal — is national suicide. The sheer volume of foreign arrivals reshapes the country in ways no election can reverse and no bureaucratic process can fix. A nation isn’t just laws — a nation is its people, its culture, and its identity. And no matter how “legal” the process may be, importing millions of newcomers “legally” at breakneck speed poses the same existential challenge to American unity and cohesion that illegal migration does.
“We’re going to work with [illegal aliens who self-deport] so that maybe someday, with a little work, they can come back in if they’re good people,” Trump told reporters on Monday. It’s similar to comments he made in April: “We’re going to work with people so that if they go out in a nice way and back to their country, we’re gonna work with them right from the beginning on trying to get them back in legally. … So it gives a real incentive, otherwise, they’ll never come back.”
While the proposal — intended to help Trump carry out his mass deportation pledge — seems pragmatic on the surface, it overlooks the profound cultural and social implications of mass migration, whether illegal or not.
The Trump initiative offers $1,000 stipends to illegal aliens who voluntarily self-deport from the U.S. using the CBP Home app, a rebranded version of the app that was created by the Biden administration to shuffle migrants into the country. Illegal aliens, according to Trump, who use the app may be eligible to return “legally.”
But this approach risks legitimizing the very crisis it seeks to address. Rewarding individuals with a stipend who have previously violated U.S. immigration laws may inadvertently encourage further illegal immigration and undermine the integrity of the legal immigration system.
But the core issue at hand is the preservation of America’s culture and national identity. As I’ve previously written, mass migration “is a cultural wrecking ball.” It’s not that America wants to close down entry entirely — newcomers are welcomed, so long as there is a strict requirement for assimilation. Without assimilation, there is no America. But assimilation to the degree necessary to preserve the American identity and culture cannot happen when migration happens en masse — including when illegal aliens self-deport just to come back “legally.”
Mass migration — whether legal or illegal — doesn’t foster unity; it fragments it. A nation can only absorb newcomers successfully when immigration is slow, selective, and measured. Such a process allows immigrants to adapt to American culture rather than joining unassimilated foreign enclaves.
Cultural assimilation is not optional — it’s essential to the survival of the republic, as Alexander Hamilton observed in 1802.
The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.
Thomas Jefferson shared a similar sentiment in 1776, explaining that while he was “for extending the right of suffrage … to all who had a permanent intention of living in the country,” “whoever intends to live in a country must wish that country well, and has a natural right of assisting in the preservation of it.”
But how can migrants preserve the country they are coming to if they are not assimilating into that country? If they’re not assimilating, they’re not preserving.
If the millions of illegal aliens imported by the Biden administration self-deport today and line up to reenter “legally” tomorrow, what changes? Will they suddenly embrace America’s culture, language, and values because the government gave them a stamp of approval? Likely not. Because a piece of paper from the government doesn’t make you any more American than eating a red-white-and-blue Bomb Pop does.
Citizenship is more than just a process — it is a transformation — and no bureaucratic piece of paper can substitute for genuine loyalty to the American way of life.
As my colleague John Daniel Davidson wrote in these pages, “If you want to know what mass immigration without assimilation produces in a country, look no further than Scotland,” where “immigrants from Pakistan now constitute an ethno-religious voting bloc … with their very own politicians advocating for nakedly sectarian interests.”
“Despite what the left claims, multiculturalism doesn’t produce ‘strength through diversity,’ or a common civic culture of shared interests, or any other such platitudes. It produces what we see in Britain and much of Europe: an aggressive species of identity politics which, under conditions of mass immigration from non-western societies, ends up importing entire communities whose customs and way of life are inimical to that of the host country,” Davidson wrote.
Mass legal migration is just as careless and detrimental as mass illegal migration. If Americans continue to confuse legality with loyalty, this country will self-immolate.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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