Over-Liberal Immigration Policies Won't Work Any More: Here's What We Can Do

Some 97,000 Indians were caught trying to cross illegally into the US in the last financial year (October 2022-September 2023), according to US Customs and Border Protection data.

If we assume that only around half the illegal crossings get caught, that would be more than 500 a day. And that too only from India. 

Even assuming that Indians, for the most part, turn out to be beneficial for the US economy unlike some of those who come from conflict-ridden Islamist zones like north Africa or West Asia, this is simply a problem no country can ignore any longer, not least because it is culturally and economically destabilising.

Border crossings into the US, both from the north in Canada, and from the south in Mexico, have gone through the roof this year, thanks to a flawed idea of liberalism. Liberalism need not mean giving citizenship and voting rights to anyone who walks across a border.

New York City mayor Eric Adams has been shouting from the rooftops that his city cannot handle 110,000 illegal migrants who have to be housed and fed till the Joe Biden administration decides what to do with them. He is particularly cross with the Texans, who have often packed off undocumented migrants to New York by bus instead of taking on the burden themselves.

US Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 6.2 million illegal migrants in the last two-and-a-half years, and even a large country like the US is not equipped to handle them.

The problem is not just one of numbers, but there is a possibility that a good number of those crossing over from Mexico may be potential terrorists.

According to the US Customs and Border Protection agency, the number of people on the US terror watch-list who were stopped at the Mexican border was 216 as at the end of July this year.

The US is not only importing short-term economic costs due to unrestricted migration, but inviting potentially violent individuals who may be intent on causing harm.

Remember, it took just around 20 committed jihadis to bring down the Twin Towers. It takes even fewer people to organise mass massacres in crowded places. 

It is time to take a closer and clear-eyed look at immigration.

Unfortunately, those who call themselves “progressives” have their heads firmly buried in sand. The western media bastions of the Left-liberal, from The New York Times to The Guardian to CNN, are fretting that the “far right” has become the “new normal” in large parts of the developed world.

The very fact that they choose to use terms like “far right” to designate those who merely oppose destabilising immigration policies shows that they would like to demonise those who disagree with them.

In recent times, from Nordic Sweden to Germany to France, Switzerland and Austria, anti-immigration and conservative parties have gained electoral ground, which is why the NYT and Guardian are wringing their hands in despair.

In Sweden, which was rocked by riots last year, both then Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, and the current one Ulf Kristersson, have acknowledged that allowing massive migration was a mistake.

No country, they believe, can allow such huge human transfers from completely different cultures.

Sweden, which made the mistake of allowing 20 per cent of its population to become migrant-dominated in a wrongheaded attempt to live up to its liberal credentials, is now ruing its generosity. 

Conservative think-tanks have made much the same point: allowing massive immigration without equally aggressive integration policies simply cannot work.

It follows that immigration policies can allow homoeopathic doses of influx, but the groups allowed entry must be asked, if not actually forced, to integrate with the host population as soon as possible.

While think-tanks like Heritage Foundation believe that integration means at least learning English, the truth is language isn’t the only kind of integration needed. Cultural and religious sensibilities are also important.

It is unlikely that the Islamic migrants who rioted in Sweden last year were only causing mayhem because they could not understand Swedish or English. They were motivated by their religious indoctrination too, since Islam has very tough norms on blasphemy.

The riots were precipitated by a Swedish politician who wanted to burn the Quran — which is part of Nordic free speech rights.

Clearly, citizenship policies need to slow down large scale immigration, and speed up cultural integration. 

This implies changes are needed on at least four fronts — apart from stronger border controls.

One, there must be a separation of the right to immigrate to work from the right to ultimate citizenship. This is what the Gulf states do very effectively.

In the UAE, for example, 90 per cent of the population is migrant. They can work and live there, but they may never be citizens with voting rights. China, South Korea and Japan are other countries that don’t allow for easy immigration.

The Bangladeshis who illegally migrated to India should be free to work here, but they should not be entitled to citizenship rights, except for reasons related to oppression back home. This was the logic behind the Citizenship Amendment Act, but clearly it does not go far enough.

Two, birth-based naturalisation need not be seen as an automatic right to citizenship. One reason why so many couples take illegal routes to enter the US and Europe, or enter into marriages of convenience with locals, is naturalisation.

Once their children are born there, they automatically acquire citizenship, and once that happens, the parents cannot be deported either. 

Three, any new citizen from outside the mainstream culture must be asked to not only learn the local language, but also affirm that his own religious and cultural preferences have to be set aside and local laws and culture respected and embraced. Failure to do so should result in cancellation of citizenship. 

Four, all citizenship rights should be temporary, pending validation on cultural integration. Civil and work rights can, however, be retained. Voting rights should follow only after a cooling off period, where the new citizen demonstrates cultural and legal compliance with the law.

Immigration can be a boon or a curse, depending on whether it creates new states within states, where loyalty is divided, or there is a clear commitment to the cultural and civilisational values of the host country.