How to deal with persons who want to come to the United States temporarily or permanently remains a hotly debated issue.

Before delving into this, let’s get the terminology right. Not every foreign-born person physically present in the United States is an ‘immigrant’; in fact, the term is used incorrectly almost as often as when writers add apostrophes to plurals (can’s, pencil’s, table’s – uggh!). Contrary to such misuse, an immigrant is either a naturalized U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident (LPR – commonly referred to as a ‘green card’ holder). Every other foreigner in the United States is not an immigrant. Some are legal non-immigrants (students, visitors, and temporary workers, etc.), others are refugees or asylum applicants, and far too many are PHIs (Persons Here Illegally).

At the two extremes of the debate, there are the open borderists, who don’t believe that human-made barriers in such things called ‘countries’ should prevent anyone on the planet from living anywhere s/he pleases. (Yes, such people do exist. I know several of them personally.) At the other extreme are those who want to deport every single PHI, even adults in their thirties and forties who were brought here as infants and don’t even know they’re here illegally (yes, I know some of those too).

Between those two extremes is a vast middle with divergent views about how open our immigration door should be.
Until Donald Trump made a national impact on American politics, both major parties conveniently paid lip service to securing the border but looked the other way as PHIs waltzed through. Democrats were happy for two main reasons, one practical, one ideological. The practical one is a notion that foreigners new to our shores will tend to vote for Democrats, as their limited knowledge of American politics causes them to overgeneralize Democrats as the party of the little guy – themselves – and Republicans as the party of the rich. The ideological reason is that they fantasize about a true melting pot of Americans, one that heavily dilutes if not obliterates our nation’s Anglo roots and white, Christian, Western European influence.

Republicans (non-MAGA Republicans, that is) have an entirely different reason for encouraging illegal entry and stay: what better way to increase bottom line profits than exploitation of cheap, vulnerable labor? As they see it, it’s the next-best thing to sneaker factories in China.

I unequivocally abhor all three of those reasons, which is why I rejected both major parties’ candidates in 2012 and instead voted for Virgil Goode (Constitution Party), the most outspoken presidential nominee at the time. Imagine my joy, then, when an equally vocal critic of illegal entry and stay not only ran for president in 2016, but won!

I believe in maintaining our Anglo roots. I don’t have a British bone in my body; both of my parents were born and raised in Greece. Yet I’m happy that English, not Greek (as was almost the case) is our prevalent language here in the United States, and if I had any say in the matter, English would be our official language.

However, I’m also aware that many of the odious characteristics of modern American society – wokeness, sloth, loathing one’s country, etc. – are found less among foreign-born Americans than native-born ones. You won’t find many residents of Park Slope (New York City) or South Central (Los Angeles) wearing ‘Proud to Be An American’ t-shirts and declaring the U.S. the greatest country in the world, but you will find such patriotic fervor among immigrants (I’m using the correct version of the word, as defined above).

In fact, probably nothing exemplifies love of one’s adopted country more than when noncitizens request posthumous citizenship – honorary American citizenship status when losing one’s life in the line of duty in the U.S. military – upon their deaths. They and their families have absolutely nothing to gain other than the satisfaction of being on record as Americans.

Foreign-born persons in the U.S. are less likely to identify as a gender different from their biologically classified one. They’re less likely to clamor that voter ID cards are a scheme to suppress the black vote. They won’t complain that a job scrubbing floors or hauling bricks is beneath them. And, many coming from countries where free speech is suppressed, surely won’t embrace the Cancel Culture. “Isn’t Robert Kennedy Jr. the nephew of President Kennedy?” they may ask. “Don’t you Americans consider Kennedy to be a great president? And isn’t RFK Jr. polling at 20 percent among Democrats? Then why in the world won’t Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, or most of the other political shows even give him an interview?”
I don’t want the day to come when Cinco de Mayo or ‘Oxi’ Day are elevated to the same tier as Thanksgiving Day; we are the descendants of Great Britain, after all. But I also don’t want a woke-driven country that wants to eliminate Columbus Day and glorify Indigenous Peoples’ Day. And the best way to ensure against that is to fortify our population with extremely meticulously vetted aspiring immigrants.
Our immigration officers can’t expect to be mind-readers. There will be purported ‘Yankee Doodle Dandies’ who really don’t give a hoot about America who’ll slip through the cracks. But a much, much improved and intensified examination process will result in immigrants who emphatically embrace American ideals, including that English – not their own native tongue – should be our official language.

And they’ll instill such ideas in their children, resulting in future generations of children of immigrants who are – regardless of what one might think of their politics – as American as apple pie: such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, and Michael Dukakis.