Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
Aside from tax cuts and a tireless bloodlust for forever wars, there’s one thing Republicans of the bygone Bush era never tire of — the mass importing of destitute foreigners who neocons swear are nothing less than patriotic Americans at heart, just itching for a chance to make a meaningful contribution to a country they so dearly love.
It’s beyond childish. What we’ve learned over the course of decades, but particularly in recent months, is that a substantial portion, if not the vast majority of Central and South American migrants thrusting themselves into U.S. taxpayer care is that they view this country as little more than an apartment upgrade.
They’ve switched neighborhoods, not lifestyles.
And they’ve never pretended otherwise. What do they say when asked why they’ve come? It’s not “To be part of the great American experiment.” They invariably say something like, “I come to work.”
That’s why it’s so nauseating to have outmoded Republicans like Marc Thiessen join the rest of his lame peers in the national media rebuking Donald Trump’s remark that the obscene numbers of impoverished migrants pouring over the Southern border are “poisoning the lifeblood” of our country.
“[W]hen immigrants come here and jump into what we used to call the ‘great American melting pot,’ they can become as American as any of us,” wrote Thiessen this week, somehow without gagging.
To be fair, any non-U.S. citizen should theoretically be able to become an American. We have a naturalization process that intends to allow it for those who want it and are willing to work for it.
But by definition of breaking U.S. immigration law and burdening themselves on our unequipped government, the foreigners we’re forcing ourselves to take in now neither want to be American nor are they willing to work for it.
And no, simply turbocharging the screening process to get more migrants in faster isn’t the fix. Contrary to the corny slogans blurted out by people like Thiessen, the trek to America isn’t some sob story about unfortunate refugees “leaving their homes.” They’re eagerly moving into new ones, mostly with free room and board, at least for a while.
Being an American isn’t a matter of geography. It’s a matter of traditions, customs, and ideals. This isn’t just a place to lay your head when you need a bed and to work when you need the money. This is our damn house, and the only guests that should be allowed in are the ones invited. And the ones invited in need to take off their shoes and keep their feet off the couch.
But the millions of migrants we’re letting in aren’t being good guests. They’re a nuisance. They’re rude, entitled, and have desperately worn out their welcome.
They’re also violent.
In late September, an 18-year-old asylum seeker posted up at a hotel in Colonie, New York, was arrested and charged after attacking a woman with a set of keys. Days later, two more male asylum seekers in the same area were arrested following a knife fight between the two men.
In Eerie County, New York, last summer, a Venezuelan migrant who was also given hotel housing allegedly raped a woman in front of a three-year-old child. Separately, a 22-year-old migrant from the Congo was accused of sexually assaulting a female member of hotel staff. County Executive Mark Poloncarz demanded that New York Mayor Eric Adams immediately halt the transfer of additional migrants to the area.
As the old saying goes, you can take the migrant out of Venezuela, but you can’t make him stop raping women.
They’re fighting with staff over attempts to cook their own food with plug-in hot plates forbidden by hotel fire hazard rules (because they don’t want to eat the free meals provided to them, so the food gets thrown away). They’re drinking all day, doing drugs, and openly having sex in the halls, according to one hotel employee. (This is otherwise known to Marc Thiessen as “becoming as American as any of us.”)
Their idea isn’t to quickly enmesh themselves into the American way of life, something that entails speaking English, deferring to those who were here long before them, and fully grasping the laws. Their idea is to set up shop because they’ve found space to make money (or get it from the government for free) but otherwise carry on like this is simply a cleaner, safer place to live as they lived back home, with their own beliefs, traditions, and tendencies.
It’s not that they’re necessarily bad people. But just because this is where they wanted to come, that does not mean they are interested in being American.