In “A Profound Question Behind the Immigration Debate”, Robert Merry writes:
In 1965, when the country’s current immigration philosophy was enacted into law, the percentage of foreign-born people in the country was 5 percent. According to the Pew Research Center, by 2055 the United States will have no ethno-racial majority. When that happens, America will be a completely different country from what it was, say, when the Baby Boomers appeared on the scene and throughout American history before that.
This is a profound national alteration, and what’s remarkable about it is how little debate, or even discussion, has attended it until recently…
Anti-Trump liberals want more immigrants, particularly if they are not Europeans. They want that percentage number on foreign-born Americans to go up, beyond the 2015 number of 13.7 percent, beyond the 1890 record of 14.8 percent, and shooting for the projected 18 percent. The day that there is no longer a European majority in America is welcomed by them—the sooner, the better.
Trump supporters want fewer immigrants to allow the country to better absorb that current 13.7 percent of foreign-born Americans, to allow for some debate about the implications of current immigration policy, and to preserve the country’s ties to the Western heritage.
This is a debate about the definition of America, and definitional debates are not easily adjudicated. The emotions unleashed by Trump’s recent executive action are just the beginning.
When it comes to ‘preserving’ a culture, until we acknowledge the critical role of race, we are effectively at an impasse in the debate.