The fact that there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States — and that some of them have engaged in criminal acts — has focused the priority of the Trump administration on arrest and deportation. Protests and labor shortages have resulted, as has political risk for Trump. Six of 10 independent voters surveyed by the Associated Press agreed with the view that the administration has “gone too far.”
But the focus on illegal immigrants obscures the fact that three-quarters of the 50 million immigrants are in the U.S. legally, including more than 12 million noncitizen “green card” holders authorized to remain in the country indefinitely.
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A constructive conservative immigration policy would focus on this population. The fact that so many are in the U.S. legally does not mean they are not a source of the cultural friction that inevitably drives concern among the native-born. The fact that Spanish has become a de facto second lingua franca (sic) simply does not sit well with some in grocery lines where the clerks and the customers both speak it.
The question of how to reduce such friction has been faced successfully before in American history. That past offers guidance for today.
The foreign-born population in the U.S. today, roughly 14.8%, is not unprecedented. It stood at exactly the same figure in 1890, when waves of Eastern and Southern European immigrants were landing at Ellis Island.
It was in 1892 that a magazine called Youth’s Companion published a suggested declamation for schools across the country: the Pledge of Allegiance. Its authorship is disputed, but the credited writer Francis Bellamy (brother of “Looking Backward” author Edward) would go on to crusade for its daily reading by students — in English, of course. It’s not as elegant as the Declaration of Independence we celebrate this year, but it gets to the same points: a republic, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. (“Under God” was not added until 1954, to distinguish the U.S. from atheistic communism.)
The pledge was not an isolated cultural event but rather part of a widespread effort to expose immigrants to American values — yes, unapologetically to assimilate or Americanize them.
The effort was not led by government but by civil society, notably by 400-plus “settlement houses” — what we might today call community centers — many in immigrant neighborhoods. The most well-known was Chicago’s Hull House, whose founder, Jane Addams, a true believer, “social gospel” progressive, nonetheless offered English and civics classes and encouraged immigrants to become citizens. The same combination was offered on New York’s Lower East Side (Henry Street settlement), Pittsburgh (Kingsley House), and Boston (Dennison House).
That the goal — even the terms — of Americanization have fallen into bad odor is not news. The sociologist Nathan Glazer, having written (with Daniel Moynihan) in “Beyond the Melting Pot” (1970), arguing that ethnic groups could both subscribe to an “e pluribus unum” ethic while maintaining a distinct identity, changed his mind in “We are All Multiculturalists Now,” which acquiesced in the view that maintaining ethnic and racial separateness was both a fact and desirable.
It’s time for conservatives to rediscover the “e pluribus unum” version of inclusionary — and to promote policies that enable it.
These should start with promotion of the naturalization (citizenship) for legal immigrant residents. As Richard Samuelson has observed, “the day someone becomes an American citizen, he is an American in the essential sense of the term.”
Even as immigration has been increasing, naturalization has not: It peaked at 1.046 million in 2008 and fell to 878, 000 in 2023 (the most recently reported year).
It’s not obvious that it should cost $725 to take the citizenship test, which encourages both English proficiency (it’s offered only in English) and civics knowledge (100 possible questions, including about the Constitution).
Encouraging immigrants to learn English both diminishes cultural friction and enhances their own economic opportunity. Yet waiting lists for adult ESL classes are often long — one class in Brooklyn with 90 students reported that it had to turn away 400 more — and federal funding for community college and other programs is modest ($725 million in fiscal 2025).
Such efforts are important because, as Peter Skerry has observed, in response to Samuelson’s case for the importance of citizenship, “America is not just a set of political principles: liberty, equality, individualism, but also a way of life — a culture, if you will.”
There was a short-lived but failed effort to promote citizen “integration” included in the 2013 “Gang of 8” immigration reform bill. Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio actually agreed that there should be an Office of Citizenship and New Americans to encourage English and citizenship. It was derailed — passing the Senate but never reaching a vote in the House — by its more controversial provisions, such as a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
A constructive, conservative push to encourage citizenship and assimilation must go beyond the availability of specific programs, however. It must become a public campaign, promoted by civil society, local governments, and either instead of or in addition to the Department of Homeland Security’s urging of “self-deportation” by illegal immigrants.
The contrast with the U.S. in 1892 is a contrast of the values of elites. In the 19th and early 20th century, there was no question that elites believed that America was a great country — and that immigrants needed to learn why so they could participate as citizens.
‘THE RIGHT WAY FORWARD’: IMMIGRATION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
That’s a long way from the 1619 Project, casting America as forever tainted by the original sin of slavery, or by socialist denunciations of capitalism. They are matched in their bitterness by Stephen Miller’s clear unease with immigration per se, legal or not, and its indifference to America’s historic success in assimilating newcomers, when we make the effort.
A conservative immigration program and, indeed, attitude, must look back to a future based on that long-ago but still pertinent pledge.