If We Don't Want Hyphenated Americans, We Should Stop Creating Them

If Americans want to return to a nation that is truly united, we must stop creating more hyphenated citizens and reject the notion that the country is "a nation of immigrants." Perpetuating this progressive myth only empowers the communists and their ideological descendants trying to denationalize the United States.

In one of Robert Reich's recent Substack tirades, he unleashes a barrage of accusations against Stephen Miller, labeling him Trump's "chief bigot" for daring to criticize unchecked immigration. He trots out Miller's own immigrant ancestry as proof of the MAGA strategist's hypocrisy and even invokes Ronald Reagan's description of America as a nation of ideas to underscore his point. In doing so, Reich reveals a liberal delusion that often crosses party lines but only ever benefits the Left: That America thrives on endless immigration because it's just an ideology, not a real nation-state.

Reich paints Miller's concerns about immigrant groups' persistent welfare dependency, crime, and assimilation failures as baseless hate and fear, specifically attacking Miller and President Donald Trump for criticizing Somali immigrants' rampant welfare fraud and abuse in Minnesota.

Reich appears to suggest that tolerating fraud in pockets of immigrant communities is something we must learn to live with because "apart from Native Americans, we are all immigrants—all descended from 'foreigners.'"

Those scare quotes reveal he doesn't acknowledge a distinction between Americans and foreigners. If everyone is a foreigner, no one is. Carried to its logical conclusion, the whole world is American… even if they've never lived here.

Crumbling Under Common Sense

Reich's hypocrisy charge misses the mark entirely. He highlights Miller's great-great-grandfather who fled pogroms in modern Belarus in 1903 and came through Ellis Island with just $8 and no knowledge of English. The implication? Descendants of immigrants like Miller have no right to "slam the door" on others.

With a little reflection, this is clearly nonsense.

The descendants of immigrants do not owe anything to the policies that let their ancestors in. When Ellis Island's open border policy started causing problems for the country, Americans—many of whom descended from formerly persecuted Irish and German immigrants—slammed the door on legal immigration and began America's first ever nationwide effort to deport illegal aliens. And it was deeply popular.

Americans are under no greater obligation to maintain immigration levels that let in certain of their ancestors than they are to maintain the same conditions that allowed them to procreate. Arguing for Ellis Island-level open borders is like arguing for a return to child labor because one's great-great-great grandparents met as adolescent factory workers.

But Reich's immigration misconception runs deeper. He is not simply arguing that the descendants of immigrants should have the gratitude to maintain open borders. He's making the first nations argument that all Americans of European stock are illegitimate inhabitants of this soil, ignoring the fact that the ancestors of American Indians came originally from Asia.

By this view, even if Miller traced his lineage to Jamestown, he'd still lack moral authority to halt immigration, because the first Virginians displaced the Powhatan.

But that happened over 400 years ago. May we claim honorary nativity to the land after the 500th anniversary of Jamestown or must we wait until the thousand-year mark?

Reich's Appeal to Reagan

Reich quotes Reagan to make the case that the liberal view of American identity transcends party lines. But he ignores the context of the times in which Reagan lived, including the ideological battle against the Soviet Union. Reich's slyness also shows how the Left uses poorly expressed views of American exceptionalism to dismantle the American nation.

"You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese," Reagan said in a 1988 speech. "You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won't become a German or a Turk. But . . . anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American . . . by adopting America's principles."

Context matters when judging Reagan's wonky definition of an American.

Reagan was a dedicated anti-communist, viewing America in Cold War terms as a beacon of freedom against the Soviet Union's ideological empire. This was a war over the superiority of ideals as much as one of weaponry. Both the USSR and the U.S. downplayed ethnic nationalism and territory to win allies in their global chess game.

The America in which Reagan came of age was also one not flooded with immigrants. He was 13 years old when a nationalist resurgence turned Ellis Island into the 1920s equivalent of Florida's new Alligator Alcatraz. The Statue of Liberty was no longer welcoming the world's huddled masses—she was kicking them out and turning them away.

This new America First immigration policy cut off foreign communities in the U.S. from their old-world countrymen and produced rapid assimilation that was crucial to winning World War II on two fronts.

Still, it's important to be mindful of how leftists will twist conservatives' love for American exceptionalism—including its hospitality and ability to assimilate immigrants. Being American is not a spiritual identity, and becoming American is not the same as converting to a new religion. Portraying the U.S. as an ideal bolsters the notion that generational Americans who are ignorant of America's founding principles are less American than a foreign 18th century nerd who first stepped foot on American soil yesterday.

Reagan appealed to patriotic jingoism to defeat an evil empire that threatened America. Reich is cynically conflating national identity with loyalty to founding principles. In this, Reich is trying to bind future generations to his preferred policies just as the Soviets sought to unite multinational Soviet citizens behind loyalty to Marxist principles—even when the ill effects of those principles were self-evident.

A country cannot function properly or be united if its citizens identify as something else. If we don't want hyphenated Americans, we must stop creating them. That means rejecting Reich's open-borders evangelism, which floods the country with newcomers faster than they can assimilate. Miller's warnings are not bigotry; they're a call to preserve the America that welcomed his ancestors and made them fully, unhyphenated Americans.

(IMMIGRATION BLUES: Most of New York’s Non-Domiciled Trucking Licenses Are Issued Illegally)