OPINION:
In recent weeks, enforcing our immigration laws has emerged as a significant concern among voters. A CBS News poll released this month found that almost 70% of adults disapprove of President Biden’s handling of illegal immigration. Indeed, Mr. Biden’s unwillingness to secure the southern border is reflected in the unease spanning the ideological spectrum.
It is estimated that about 13 million foreign nationals are in the U.S. illegally. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, since Mr. Biden took office in January 2021, “more than half (2.5 million) of the 4.5 million increase in the foreign-born population since January 2021 is likely due to illegal immigration.”
Under the present absorption rate, the number of unvetted people entering the U.S. will fundamentally reshape the character and recast the direction of our country.
While current levels of illegal immigration threaten to unsettle America’s Western traditional ethos, Jewish Americans, who for decades have been integrated and accepted by our nation’s cultural fabric, stand to suffer the most should the influx of foreigners continue under the present immigration calculus. Contained among the unscreened individuals entering the U.S. are rising cohorts who reject the values tied to American exceptionalism, religious liberty and tolerance.
Incidentally, one must only refer to decisions made by Western European lawmakers to steadily increase the number of Middle Eastern migrants in 2015 and deduce what will likely occur on our shores should present immigration measures hold steady. Any trepidation in intensifying protectionist policies will yield a framework like that found in Germany, Britain and France, which, even before the Oct. 7 slaughter in Israel, had devolved into cesspools of antisemitism.
Over the last two years, thousands of special interest aliens, a term used to describe foreigners coming from countries posing a national security threat to the U.S., have been stopped by Border Patrol agents while attempting to cross the southern border illegally.
In an October letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his colleagues, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, detailed his concern surrounding the 250,000 foreign nationals fast-tracked for admission after scheduling appointments using the Customs and Border Protection One mobile application. Mr. Grassley further cites that between May 2021 and August 2023, over 7,000 foreign nationals coming from countries noted for links to Islamic terrorism had secured entry into the U.S. under “humanitarian parole” through the CBP portal.
Fears of a terrorist infiltration were confirmed this year when a video surfaced of Movsum Samadov, leader of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, who was released from prison last year and part of a larger group attempting to cross the U.S. border illegally in Arizona, warning a U.S. journalist: “If you are smart enough, you will know who I am. But you really aren’t smart enough to know who I am. But soon, you’re gonna know who I am. Very soon.”
A reasonable step toward blunting the rise of antisemitism is ensuring that those espousing the hostilities expressed by Mr. Samadov are denied admittance to the U.S.
Jewish Americans have historically opposed stringent immigration measures, repeatedly referencing that it was restrictive quotas imposed during World War II that prevented European Jews from fleeing to safety during the Holocaust.
Yet almost 80 years later, it is time to adapt to new realities and harness the intellectual honesty required to address the challenges posed by permissive immigration laws. Integral to the fight against Jew hatred is the preservation of border security.
That some Jewish Americans remain reluctant to oppose loosening immigration laws suggests that attitudes wedded to outdated sensibilities will inevitably be responsible for boosting policies that conflict with Jewish interests.
In what is perhaps the most cogent delineation of the damage mass immigration can inflict on a continent, commentator Douglas Murray writes in his book “The Strange Death of Europe” about the destructive implications behind determinations made by European leaders, beginning in 2015, to allow millions of Middle Eastern migrants into their countries.
Mr. Murray asserts that the flood of mainly Muslim immigrants has contributed to shifting European attitudes toward Jews, homosexuals and women. And while the United States has been largely successful in cohering its immigrant population around American societal norms, a survey taken by the Cygnal polling firm that found that 57.5% of Muslim Americans believe Hamas was at least “somewhat justified” in “attacking Israel as part of their struggle for a Palestinian state” underscores the uncertainty involving America’s moral and spiritual future.
Moreover, woven within Mr. Murray’s book are accounts of how lawmakers inclined to speak against the unfettered absorption of migrants were often cast as backwater bigots or Islamophobic, a similar phenomenon unfurling in elite spaces across the United States.
Jewish liberals who conflate relaxing immigration regulations with a social justice agenda should reflect on the expanse of the antisemitic rallies across the U.S. in the past several months. In some cities, protests calling for the eradication of Israel, unthinkable just decades ago, drew a staggering 300,000 attendees.
The safety of American Jews is tied to nurturing our nation and protecting its borders, whose safeguarding has proved pivotal in shaping the Jewish American experience. Navigating new truths requires disassociating from progressive dogma and ensuring that tightening immigration laws is first on the 2024 Jewish policy priority list.
• Irit Tratt is an independent writer living in New York. Follow her on X @ Irit_Tratt.
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