Elite war on ‘Americanization’ is fueling immigration crisis, expert warns

The expert warned that Immigration crisis in the USA in America will continue as long as the country's elite rejects the idea of ​​​​”Americanizing” immigrants.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News Digital during an interview that one of the main driving forces behind the decline in assimilation in America is not only mass immigration itself, but also the ongoing “identity problem” in which the country's elite have turned assimilation into a “dirty word” by rejecting American identity and exceptionalism.

“This is not the issue of immigrants, this is the problem we face when our leaders, whether in government, business, education, religion, etc., are not entirely sure whether it is good to be an American at all,” continued Krikorian, one of the country’s most prominent authorities on immigration policy.

“The idea here is basically that there is no point in statehood or people living in United States it's kind of like living in Northern New Jersey rather than Southern New Jersey. Whether you live in the US, or you live in Mexico, or you live in Swaziland, it doesn’t mean anything,” he explained.

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“Increasingly, the left, even on a mass level, views immigration law itself as a kind of Jim Crow, that it is immoral to prevent someone from coming to the United States if they want to. And everything follows from this,” he continued. “Because if that’s your worldview, then obviously law enforcement rounding up and removing people who have no right to be here, have no legal right to be here, is immoral.”

“So, in this context, how can we expect immigrants to be successfully Americanized?” Krikorian said, adding, “What's different today than it was, say, 100 or 200 years ago is that we now have a class of leaders who don't even believe in assimilation. They think Americanization is a dirty word.”

“My mother was the daughter of immigrants, went to public school in the '30s and '40s outside of Boston, she was taught to memorize the Gettysburg Address, and George Washington was the father of our country, and in school they sang “Viva Columbia.” Do you think they do this now in the Los Angeles Unified School District, or in New York, or in the school district outside of Boston where my mother went to? No!” he said. “They are teaching American children to be at best ambivalent about America, depending on the school district, and even to hate America.”

“Until that changes,” he continued, “taking in large numbers of people, even legally, is frankly a bad idea.”

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have launched an intensive immigration enforcement program. More than 515,000 illegal aliens have been deported since Trump took office in January, and the administration is on track to significantly exceed the record number of illegal aliens deported from the United States.

However, Krikorian warned that deportations would not be a complete solution to the problem.

“We now have the largest percentage of our population foreign-born ever recorded in American history. Now it is approaching 16%. This is bigger than even the Ellis Island era…we've never been here before,” Krikorian said.

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It's also due to advances in technology, which Krikorian said is making it less important for immigrants to integrate into their new communities.

“Newcomers don't have to cut ties the way they had to in the past,” he said. “Immigration used to mean you had no choice but to refocus your emotional and psychological attachments on a new country… Today you can FaceTime at home every day. You can get on a plane and go to Bogota for a three-day weekend for your cousin’s wedding.”

The solution, according to Krikorian, is for U.S. leaders, from the president to school teachers, to embrace an American identity. With the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence expected in 2026, Krikorian said there is a “real opportunity” for “a whole year of process to begin to change the narrative and have that narrative spread to local institutions, individual schools, individual communities, individual businesses and kind of turn around the idea that America stinks and you shouldn't want to be a part of it.”

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“In the past we have been able to Americanize a large number of people from many different backgrounds,” he said.

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“It’s harder to do now, but we can do it,” he continued. “We have a significant challenge ahead of us, but these are problems we can solve if we respond.”