The Trump administration is failing to live up to its promises. Last November, voters made it abundantly clear that immigration has become an existential issue for the nation. President Trump’s campaign heavily relied on the  promise of returning roughly 6.7 million illegal aliens, who migrated to the U.S. under the watch of the previous administration. To make way for a uniform, “globo-homo” society, Liberal universalism, cosmopolitanism and postmodernism, demand the dissolution of borders. In other words, these ideas aim to destroy the very idea of the nation-state itself. Conservative parties around the western world are running on platforms similar to that of America’s  incumbent administration. Although, the question begs: can they actually deliver?

Rebuilding America’s Coveted Protection

In the first 100 days of operations, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) has repatriated or removed approximately 65,682 individuals. While this number may sound impressive at first glance, it’s woefully inadequate in practical terms. During the opening months of the president’s second term, ICE averaged just 660 arrests per day. In a recent interview, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, underscored ICE’s lackluster performance, giving a quote of 3,000 arrests per day. If deterrence, credibility and national sovereignty are to be restored — all of which the U.S. has lost — ICE would need to see roughly 4,600 arrests per day in order to remove all 6.7 million aliens.

Regulated borders are not to be taken advantage of as abstract legalities or fabrications, but the lifeblood of a cohesive and enduring nation. Any nation that allows the dissolution of its borders and the perverted cosmopolitan stew that ensues is no longer a nation. A nation that cannot — or will not — enforce its own borders is no longer sovereign in any meaningful sense. Allowing millions to enter and remain illegally — no matter the circumstances they fled — sends a clear signal: the laws of the state are negotiable. Open borders not only undermines immigration law, but the rule of law itself, and with it, the legitimacy of the state.

American borders are not just lines on a map: they are the physical and symbolic boundaries of our community. They define who is a member of the nation and who is not. More specifically, borders reinforce the regulations of who receives expensive privileges and who does not. Mass illegal migration erodes that distinction, dissolving the collective “we” that is necessary for unity, obligation and sacrifice.

The Cost of Open Borders

Many young folk — especially young women — favor prioritizing what they perceive as humanitarian concerns over continuity in law. This tracks with recent trends which highlight a growing ideological divide between young men and women. In the U.S., women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percent more Liberal than their male counterparts. Immigration is one of the key issues where this divide is evident. Opponents of immigration austerity regulations harbor a list of merited concerns, namely, the humanitarian aspect.

Lest we forget that the majority of these people are fleeing undesirable circumstances at home. America represents a “pot of gold” in the eyes of many migrants: a place where capital, social services and safety exist in abundance. These qualities are inevitably attractive to the world’s poor. Most can agree that we must do what we can to raise the global standard of living and eliminate destitution. Much headway has already been made over the last three decades in that regard. Partnering with civil society to promote stability in developing countries can help address the root causes of migration, reducing instability in Western host nations.

The Solution

It must be said, though, America is not a charity case whose coffers know no floor — or ceiling. The unsavory reality is that the world is full of poverty; that alone does not necessitate America’s suicide for the benefit of the world’s poor and disenfranchised. We do not need to entertain the unholy experiment as the world’s largest welfare state, rooted in diversity and other forms of destructive idealism. Pragmatism and realpolitik are needed now more than ever if America as we know it is to survive. 

Thirty years of accelerated immigration has fractured a once unified, prosperous and high trust society along group identity lines. American families, whose ancestors built this wonderful country over several generations, have watched as globalism has slowly pried away their nation and auctioned it off in an international free-for-all. This image is a dire warning to not only America, but to the wider western world. To protect our civilizational inheritance — the continuity of our people and our cultural hegemony’s wellbeing — we must reestablish and re-internalize the essence of national borders.

Acknowledgement: The ideas expressed are those of the individual author.