One of the essential attributes of a nation is its ability to define itself. A nation should be able to say with certainty – and determine – who is allowed in and who is not.  

Those without permission should be prevented from entering. Those who enter without permission should be swiftly expelled.  

Finally, a nation ought to consistently and reflexively privilege its own. Whether they are citizens, subjects or neighbors, any nation that is a nation serves its own people first — and at an expansive range of points, it serves them exclusively. 

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All this is obvious, the stuff of undergraduate political-philosophy seminars. Yet, what is obvious is not always reflected in current American policy.  

Immigrants line up at a remote U.S. Border Patrol processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on December 07, 2023 in Lukeville, Arizona. A Department of Homeland Security Threat Assessment warned of migrants with ties to terrorism exploiting the border crisis.  (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

The examples multiply themselves. Merit should be the basis for achievement and promotion, but it is not. State and local governments should have zero tolerance for civil disorder, but they do not. We need a strong Navy to deter an aggressive China, but we do not have one.  

Being tough on crime is the prerequisite to being smart on crime, but in many ways, we lack toughness. Police are the essential element for community peace, yet cities curb and defund them. The content of character is the only rational and working basis for adjudicating outcomes in a diverse society, yet the ruling class is fixated upon the color of skin.  

Add to the list the maxim that America ought to put Americans first. 

There are reasons the obvious needs restating – and that the obvious does not dictate outcomes in government and policy. Some reasons are rooted in virtue but result in error. Americans think of ourselves as a generous and welcoming people. In fact, we are. We express that quality to a fault when we allow millions to arrive uninvited and let them stay.  

Some reasons are rooted in analysis that changes too slowly. A decade ago, it was still possible to think of the immigration crisis as a labor-market phenomenon. Now it is unquestionably a national security crisis driven by trafficking cartels and their state sponsors.  

There is a gulf between those who understand the reality that has emerged and those who remain stuck in the old framework. Still other reasons are rooted in a veritable hostility toward the American people – and a belief that they are better off subsumed and replaced. 

This last statement gets called a conspiracy theory. It would be if it wasn’t happening, visibly – and if leftist thinkers and commentariat hadn’t been advocating it for decades. 

So, adapting to reality requires three things above all.  

Alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang have overtaken an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, charging rent in exchange for 'protection.' (Edward Romero)

One is that American generosity and expansiveness must be oriented first toward our own neighbors. It is good to do well by friendly foreign countries. But it is imperative and surpassing to do well by western North Carolina or the Florida west coast, as two examples. They are our people, and we put them first for the same reasons we prioritize our own families.  

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The corollary to this is that those who are here illegally, in violation of our law and purpose, are not our people and have no claim to the privileges of Americans. This is not cruelty nor bigotry. It is common sense and the outward-expanding basis for human community since time immemorial. 

Another necessity is grasping what illegal immigration actually is now. It is not a virtuous seeking of work by small numbers who want better lives for themselves and their families by entry to the United States. Those motives exist, but the sheer size and nature of the phenomenon render them irrelevant as a basis for evaluation.  

What we have today is not immigration. It is trafficking. It is a vast and globalized network that is functionally indistinguishable from a slave trade. It moves millions of people with great cruelty and efficiency from every corner of the globe into American communities. America used to be against commerce in which mankind is the movable product. We should be again. 

Merit should be the basis for achievement and promotion, but it is not. State and local governments should have zero tolerance for civil disorder, but they do not. We need a strong Navy to deter an aggressive China, but we do not have one.  

The third and final necessity is obvious. We must beat the bearers of the ideology that renders Americans second place in our own country. Fortunately, we have an opportunity to do so on Nov. 5. 

If we do hard, necessary things — chief among them a reform of America’s asylum system, and deportations at a scale that actually matters — then we are still a nation with a shot at survival for generations.  

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If we do not, then America as a nation will come to an inexorable end. We will devolve into a geographic expression and a tax farm – but no longer a real country. 

We are optimists – and realists, too. We’ll bet on America. But we also know the work ahead is hard. We can save our country, but we will have to earn it. 

Brooke Leslie Rollins is the president & CEO of the America First Policy Institute and former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

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