Why Would We Want Bad People Here?

Ben Shapiro on Aug 20, 2025

This week, news emerged that the Trump administration has been setting new standards with regard to incoming immigrants. According to Axios, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will not take into account the "positive attributes" of migrants entering the country; such attributes can include community involvement and educational level. Instead of simply seeking to rule out those with records of misconduct, the new system seeks to screen for better immigrants -- immigrants who will enrich America.

Along the same lines, the CIS will now disqualify applicants who engage in or support "anti-American activity." As USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser explained, "America's benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies. ... Immigration benefits -- including to live and work in the United States -- remain a privilege, not a right." Metrics for anti-Americanism include "circumstances where an alien has endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused the views of a terrorist organization or group, including aliens who support or promote anti-American ideologies or activities, antisemitic terrorism and antisemitic terrorist organizations, or who promote antisemitic ideologies."

Shockingly, there are those who are concerned about such standards. Presumably, America can't be truly free unless we allow in those who support terrorist groups; one day, if we're lucky, they can even run for mayor of New York or Congresswoman of Michigan. Such are the supposed blessings of liberty bestowed on foreigners by the free speech clause of our Constitution.

Professor of sociology Jane Lilly Lopez of Brigham Young University told the Associated Press, "For me, the really big story is they are opening the door for stereotypes and prejudice and implicit bias to take the wheel in these decisions. That's really worrisome." This, of course, ignores that there are evidentiary standards for any allegations of anti-Americanism; skin color or country of origin wouldn't presumably be enough to bar someone on grounds of anti-Americanism. But for the left, the only excuse for a pro-American ideology must be some form of subtle racism.

Meanwhile, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, objected that the new standards were reminiscent of McCarthyism. This ignores the fact that during the Cold War, America did in fact screen for membership in the Communist Party under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, and that refugees and immigrants were screened by American law enforcement agencies to ensure that they were not agents of a foreign power or sympathetic to America's enemies.

Undergirding all of these objections is a simple and ugly proposition: that becoming an American requires no actual investment in America, and that America ought to be a gigantic agglomeration of disassociated populations. Such a proposition would have been de facto impossible before the rise of the welfare state; people immigrating to the United States generally left places with greater security for an America without security but with grand opportunity, which meant that new immigrants had to learn English, learn a trade, and embrace the Anglo-American cultural and legal traditions of the country in order to succeed. With the rise of an enormous and durable social safety net, the math suddenly changed: People could immigrate to the United States without assimilating in any serious way, and could maintain their pre-American cultures in toto. Multiculturalism, as a philosophy, can only survive if effectuated by a state that subsidizes fragmentation.

That process must now be reversed. And that can only be done by raising the bar to admission. Good immigrants make America stronger. Bad immigrants make it weaker. Treating all immigrants similarly isn't just foolish; it's dangerous. And the Trump administration is right for recognizing that root reality.

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Ben Shapiro is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of "The Ben Shapiro Show," and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author. To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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