Fact Check: Was the US Founded by Immigrants?
During President Joe Biden’s administration, an estimated 10 million migrants illegally entered the United States. The actual number may never be known — and, indeed, given the nature of these calculations, the number could be much higher.
One of the reasons for President Donald Trump’s decisive victory in November was a promise to crack down on illegal immigration — and, not only that, but to deport those who had no business being in America. This was popular enough that the former administration pretended to care about enforcing the law for the duration of the campaign, although this didn’t exactly prove persuasive.
Now that the second Trump administration is carrying through on its promises, however, the media is condemning deportations of criminal migrants and tougher border enforcement as heartless. And the first go-to defense for the media is the most predictable one: America is a nation of immigrants.
But how true is that really? It depends on how promiscuously you’re using the term “immigrant” — because if illegal aliens count, then no, the facts most certainly don’t bear that out.
First, though, let’s look at the deployment of the “nation of immigrants” argument in J.D. Vance’s first sit-down interview as vice president, with Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
The issue arose when Vance and Brennan were debating over whether the Fourteenth Amendment confers birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens or those who merely happen to be in the United States when they give birth.
“If you’re an illegal alien and you come here temporarily, hopefully, your child does not become an American citizen by virtue of just having been born on American soil,” Vance said.
“It’s a very basic principle in American immigration law, that if you want to become an American citizen, and you’ve done it the right way, and the American people in their collective wisdom have welcomed you into our national community, then you become a citizen.
“But temporary residents, people who come in here, whether legally or illegally and don’t plan to stay, their children shouldn’t become American citizens. I don’t know any country that does that, or why we would be different.”
Brennan’s response, quite predictably: “Well, this is a country founded by immigrants. This is a unique country.”
Vance’s response was diplomatic, and he got half of the way to the real heart of the issue.
“This is a very unique country, and it was founded by some immigrants and some settlers. But just because we were founded by immigrants, doesn’t mean that 240 years later that we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world,” he said.
“No country says that temporary visitors — their children will be given complete access to the benefits and blessings of American citizenship. America should actually look out for the interests of our citizens first, and that means, again, if you’re here permanently and lawfully, your kid becomes an American citizen.
“If you’re not here permanently, if you’re not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and don’t plan to be, why would we make those people’s children American citizens permanently?”
As Meghan Basham of the Daily Wire noted, there’s a marked difference — at least in an American political context — between an “immigrant” and a “settler.”
The pilgrims were not immigrants. The Mayflower was not a ship of immigrants. There was no nation here when they arrived.pic.twitter.com/vDpeXmauk6
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) January 26, 2025
When the pilgrims, puritans, and other early settlers arrived, there were no nations in America by the definition of the term. Of course, indigenous tribes existed with loose boundaries and governments, but these were not nations or colonies in the sense that it was understood at the time.
Move past that thorny period, however, and the “immigrants” who built America came here legally and with the intention to start a new life for themselves and their families. Restrictions weren’t fixed in stone and patterns of migration changed, but the point is that this was all done legally — and these people were privy and subject to the rights and obligations of those who were settling in America.
Of course, during that period, “settler” and “immigrant” were more or less synonymous; settler might imply someone was homesteading on uninhabited land, say, but neither definition included those who entered the country through illegal means.
Today, to a wide swath of the American polity — especially those with well-remunerated sinecures in establishment media — an “immigrant” is anyone who ends up here for some period of time, no matter how they got here or whether they’re supposed to be here. And don’t dare call them “illegal” immigrants; “undocumented migrants” will do just fine, thank you.
Politically correct language shifts are nothing new, of course, but reducing everyone who manages to get here and stay here to “immigrants” allows for that astounding bit of verbal prestidigitation Margaret Brennan pulled out: “Well, this is a country founded by immigrants.”
Except it wasn’t. It was a country founded by settlers. Immigrants — legal immigrants — are and have always been welcome in a country founded on freedom and opportunity. To confuse the settlers who started the country and the legal immigrants who helped grow it with the illegal immigrants who have flooded the country under the watch of a cynical political party that believes demographics is destiny is a perversion of terminology.
But beyond that, we must remember that we’re a country founded by settlers, not immigrants — and whenever someone tells you otherwise, odds are there’s an agenda lurking behind those words.
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