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We were thinking the other day of some American politicians who see themselves as representing Somalia, rather than the interests of the US. And, we are seeing groups of aliens that see themselves as a group residing in America, but not really becoming American. They stay in an enclave in Minnesota and vote in their own.

There was another notable example recently of a legislator who identifies herself as Guatemalan.

Recently, an illegal alien truck driver killed three innocent people because he was unqualified to be issued a trucker’s license. He could not even read basic traffic signs. California liberalism wound up killing three people in Florida.

Our Democrat politicians seem eager to get as many illegals enrolled in our welfare programs and Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid as possible. Before they have contributed anything to their country, we are training them to take as much as possible. This is endangering the financial stability of these programs intended for citizens, who have paid taxes for decades. Thankfully, President Trump is taking steps to remove them from these programs.

In other jurisdictions, Democrats actively want illegals to vote and, in some cases, become police officers. They certainly wish to be counted for the census.

In 1915, former President Theodore Roosevelt delivered an address to the Knights of Columbus. Although World War I had started, the US was still several years from entering the war. We have only taken snippets out of that address, those that relate to the treatment and the responsibility of immigrants.

As we see America fragmenting because of the teachings of multiculturalism and the serious breakdown we are witnessing in the distinction between a citizen and an illegal alien, his words take on greater urgency. His words may seem strong to the multicultural ear of today. But the more important question is:  is he right?

“What is true of creed is no less true of nationality. There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts ‘native’ before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as anyone else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

. . .For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason to the American Republic.

We should meet this situation by on the one hand seeing that these immigrants get all their rights as American citizens, and on the other hand insisting that they live up to their duties as American citizens. Any discrimination against aliens is a wrong, for it tends to put the immigrant at a disadvantage and to cause him to feel bitterness and resentment during the very years when he should be preparing himself for American citizenship. If an immigrant is not fit to become a citizen, he should not be allowed to come here. If he is fit, he should be given all the rights to earn his own livelihood, and to better himself, that any man can have. Take such a matter as the illiteracy test; I entirely agree with those who feel that many very excellent possible citizens would be barred improperly by an illiteracy test. But why do you not admit aliens under a bond to learn to read and write within a certain time? It would then be a duty to see that they were given ample opportunity to learn to read and write and that they were deported if they failed to take advantage of the opportunity.

No man can be a good citizen if he is not at least in the process of learning to speak the language of his fellow-citizens. And an alien who remains here without learning to speak English for more than a certain number of years should at the end of that time be treated as having refused to take the preliminary steps necessary to complete Americanization and should be deported. But there should be no denial or limitation of the alien’s opportunity to work, to own property, and to take advantage of civic opportunities. Special legislation should deal with the aliens who do not come here to be made citizens. But the alien who comes here intending to become a citizen should be helped in every way to advance himself, should be removed from every possible disadvantage, and in return should be required under penalty of being sent back to the country from which he came, to prove that he is in good faith fitting himself to be an American citizen.”

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