Annotated version of the White House’s National Security Strategy of December 5:
The Era of Mass Migration Is Over – Who a country admits into its borders—in what numbers and from where—will inevitably define the future of that nation. Any country that considers itself sovereign has the right and duty to define its future.
[This statement, though tinged with implicit racism (“from where”), sort of aligns with the Jordan Commission’s final report issued in the 1990s: “Properly-regulated immigration and immigrant policy serves the national interest by ensuring the entry of those who will contribute most to our society and helping lawful newcomers adjust to life in the United States. It must give due consideration to shifting economic realities.”]
Throughout history, sovereign nations prohibited uncontrolled migration and granted citizenship only rarely to foreigners, who also had to meet demanding criteria.
[“Only rarely to foreigners” conflicts sharply with most of American history. Abraham Lincoln, for example, welcomed immigrants from non-English sources. The statement invites comparison with the extremely restrictive immigration policy 1924 – 1965.]
The West’s experience over the past decades vindicates this enduring wisdom. In countries throughout the world, mass migration has strained domestic resources, increased violence and other crime, weakened social cohesion, distorted labor markets, and undermined national security.
[“Weakened social cohesion” –Polls and research by Robert Putnam show that diversity, such as ethnic, reduces trust and a sense of belonging.]
The era of mass migration must end.
[This is ambiguous—does mass migration mean from unfavored countries, or all migration, or something else? If mass migration means large numbers from Latin America, that era – from the 1990s through the Biden Administration – is over.]
Border security is the primary element of national security. We must protect our country from invasion, not just from unchecked migration but from cross-border threats such as terrorism, drugs, espionage, and human trafficking.
[There is no evidence that immigration has brought terrorism, drugs or espionage. This passage smacks of theatrical hypervigilance associated with a myth of purity of the community of citizens. Madison Grant, in his influential The Passing of the Great Race (1916), framed immigration as a threat to racial purity: “Race feeling may be called prejudice by those whose careers are cramped by it but it is a natural antipathy which serves to maintain the purity of type.”]
A border controlled by the will of the American people as implemented by their government is fundamental to the survival of the United States as a sovereign republic.
[The border takes on a mythic role as some kind of protective armor.]