Immigration in America: The Four-Part Series

May 10, 2016

Writer

No other country in the world has welcomed more immigrants than the United States. Immigrants created the great “melting pot” that is America. However, the notion of “melting” or assimilating into American society is no longer taught, adding to the problems of an overburdened and broken immigration system. Presidential candidates on both sides claim to have the answer. But to actually find a solution, we have to understand how we got here and what’s been tried in the past. This four-part series covers the remarkable history of immigration in America and why the modern system desperately needs reform.

The four-part series is compiled below for your convenience.

Immigration in America Part I:

The Beginning There is a common refrain in the debate about immigration: We are a nation of immigrants. While that is true, there is a word nearly always left out of that refrain: legal. We have always been a nation of laws and a nation of legal immigrants.

The Pilgrims were the first immigrants able to create a permanent home here. Starting around 1620, tens of thousands of British, German and Dutch, but mostly British Puritans, came to North America to escape religious persecution, find opportunities or simply experience an adventure. Then there were the forced immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of Africans who were mercilessly captured in their own lands and put on ships bound for America to be sold into slavery.

As the United States Constitution took hold, American freedom provided the opportunity for American citizens to rise above their station in life. Word began to spread around the globe. The downtrodden throughout Europe and Asia looked to America for hope and opportunity, a situation that caused both enormous potential and inherent problems. Thomas Jefferson expressed concerns about the “great importations of foreigners” saying, “In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mess.”

Fortunately, the first wave of immigrants desperately wanted to leave behind the biases of European governments and enjoy the fruits of what our Founders had created.

By the 1850s, as America’s population topped 20 million and the immigrants kept coming, especially the Irish, escaping from the potato famine. In the late 1800s, massive steamships provided much faster cross Atlantic transportation for those who wanted a taste of the American dream. As mills and factories sprung across the land, cities grew up around them. In turn, these cities beckoned to workers by the millions from the American countryside and from overseas, to fuel the burgeoning industrialization. Between 1860 and 1910, the urban population grew from 6 million to over 44 million.

Ellis Island in New York was set up to process the mass of humanity arriving on our shores from the Atlantic, and the Angel Island in San Francisco to deal with those coming across the Pacific. It was a wave of immigrants that believed in the promise of America and had loved and longed for from afar — and they thanked God when they arrived. For those immigrants, assimilation wasn’t just a good idea, it was the only idea.

It was certainly not easy for these newcomers. With so many arriving from so many diverse locations around the world, taking jobs, housing and space in this land, and, yes, some resentment did arise. But no nation on earth has ever experienced, let alone survived so great an influx of humanity in such a short period of time, but the United States of America didn’t just survive it. It would thrive.

Immigration in America Part II: The 20th Century

In 2014, nearly 10 million visas were issued by the United States to those seeking to enter the country — including over 1 million admitted permanently. Overall, the United States has one of the highest immigrant populations and is one of the most visited countries on earth.

Some believe those who make it across our borders — legally or not — should be embraced and allowed to stay. This rift has divided Americans for generations. It has also created the false impression around the globe that Americans are extraordinarily xenophobic and racist when, in fact, the United States is the most culturally, ethnically and racially diverse nation in the history of mankind.

As highly regarded as diversity is now, unity was once thought to be paramount. American leadership knew, as Lincoln stated, a nation divided against itself cannot stand. That didn’t apply to just slavery in the Civil War period. It also applied to having a common language, a common culture and a constitutional direction.

Between 1944 and 1954, the number of immigrants coming from Mexico increased by 6,000 percent. The problem of illegal immigration from Mexico, Central and South America, had become such a problem by 1954 that there were already around 3 million here illegally. Thus, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced a new program to deal with the situation. Border agents were sent through California, Arizona, Texas, and northward into Nevada, Utah and even Idaho, rounding up illegal aliens for deportation. Within three months, border agents had apprehended and sent back deep into Mexico over 130,000 illegal aliens. And another 1.1 million more, fearing apprehension, self-deported back to their homes in Mexico and South America. By 1955, 2.1 million illegals had either been deported or had left the United States on their own. The problem was declared and solved for a time.

But it didn't last long.

Immigration in America Part III: Immigration Reform

There are 45 million foreign-born people who live in the United States. That’s more than six times the number of the next closest nation — Germany. In a 2014 survey, 34 percent of Mexicans said, if given the opportunity, they would migrate to the United States. That would be another 41.5 million people from Mexico alone.

No nation, no matter how prosperous can accommodate everyone. So in the 19th and 20th centuries, Americans began to place limits on immigrants. As a result, the numbers coming from Europe slowed, but the numbers pouring across America’s southern border exploded.

Reagan believed if he granted amnesty to the three million already here illegally — made them pay a penalty and shored up the border — that the United States could regain control over its immigration situation. In 1986, President Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act. It was designed to end the illegal border crossing crisis once and for all. The only problem was, it didn’t.

Since passage of the bill, the illegal immigration situation has careened out of control. Millions continued to pour across our southern border. Even Democrats understood how dire the situation was. President Bill Clinton supported securing the borders and deportation, saying, “We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws.”

It seems that 20 years ago, it wasn’t xenophobic, racist, or hateful to want the border secured and our laws upheld. So what changed? How did left-wing politicians go from addressing the issue with this sense of purpose and understanding, to supporting amnesty?

Perhaps Senator Ted Kennedy summed up the change of heart best at the 2006 pro-illegal immigration rally when he said he saw the future of America. With over a million pouring across our border illegally every year, the Democrats saw the writing on the wall: New voters who would equal power for them.

In 2006, even George W. Bush tried desperately to sell skeptical Americans on so-called comprehensive immigration reform, encouraging support of a bipartisan immigration bill to bring illegal aliens out of the shadows. Burned too many times, the American people rejected his plan.

As a result of 70 to 80 years of failure on the southern border, Americans have become hardened and skeptical when it comes to so-called immigration reform. With so many millions of citizens out of work, they view anyone who shouldn’t be here in the first place as someone who is potentially taking jobs from them.

Immigration in America Part IV: The Immigration Fight Today

There used to be bipartisan agreement on the need to stop people from entering the United States without authorization, and the need to remove illegal aliens from the country. Democrats like Bill Clinton, Harry Reid and others spoke out passionately on the need to secure the border, clamp down on employers and stop any and all benefits to illegal aliens.

However, over the past decade or so, that has drastically changed.

The Democratic Party now supports illegal aliens in the hope of gaining tens of millions of Hispanic voters in the country. Today, Democrats address the issue with fear mongering, referencing young kids with tears rolling down their cheeks who are scared their parents may be deported. Should the tears or fears of those living in the United States illegally determine American policy?

In 1993, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn’t enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that.” Nineteen years later, Harry Reid sang a very different tune from the Senate floor, saying, “Thanks to President Obama . . . 800,000 young people . . . who are American in all but the paperwork no longer need to live in fear of deportation.

Current Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders believes in passing comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. Additionally, he is against building a fence or wall, supports funding sanctuary cities and believes climate change laid the groundwork for mass migration.

In 2005, Hillary Clinton was adamantly against illegal immigration. Today, like Sanders, Clinton supports comprehensive immigration reform, and favors the Dream Act and amnesty. She doesn’t want a border fence, but instead favors using more technology on the border.

Donald Trump’s highly publicized thoughts on immigration are well-known. He wants to build a wall on the southern border and have Mexico pay for it. Trump also wants to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the United States. He admits that in his business, he uses H-1B visas, but as president, would stop them from being used. He also believes that, “we’re the only country dumb enough to allow birthright citizenship.”

Ted Cruz also outlined a tough plan on immigration which includes enforcing current federal laws, deporting illegal aliens, building a wall and tripling the border patrol. Cruz is not in favor of a path to citizenship and would defund all 250-plus of America’s sanctuary cities.

Americans now face a choice: Will this decades old problem ever be solved? If so, how? And who is the best person to solve it?

Glenn: Pay attention to what the State Department's RADICAL reset is signaling

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For years, the U.S. State Department operated on inertia—an institution locked into a cycle of caution, consensus, and risk aversion.

Speeches were careful, strategies were diluted by committees, and action was often defined by what couldn’t be done. The language was always the same: "nuance," "complexity," "stakeholders." Rarely was it about results.

That has changed.

What’s come out of the State Department in the last hundred days is a complete departure—not just in tone, but in structure.

Under Secretary Rubio, the department isn’t just adjusting tactics. It’s undergoing a philosophical reset.

The most telling shift is this: the department is no longer preoccupied with managing decline or defending abstractions. It’s operating from the premise that U.S. foreign policy must serve actual national interests, not vague global norms or ideological missions.

Look at the key decisions. The Global Engagement Center—an office that claimed to combat disinformation but increasingly acted as an internal censorship tool—is gone. Not repurposed. Not renamed. Eliminated. Aid programs that masked themselves as diplomacy while undermining core U.S. positions have been cut. Contracts to NGOs with open hostility toward U.S. policy goals? Revoked.

This isn’t cosmetic. It’s structural.

The department’s reorganization is consolidating power downward—removing bureaucratic silos, emphasizing merit over ideology, and restoring clarity to diplomatic goals. This isn’t about optics. It’s about removing friction between strategy and implementation. On immigration and border enforcement, there’s now a foreign policy posture that treats visa privileges as exactly that—privileges, not entitlements. Visa holders who break laws or support terrorist groups lose their status. Period. No press conference required. Just enforcement.

Regional partnerships are now framed by expectations, not entanglements.

Countries that allow mass illegal migration into the U.S. are being held accountable. Agreements are being structured around reciprocity. When those agreements are ignored, consequences follow. China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, long treated as inevitable, has been directly challenged. Beijing’s role in Panama, particularly regarding the canal, has been dismantled through diplomacy backed by leverage, not lectures. That wasn’t done through press statements—it required statecraft, pressure, and the willingness to say no.

In Europe, there’s been a reframing of NATO obligations. Not as symbolic unity, but as measurable responsibility. The benchmark is no longer two percent. The conversation is now five. That changes the nature of the alliance. In Africa, the posture is shifting from dependency to commercial engagement. Trade, not aid. Access, not assistance. Diplomacy with terms, not with guilt.

The contrast is stark.

This isn’t a matter of tone or branding. This is a systemic shift away from a model that rewarded process over outcomes, toward one that is rediscovering the purpose of diplomacy: to secure advantage, resolve conflict, and protect national interests.

This recalibration will not be popular in foreign capitals used to ambiguity, or in institutions comfortable with drift. It’s also not universally admirable. It’s direct. It’s unambiguous. And it signals something rare in modern American foreign policy: conviction.

That alone is worth paying attention to.

Glenn: Why Memorial Day is not just another holiday

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They wore the uniform so you could live free. This holiday, ask yourself if you're living in a way that honors that sacrifice — or cheapens it.

Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

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Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

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