Badgering Americans with the false claim that America was ‘founded’ by immigrants creates the idea that she is prohibited from protecting her sovereignty out of fear of being ‘un-American.’
by Brianna Lyman, The Federalist.com, January 27, 2025
On Sunday, CBS News’ Margaret Brennan tried to get one over on Vice President J.D. Vance, badgering him about immigration and claiming “this is a country founded by immigrants.” But this narrative isn’t just inaccurate, it’s a calculated lie intentionally pushed to justify radical open border policies that threaten to dismantle the very country our Founders built.
Vance held his own, refuting the baseless claim by noting the country was founded “by some immigrants and some settlers” and that such a founding is not a “get-out-of-jail” free card for having the “dumbest immigration policy in the world.”
And Vance is right.
Britain began establishing the 13 original colonies in the early 1600’s. Over the next century or so, hundreds of thousands of Brits moved to the British colonies that were established by settlers — not immigrants. There was no “nation” being immigrated to by the first settlers. The Brits didn’t come to America to join a pre-existing country. It was just land. There were no laws, borders, maps, or written language. The British settlers came to uncharted land to establish colonies under British rule. They were entrepreneurs building this nation from scratch, not immigrants joining a pre-existing nation.
“But what about the Native Americans? They were nations!” some may contend. But they were not. They were tribal clans. Clans are peoples, but not nations (and to boot, Native Americans are believed to have come from Asia before crossing the Bering land bridge and making their way to the present-day United States).
Yet the left will repeat the claim that America was “founded” by immigrants to serve one purpose: to erase the country’s unique identity and justify endless immigration. If we are truly a nation “founded” by immigrants, then logic would follow it would be wholly un-American to want to control mass immigration (both legal and illegal) since our inception was a result of such immigration.
But America was never just a multicultural experiment that began with and requires an endless influx of immigrants (both legal and illegal) to sustain itself. The settlers were not a hodge-podge of random cultures and religions and languages and customs. America was founded by Anglo Protestants who pulled ideas of liberty and independence from Anglo-liberalism, which grounded itself in the idea of equality, freedom, and government controlled by the people (it was most commonly associated with thinkers like John Locke). These settlers forged a new nation, instituted customs, traditions, and a national identity.
READ ALSO: No, slavery didn’t build America.
And our Founders understood the importance of a national identity, with Thomas Jefferson writing in 1776 that while he is “for extending the right of suffrage (or in other words the right of a citizen) to all who had a permanent intention of living in the country … Whoever intends to live in a country must wish that country well, and has a natural right of assisting in the preservation of it.”
In simpler terms, assimilation was a requirement of anyone coming to America.
But what exactly is to be preserved or assimilated into if the left is correct in that America was “founded” by immigrants and therefore is just a nation of immigrants? Such a premise presupposes that we are merely an ever-changing mixture of the dominant immigrant groups at any point in time.
But as my colleague John Daniel Davidson explains, what not only demands but deserves preservation is our “common language and a shared history.”
“We have a certain way of life and customs. We have a distinctly American identity. Our system of government is founded explicitly on Christian claims about God and man,” Davidson wrote.
Such a notion was shared by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 when he said: “We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
So Why Spread The Lie?
Because the left has weaponized this lie to dismantle America. Forget the cultural effect of flooding our country with millions of people who don’t speak the language or share our values. Forget about the fact that many come from cultures and religions that do not align with our Western, Christian-Judeo foundation. Who cares about customs and traditions? Because according to the left, if you do care, you’re xenophobic, racist, and most offensively, “anti-American” since if America is a “nation founded by immigrants.”
But if America is really just a “nation of immigrants,” then what does it mean to be “American?”
Well, nothing. If simply being born here or moving here qualifies someone as “American,” then “American” ceases to be a unique identity. It’s diluted to the point of meaninglessness.
Alexander Hamilton warned us in 1802 that “the safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exception of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice …”
In other words, without a common identity, we’re toast. And the annual importation of millions of foreigners threatens that national identity, especially when we no longer demand complete and total assimilation.
So the short of it is: No, America was not “founded” by immigrants. But badgering Americans with the false claim that America was “founded” by immigrants (and is therefore responsible for endlessly welcoming immigrants) creates the idea that the country is prohibited from protecting its sovereignty out of fear of being “un-American.” The goal is simple: browbeat Americans into believing that America is merely an economic opportunity zone that is open to anyone from anywhere irrespective of the cost to our country.
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