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It’s long past time America’s immigration optimists and restrictionists came to an arrangement.
For a decade now, these two groups have been locked in an impassioned, sometimes vicious battle over how best to preserve the country they both cherish.
And for the most part, that fight has taken place within the confines of the GOP — the only party ready, willing and able to have an honest conversation about migration and its downstream effects on America’s very character.
On Wednesday, that fight resumed in earnest when Ramanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who came to the United States amid the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from his country, allegedly opened fire on two National Guard troops in Washington, DC.
One of those troops, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, succumbed to her wounds.
The other, Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Though Lakanwal’s exact motive is not yet known, what is self-evident now is that he never had any intention of becoming an American.
Well, perhaps in the formalistic sense he did.
After all, American citizenship conveys more benefits than practically any other title in human history.
And that’s precisely why the bar for bestowing it upon anyone, from any country, should be high.
Spiritually, though, Lakanwal never would have bled Red, White, and Blue, not even if he had passed a 100 different iterations of the citizenship test. His heart was never in the American creed.
Follow the latest on the National Guard shooting in Washington, DC:
Which brings us back to the aforementioned, hard-fought immigration debate.
On Friday, President Donald Trump weighed in on the matter in characteristic fashion.
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover,” announced Trump on X.
It’s a rational sentiment in light of recent events, but not the right prescription.
Over the short term, some kind of de facto moratorium might be in order.
But over the long term, America deserves a sustainable immigration system that keeps the bad apples out, yet also continues to allow it to benefit from the dynamism — as well as the regular infusions of a distinctly American spirit — that the right kind of immigrants provide.
To do that, the Trump administration shouldn’t close the door to all comers, but must implement a rigorous, multi-layered ideological testing process to determine their suitability for life in America.
At the center of the debate is a dispute over whether the United States is a land or an idea.
In truth, though, the two sides agree more than they think.
The restrictionists say America is more than a set of principles, and they’re right.
The chief reason they oppose mass migration is because they worry that those coming to our shores have the wrong ethos.
As a compromise, then, all those who wish to enter the United States should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their answer to each of the following questions is “Yes.”
One: Do you condemn political violence in all of its forms?
At the core of the American experiment is a confidence in our system of government and each other to reach the right outcomes independent of intimidation.
Two: Do you support near-absolute rights to free speech, religion and assembly?
There is no spiritual American who would seek to curb their countryman’s right to think differently than them.
Three: Do you believe the United States is the greatest national force for good on the planet?
This would doubtlessly be the most controversial of these proposed litmus tests, but it’s no less important than the other two.
It’s true many natural-born Americans have been deceived by unpatriotic elites into believing the United States a boogeyman.
But immigration policy should be geared toward diluting this corrosive, ahistorical view.
Anyone who wishes to reside in or immigrate permanently to the United States ought to believe in its inherent goodness; that’s not a political view, it’s common sense.
Every would-be immigrant ought to be subject to a long, arduous, one-half-strike-and-you’re-out process to prove they want to be “American” in the truest sense of the word.
A hesitant answer in an interview?
You’re out.
A single red flag raised by family or friends?
You’re out.
An out-of-place tweet?
You’re out.
Harassing students on a college campus over, say, Gaza?
Don’t even think of staying here.
The rewards Americans would reap from such a system would far outweigh the costs.
And more important, ensure that the America long known to its own citizens would survive for another quarter-millenium.
Isaac Schorr is a senior editor at Mediaite.