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After "Squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., blasted America as a country founded on racism at a pro-Palestinian conference on Sunday, an expert is warning that the country’s lax immigration policies have resulted in the importation of anti-American ideals and a rise in "ethno-politics" in the U.S.
Simon Hankinson, an author and senior research fellow on the border and immigration at the Heritage Foundation, is urging the U.S. to adopt stricter immigration standards to crack down on foreign loyalties, especially among American leaders.
"When you take the oath of citizenship, when you're naturalizing in a naturalization ceremony, one of the things that you're supposed to say is that you renounce all allegiances to foreign potentates or rulers ... That's something that you have to do. And I think that is a good idea, because I don't think you can serve two masters," he explained.
"Especially if you're a politician or in a position of authority, a judge, you absolutely should have no loyalty to any other country but the United States of America," he added.
"We used to have that as a very strict principle here. But over the past few decades, the government has been much more lenient about allowing people to retain dual nationality and there's only very limited circumstances where we require someone to give it up, like, for example, if they become a minister in a foreign government or president or prime minister in the foreign government or senior official. But for the most part, we've let it go."
He pointed to changes made to U.S. immigration policy in 1965 as part of the root of the issue.
"The biggest change was in 1965, when we essentially opened up immigration to the entire world, and we saw a dramatic change in where people came from," he said. "Now, when you bring people into your country, you bring all of them with you. You bring their good and their bad. And if they have beefs that they brought with them from the old country, then those can take a generation or two to die out. And sometimes with encouragement, they can last a lot longer.
The result, said Hankinson, has been a dramatic decline in assimilation in America and a simultaneous rise in "ethno-politics" dominating U.S. dialogue. One example of this is the anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric in a speech by Tlaib, who is a second-generation Palestinian American.
Speaking at the "People’s Conference for Palestine" in Detroit, Tlaib railed against Israeli leaders and supporters of Israel, shouting, "I want to say to all of them, every genocide enabler, look at this room motherf---ers, we ain’t going anywhere."
Tlaib also drilled into the United States as an "empire in Washington, D.C.," saying, "the political structures that I have to work in, that we all are surrounded by, was built on slavery and genocide and rape and oppression."
Taking aim at the Trump administration, Tlaib claimed that "what’s been tested on the killing fields of Gaza is already being deployed right here in the streets of America."
"What our government is willing to do to Palestinians, they are willing to do to all of you," she asserted. "It is no surprise to me, as the daughter of Detroit, that I see our government, that has supplied the bombs and excuses Israel from destroying literally every single day hospitals, communities in Gaza, and manufacturing mass starvation, is also the same government that’s defunding healthcare and food assistance programs here in our country."
Commenting on her remarks, Hanksinson said that "for someone, particularly an elected representative, to not just criticize policies that are enacted by politicians that they're opposed to, but to criticize the country and its very foundations to challenge the history and the framework of the United States, I think it's a very dangerous thing to do."
"We can look to examples like Lebanon, like India or Pakistan or countries in Africa where tribal and ethnic disputes have really gotten in the way of economic and political and social progress. We have managed to avoid that mostly in the United States, and I would hate to see us usher in a new era of that kind of ethno-politics into our country."
He pointed to another recent speech by Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who, while speaking at a pan-American conference in Mexico City, said in Spanish, "I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American."
In a June interview, another prominent member of the Squad, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is a Somali immigrant, suggested that under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has become one of the worst countries in the world.
"I grew up in a dictatorship, and I don’t even remember ever witnessing anything like that, to have a democracy, a beacon of hope for the world, to now be turned into one of the worst countries, where the military are in our streets, without any regard for people’s constitutional rights, while our president is spending millions of dollars propping himself up like a failed dictator with a military parade."
In response, Hankinson explained that for many on the left, assimilation has become a "dirty word."
"Assimilation is the process by which people from different cultures, languages, religions, while they can retain those roots, share a common understanding of what the United States is and what it means to the world and what it can mean for centuries to come," he said. "I don't think you can be considered assimilated if you come here and manage to become a permanent resident and then a citizen without ever loving this country, understanding and knowing its history, speaking its language, and, for all its flaws, understanding that this is fundamentally a great country."
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"We’re seeing that in some parts of the United States where there are enclaves that are ethnically very concentrated. And so, the forces of assimilation that would normally cause people to distance themselves from their history aren't working as they have in the past and could in the future. And so, for example, Representative Tlaib or Ilhan Omar, they're very identified still with the cultures that they or their families left recently in a way that makes it seem as if they're putting the priorities of those peoples ahead of their own constituents."
"If you were to go to a progressive, ultra-liberal friend and ask them, are there any rights that an American citizen should have that an illegal immigrant should not, You'll have to wait for the answer, because they're going to have a hard time coming up with anything," he said. "They believe in multiculturalism. That means that people should be able to bring the culture that they left behind in whatever country they come from and sort of reestablish it, and that the U.S. is just some place that they park while they make money and take care of their lives, but their loyalty remains outside."
The White House declined Fox News Digital’s request for comment on whether it would support a policy more strictly mandating American citizens and lawmakers have sole loyalty to the U.S.
Fox News Digital also reached out to the offices of Tlaib, Omar and Ramirez for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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