R: Immigrants Should Assimilate

In 2021, the Current Population Survey found that immigrants and their U.S.-born children make up approximately 26 percent of the population of the United States. As conservatives, we understand that the social order of our nation is integral to its stability. It should alarm us that one out of every four Americans cannot trace his or her roots back very far. Even then, this situation is not unique to the U.S. According to research done in the United Kingdom, around 16 percent of the people living in England and Wales were born outside of the U.K. When first- and second-generation immigrants constitute a significant percentage of a polity, they are changed by society, they change society, or some combination of the two occurs. There is no dispute: Immigration has consequences for the social order. While our debate will focus on immigrants in the United States, other perspectives may prove to be useful.

Those in the affirmative will stress the importance of national unity and maintaining a common culture. The assimilation of immigrants is best for the national common good. Disruption of the longstanding social order is not conducive to society’s flourishing. Affirmative speakers are free to come up with their own definition for “assimilation,” but are encouraged to conceive of it as the absorption and integration of people into a wider society or culture. It is possible that immigrants influence American “culture,” but those who successfully assimilate come to more closely resemble the majority of Americans. In doing so, they necessarily, though perhaps gradually, shed the culture of the place from whence they came. Not only is this best for the United States, it is also best for immigrants themselves. By assimilating, immigrants are better able to participate in the economic, social, and cultural life of America.

The negative in this debate will implore us to see the virtue in variety. Russell Kirk writes that conservatives “​​feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems.” The American system allows both political and cultural pluralism to work. The negative may want us to consider that the values of American culture are… bad. Immigrants to the United States from countries that place greater emphasis on family and religion would suffer a great loss if they assimilated into mainstream American culture. While immigrants leave their home countries for the U.S., many of them do so for economic reasons. Provided they are contributing to the economy and following the law, why force them to give up their values and rich cultural traditions?

What is assimilation? What does it mean to be an American? Should English be made the national language? Is pluralism good? Does assimilation entail buying into the Protestant work ethic? Or believing, on some level, in liberal democratic principles? Are what is best for native-born Americans and what is best for immigrants different?