Real Diversity Needs Borders
I Celebrate Cultural Exchange - That's Why I Oppose Mass Immigration
Sometimes people assume that because I write about the richness of cultural exchange, I support mass immigration. That assumption is wrong.
When I wrote about cultural exchange in my book Drifts, I was doing so from the Arabian Gulf. Historically, the Arabian Gulf has been a crossroads of culture and remains multicultural today with a large expatriate population. While immigration policy is just one factor that contributes to how a society functions, it is a critical part of a larger framework. In the Arabian Gulf, immigration is strictly controlled and citizenship extremely difficult to obtain. National identity is protected, the dominant culture is not erased in the name of “diversity,” and there is pride taken in Khaleeji heritage. The result is a society where different cultures can interact without the replacement of the host culture.
As I write in Drifts, cultures have always interacted, it’s what cultures do. They aren’t static - but they aren’t arbitrary either. They change and overlap, but they are real expressions of a specific community’s way of life. Evolution doesn’t erase identity. So when I celebrate cultural exchange I’m not calling for a borderless world, because what gives a culture its beauty is not exchange alone, but the limits that create its unique shape.
The Myth of Historical Parallels
Humans have always migrated, but historically when people migrated in vast numbers it was through war and conquest, transforming civilizations rather than integrating into them. In stable periods, waves of migration were generally small, controlled, and came to an end, allowing for cultural mingling to unfold over time. Speed, scale, and the nature of the migration matter. Not all migrations lead to successful societies, often as not they lead to conflict and decline.
A common misconception about America is that it has always been open-border in nature, so opposing today’s mass immigration is hypocritical. But in reality, for most of its history, America’s immigration policy was restrictive. The Founding Fathers were cautious about large-scale immigration and the blending of early European settler groups happened under vastly different circumstances than those we have today.
Key distinctions:
Shared foundations: Early American immigration policy was limited, gradual, and primarily European, ensuring newcomers could assimilate into the Anglo-American system. Even when the different incoming groups were Western European Protestant Christians, there was still tension between them, showing how even comparatively minor differences take time to reconcile.
High assimilation pressure: Immigrants were expected to adopt English, embrace American customs, and conform to a shared national identity.
Controlled numbers: Immigration was limited and sometimes followed by decades when immigration was essentially halted altogether, allowing time for integration.
Gradual demographic change: Immigrant populations were small enough not to overwhelm the founding stock or transform communities overnight.
No parallel societies: Early settlers lacked the ability to maintain entirely separate cultural identities; whereas today, technology, frequent air travel back to the home country, and policy enable permanent ethnic enclaves
Settlers, not immigrants: Most early arrivals to America were settlers founding a new nation, not newcomers arriving to an already established one hoping to transform it
No welfare state: Early settlers could not rely on the government to bankroll their lifestyle; they came at their own risk and had to be self-sufficient, whereas today’s welfare infrastructure incentivizes dependency and reduces the need to assimilate
In discussions of America’s founding, it is often pointed out that it involved bloodshed and conquest - as if that discredits its legitimacy. Yes, the founding of America involved bloodshed, as did the rise of every civilization on earth. Before Europeans arrived, Native American societies were likewise engaged in violence, war, and territorial disputes. Crucially, though, today we are not obligated to carry the burden of inherited guilt for actions we did not commit, nor are we required to accept the dismantling of our nation in the name of that guilt. The settlers who built America created something enduring and exceptional. To allow our homeland to be transformed beyond recognition out of shame for its origins is not humility, it is betrayal.
The 1965 Turning Point
For most of America’s history, its immigration policy was limited, gradual, and focused on European populations that would assimilate into the existing Anglo-American framework. This approach was overturned by the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, which opened the door to mass immigration from non-European countries, rapidly and dramatically transforming the demographic and cultural makeup of America. Immigration was reframed as a moral imperative rather than a tool to benefit the nation, while the idea of assimilation was replaced with a celebration of multiculturalism and the myth of the “propositional nation.” This was a radical departure from what had come before, meaning that America’s modern idea of itself as fundamentally open-borders is not rooted in fact, but in ideological propaganda.
Much like America, many European countries once had controlled, culturally aligned immigration policies, but this shifted in the post-WWII era toward mass immigration models that prioritize ideological commitments to diversity over national cohesion and stability.
The result is mass immigration at a rate and scale that is unprecedented in history. Never before have Western countries dedicated themselves to an open-ended, ever-increasing rate of foreign arrivals.
The results:
From an ethnically homogeneous nation less than century ago, in ten years time, 1 of every 3 people living in Britain will be an immigrant.
Over the last 17 years, non-EU immigration has cost the British tax payer £120 billion.
Nearly a million immigrants in Britain do not speak English.
Nearly half of government subsidized housing in London is occupied by foreign-born people. This raises rents across the market and puts home-ownership out of reach for the average person.
Sweden once had one of the lowest crime rates in Europe, but is now home to frequent bombings, grenade attacks, and violent gang activity.
In France, foreigners are believed to make up 8% of the population but account for 24% of prison inmates, 77% of solved rape cases in Paris, 54% of street crimes, 38% of burglaries, and 31% of muggings.
In 1960, 84% of U.S. immigrants were born in Europe or Canada. By 2018, immigrants from Europe and Canada made up only 13% of the United States' foreign-born population.
There are now an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the US – though some studies suggest the number is closer to 20 million.
75% of U.S. employment growth during the Biden-Harris administration went immigrants, both legal and illegal.
In the U.S., the foreign-born population has reached a record 47.8 million people. Immigrants now account for 14.3% of the US population, roughly triple what it was just fifty years ago.
This is not natural evolution. This is an engineered demographic shift being forced on Western nations, despite public outcry, at a scale and speed that no society in history has ever sustained without collapse.
We now live in a society where organic cultural exchange, like wearing a certain hairstyle or style of jewelry, is condemned as cultural appropriation, while dismantling a nation’s essential identity is celebrated as moral progress. Mass immigration lowers wages, strains public services, raises crime rates and rents, and degrades societal cohesion. Western societies, demoralized by a top-down effort to be ashamed of their heritage, struggle to defend their cultural identity. Culturally homogeneous societies provide the best foundation for democratic stability; in contrast, multicultural societies require strong centralized control to maintain stability. An Australian politician recently admitted that free speech had to be curtailed to keep peace in a multicultural community. Mass immigration creates parallel societies where people vote along ethnic lines, enabling politicians to manipulate identity blocs. Even President Obama acknowledged the radical nature of what America was pursuing, saying “America is the first real experiment in building a large, multi-ethnic, multicultural democracy. And we don’t know yet if that can hold.”
Immigration Done Right
Immigration can be a force for good - if done with national interest in mind.
Here’s how:
Respect the will of the people: Immigration policy should reflect the desire of the nation’s citizens, unlike today when public opposition to immigration is routinely ignored by political leaders.
Limited in scale: Immigration must be kept at levels that allow for meaningful integration and prevents the development of ethnic enclaves and parallel societies.
Cultural alignment: Immigrants must be willing to engage with and adapt to the host culture. People from across the world have immigrated to the West and assimilated with pride.
Assimilation expected: Host nations should drop the emphasis on multiculturalism and champion a unifying culture and expect newcomers to adopt to it.
Honor heritage: Policy must be rooted in pride in the host nation’s culture and identity - these should be preserved, not apologized for or erased.
Responsive: Immigration should be responsive to a nation’s needs and be halted or reduced when necessary.
Rooted in national interest: Policy must prioritize the benefit of the host nation, not abstract ideals.
Mass Immigration Weakens Diversity
Mass immigration weakens diversity by eroding a culture’s distinct identity, while also creating isolated ethnic enclaves that resist integration. So, instead of fostering organic cultural exchange, it creates either a globalized sameness or fractured monocultures that exist side by side without cohesion.
Multiculturalism is often sold as a cheerful swirl of flags and cuisines, but the reality is more complex. In a fragmented multicultural society, there are more holidays on the calendar, but fewer people who celebrate yours. There are more languages spoken, but fewer conversations where nothing needs to be explained. There are more customs on display, but fewer shared expectations for how to behave, leaving public life confused and full of unspoken friction.
The more fragmented a culture becomes, the less ability there is for any one identity to shape the public sphere. Some celebrate this as progress, but in reality is often serves powerful interests - governments, corporations, and international organizations - that benefit when nations are too divided to resist. These powerful interests don’t push diversity because it strengthens nations, but because it weakens solidarity, masks exploitation, and ensures that ordinary people remain divided and easier to control.
The world’s many cultures are not interchangeable and capable of being mixed together at high speed without consequence. This is the delusion of liberal modernity - an ideology that steamrolls difference, erases roots, and dismantles traditions. Cultures will always naturally mingle and evolve, but they should not be forced into chaotic dissolution. Everyone deserves the chance to live within a cohesive community where they can feel connected.
If you truly care about diversity, you must support borders and sensible immigration policy. From language to craft, custom to story, each unique cultural practice is a thread in the fabric of our shared human experience. I want those threads to remain unbroken. That’s why I oppose policies that dissolve cultural distinctiveness in the name of progress. To preserve what makes the world rich and human, we must defend the boundaries that give cultures their shape.
Painting is The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.