Megyn Kelly’s recent segment — the kind of straight-shooting conversation her audience has come to expect — cut through the sanctimonious silence of the media elite and called out a growing problem: large numbers of newcomers settling in America who refuse to embrace our customs, language, and laws. The clip the network posted, headlined with the blunt line “Those people are a problem,” captured a truth politicians on the left pretend not to see: a nation that cannot insist on assimilation is a nation that will fracture.
Kelly and her guest pushed back on the soft-left pieties that dominate cable TV and campus rhetoric, arguing assimilation is not a mean-spirited demand but a practical necessity for social cohesion and public safety. That debate has been a recurring theme on her show, where guests from across the conservative world have explained how refusal to assimilate strains schools, law enforcement, and civic life.
This isn’t mere opinion; social-science research going back decades shows the outcomes for children and neighborhoods depend heavily on integration into the mainstream — language, civic norms, and respect for the rule of law matter. Scholars who study immigrant integration have repeatedly warned that where assimilation fails, social problems follow, and those consequences are borne by working Americans who pay taxes and raise families.
No wonder polls keep showing immigration is at the top of voters’ minds. Americans are tired of the open-door fantasy pitched by coastal elites while towns and cities reckon with overburdened services, rising crime in some areas, and a culture that too often rewards separation instead of unity. Political leaders who dismiss these concerns as “fear” or “racism” are out of touch with the people who send their kids to crowded classrooms and stand in longer lines at health clinics.
The left’s multicultural catechism — that every group must remain distinct and that asking newcomers to learn English or respect our laws is intolerance — is a recipe for fragmentation. Conservatives should stop apologizing for common-sense expectations: learn the language, work hard, respect local customs, and participate in civic life. Those are not onerous demands; they are the compact that has always bound American newcomers to this country’s success.
The policy answer is straightforward: secure the border, restore merit-based immigration, enforce existing laws, and make assimilation a condition of full membership in the American project. That means tougher, sensible measures — English and civics requirements, prioritizing applicants who demonstrate commitment to our values, and refusing to turn entire neighborhoods into islands of cultural isolation. No nation survives long by shrugging at social cohesion.
Conservatives must seize this issue with conviction and compassion: defend the right of peaceful newcomers to pursue the American dream while insisting that dream includes adopting the American way of life. Hardworking Americans know that raising children, keeping neighborhoods safe, and preserving liberty require a shared culture; politicians who promise otherwise are selling chaos. Voters remember who stood for order and unity when the consequences of disorder became impossible to ignore.
