Americans don’t like an open southern border.
Both that and the fear of terrorism (one thinks those two items are not unrelated) rank as two of the most important issues to American voters in the coming election cycle, according to a Gallup poll back in March.
But Americans aren’t the only ones concerned about the millions of migrants and refugees flooding their country. This past week, thousands of Irishmen descended upon Dublin to protest the Irish government’s immigration policy, chanting, among other slogans, “Ireland Is Full.”
They have good reason to be frustrated. Ireland has been facing a housing and cost-of-living crisis for a while (sound familiar?), but that hasn’t stopped the government from welcoming in hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers, sometimes offloaded by England, from countries like Nigeria, Georgia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and, of course, Ukraine. (RELATED: Western Civilization Is Not Just a Data Point)
For context, according to Ireland’s latest census data, the country is home to 5.3 million people. In 2022 (the most recent numbers available), there were 141,600 immigrants. That means that in 2022 Ireland added over 2 percent of its population. The government has been busy trying to house all of its new migrants. It has converted hotels around the country into immigrant housing and refugee camps have sprung up in Dublin.
That should also sound familiar to Americans.
One can’t exactly blame the Irish grandmother who spoke to Dublin MEP candidate Philip Dwyer for her sentiments: “I’m here for my children, and I’m here for my grandchildren, and I’m here to keep Ireland’s Ireland for the Irish, and our Celtic race, and our culture, and our traditions, and our Christian, Catholic religion,” she said. “And I do not want Ireland to become an Islam stronghold.”
Irish grandmother speaks the truth at today’s national protest in Dublin 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
“I'm here for my children…my grandchildren…..our Celtic race..our culture, our traditions, and our Christian catholic religions, and I don't want Ireland to become an Islam stronghold"She spoke… pic.twitter.com/1yYJxiz6oD
— TheLiberal.ie (@TheLiberal_ie) May 6, 2024
Probably without intending to, this anonymous grandmother captured exactly what many people in the West feel and think about massive immigration more broadly — that it’s a threat to their traditions, their culture, and their nation. That opinion, of course, doesn’t sit well with the Left. The New York Times claimed that the phrase “Ireland Is Full” is a mantra of far-right internet types, never mind that Ireland is one of the most liberal nations in the European Union.
It’s unfair to chalk up Ireland’s anti-immigration movement to the far-right — Ireland, after all, is one of the most liberal countries in the European Union — but the New York Times is not entirely wrong in recognizing the conservative trend of the argument in the most literal sense of that word. What these Irish protesters (and many Americans) want to conserve is the nation, complete with its history, its traditions, and its culture.
To call them “anti-immigrant” is to ignore the essence of the problem. Americans aren’t really against immigration or offering asylum to the refugees of war, and it seems safe to assume that the same is true of the Irish. In the case of our Irish grandmother, she is pro-Irish culture and, in a broader sense, pro-Western culture. These Irish protesters find themselves holding on to the quaint hope that their children and grandchildren will grow up drinking in Irish pubs, dancing Irish dances, and attending Catholic churches.
Similarly, the 48 percent of Americans who told Gallup that immigration is the single most important issue for them in the 2024 election are not anti-immigrant. They are simply concerned that the millions of immigrants flooding our country don’t share our values and have no desire to assimilate into our society.
And that seems a perfectly reasonable thing to be concerned about.
