Two peaceful protest signs: “Immigrants Make America Great” and “We the People,” circa October 2025 in a city in the United States. The US Constitution ensures integration and assimilation for immigrant communities, unlike in Europe, writes Ahmed Charai. (Shutterstock/Sarah_Xie7)

On Immigration, the US Is Not Europe—Unless It Chooses to Be

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The American constitutional tradition is a bulwark against the social fragmentation seen now in Europe.

Europe’s crisis of belonging offers a warning. America’s constitutional pluralism remains one of its greatest strategic strengths. The most dangerous lesson America could draw from Europe’s unrest is to mistake a failure of integration for a failure of immigration itself.

To understand these fractures, return to the years after World War II. Europe needed workers to rebuild, while many families in North Africa, Southern Europe and other economically vulnerable regions faced poverty, restricted opportunities, and sometimes the lingering effects of colonial rule. France recruited workers from North and West Africa; the United Kingdom attracted migrants from the Caribbean and South Asia; West Germany brought in guest workers from Turkey and elsewhere. For migrants, the journey promised dignity, security, and a better future for their children. For their hosts, it mainly answered an immediate economic need.

Those workers helped build postwar prosperity. Yet governments treated too many as temporary laborers, not future members of the nation. Families settled, children were born, and institutions were slow to adapt. Europe needed their work. It was less prepared to welcome their children as equals.

The current protests in France have many causes and should not be interpreted as a “Muslim uprising.” Yet Europe’s failure of integration has left some communities with an enduring sense of mistreatment and deep mistrust of institutions. That alienation matters, even as it cannot justify violence or explain every disturbance. The deeper question is how a democracy can confer citizenship while failing........

© The National Interest