Immigration Expert Jessica Vaughan: Migrants Are Not Being Assimilated to American Culture as They Once Were

Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies Jessica Vaughan said immigrants arriving in the U.S. are not assimilating into American culture as they once were, making it difficult for migrants, especially children, to grow up and embrace the American way.

Vaughan said that unlike in the past when institutions “took pride” in assimilating immigrants to American culture—including how to read, write, and speak English—some “zones” in the country today are making it unnecessary for migrants to adopt American culture.

“The fact that we have created these zones in the country where assimilation isn’t necessary. This doesn’t have to do just with immigrants and where they’re coming from and where they’re settling, but also, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the institutions in America that once took great pride in helping people become Americans don’t anymore,” Vaughan explained on Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

Vaughan cited her own family’s assimilation to American culture, as her grandmother immigrated to the U.S. from Slovakia and her grandfather immigrated from Hungary.

“My grandmother was from what’s now Slovakia and my grandfather was Hungarian. The schools thought it was important to make Americans out of these immigrant kids. And churches wanted people to become assimilated,” Vaughan said.

“People thought that the most important thing they could do was learn English and for their kids to become Americans. That’s not really true in our institutions today,” Vaughan added.

Vaughan said institutions have, instead of assimilating migrants to American culture, put migrants first over native-born Americans to accommodate their foreign cultures.

One specific example Vaughan used is in U.S. schools where migrant children are instructed in their foreign language instead of being taught English.

“What the attitude of the leaders in the school systems is that, ‘Well American citizen kids, their parents will take care of their needs and make sure that they’re challenged in school’ and so on. ‘Our job is to help these new arrivals and not help them assimilate but make sure that they can get language instruction,’” Vaughan explained.

Vaughan said the lack of assimilation of migrants comes as the foreign-born population in the U.S. is at the highest level “ever” in history at approximately 15 percent.

Watch the full interview:

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Illegal Immigrants” by John Modlin.