Lionel Shriver

They are patriots in waiting, and that's really what's motivating them, this admiration of the country and of the culture and wanting to be part of it.

And of course, at the same time, progressives think the country is evil.

But you know, inconsistency never bothers these people.

And so there's no giving of credit.

that this is, in many instances, in the era of the welfare state, a transactional process, right?

The immigrants, for the most part, know your immigration law better than you do, way better.

So they've done their homework in advance.

They have the stories prepared for their asylum claims, even though they're overwhelmingly economic migrants.

and they they know what benefits they can get and that's that's a lot of it that's part that's a big part of the motivation they're smart right this is smart

This is acting out of self-interest.

What's odd about our immigration policy, again, I talk in terms of both countries, is that we are not acting out of self-interest.

The laws are not in our self-interest.

Yes.

And the British will recognize that right away.

I think it's especially mysterious in the UK, though there may be an intersection there.

I resisted for a long time this notion that Democrats were deliberately inviting masses of foreigners into the country.

because they wanted to grow little Democrats and create a one-party state.

I've started to come around to that view.

Before Trump effectively closed the southern border, I imagined a lot of it was incompetence and fecklessness.

Now, there may be an element of that, but I think it was more intentional.