Delaney Hall ICE Protests ERUPT: Ryan DEBATES Immigration HAWK

Orin Cass argues that American citizenship has been degraded over the past generation, shifting from full participation in communal, economic, and national life with a sense of solidarity and intergenerational obligation, to an emphasis on individual autonomy and consumerism. This degradation is seen as fundamental to societal problems, including a lack of purpose among young people and a fractured political culture.

Cass states, 'what we're really focused on American Compass is that that's just fundamental to human flourishing to a well functioning society... it's something that we've lost... we've degraded that kind of relationship into something that is just more you know you are a consumer not an actual productive participant necessarily in the economy.'

For citizenship to foster solidarity, the nation's citizens must have the right to decide who becomes a citizen. The left-of-center view that 'anybody has a right to come here' breaks down this essential control, undermining the reciprocal relationship among citizens.

Cass explains, 'for citizenship to work for that sense of solidarity to exist it's actually incredibly important both in theory and in practice that the people who are the citizens of the nation have the right to decide who becomes a citizen. If you're telling me I'm supposed to have some relationship to the other people, but also I have no say in who those people are going to be, that breaks down very quickly.'

Instead of confrontational ICE raids or mass deportations, Cass advocates for robust workplace enforcement (e.g., E-Verify). This approach targets employers who hire undocumented workers, creating a strong, orderly pressure for people not legally allowed to work to depart, without necessarily 'grabbing' individuals from their homes.

Cass states, 'Workplace enforcement saying if you're not here legally, if you are not allowed to work here, you in fact can't work here. Um that has an an extraordinarily powerful effect. Again, not in overnight detaining people and destroying their lives necessarily, but in creating a very strong pressure for people to depart in an orderly way.'

Cass dismisses the idea that certain jobs are inherently undesirable for American citizens. He argues that if jobs offer good conditions and a living wage, Americans will readily fill them. The problem lies with business models that create jobs failing to meet these conditions, not with a lack of willing American workers.

Cass asserts, 'The phrase jobs Americans won't do, I think, is is a quintessential example of the problem here. The idea that we're going to have a whole class of jobs in our economy that the people who live here won't do is sort of simultaneously demeaning to the people who absolutely will work if there are jobs with good conditions that pay a living wage.'