The United States is drowning under the weight of mass immigration. We need a moratorium.
Imagine a pipe in your home bursting and flooding the house with water. When you go to fix the problem, do you let the water continue to flow? No, you stop the flow, drain the dirty water out, and fix the pipe. The pipe in this country has burst, and we need to stop the flow. The only way to do this is through an immigration moratorium. Anything short of that is national suicide.
This is not just a problem with illegal immigration, but legal immigration as well. As of June 2025, a total of 51.9 million immigrants reside in the United States. 14 million are here illegally. These migrants steal American jobs, weaken national unity, and cost taxpayers billions. This is not the controlled flow of Ellis Island; this is a complete invasion.
There are many excellent proposals to fix the immigration system, from cutting H-1B visas to ramping up mass deportations. None of these will be effective, however, if millions of people continue to enter the country each year. Processing times for new arrivals can take as long as 52 months, further increasing an already heavy backlog due to the limited number of immigration judges and attorneys available to handle the workload.
We must stop pretending this is sustainable. The backlog of immigrants strains the judicial system, consuming time and resources, and creating an additional obstacle to an already congested government. This strain directly threatens both the American taxpayer and the American worker.
There are about 7.4 million people in the United States who are unemployed. Approximately 2 million Americans graduate from college each year, but over half of those graduates are pessimistic about their chances of finding a good job. Gen Z, my generation, is set up to graduate college with thousands of dollars in debt and low prospects in finding a job that can help them pay that off and afford to start a family.
Yet, at the same time, employers complain about “shortages” while importing cheap labor through H-1B visas and guest-worker programs. These immigrants are not filling gaps. They are undercutting wages and displacing natives. When CEOs say they can’t find workers, they mean they can’t find workers at the rock-bottom pay they prefer.
Jobs are only part of the problem. Only half of immigrants speak English well, if at all. Public schools spend $16,345 per child of illegal immigrants. This amounts to a $2 billion annual bill for taxpayers nationwide. Since 2024, courts have convicted nearly 30,000 immigrants of crimes. Lost jobs, no assimilation, and surging crime create a fractured society based on a multicultural myth that says parallel societies are a strength.
This is not a strength. This is national suicide. A nation with a low-trust society cannot survive. A nation where people can’t even communicate with their neighbors will not last long. We are in desperate need of change. We need to press pause and give our country some breathing room.
Open-borders economists and critics wave around their studies claiming a moratorium would cost $200 billion in annual GDP. To them, an extra economic boost is worth throwing away national cohesion. When you dig deeper into the data, though, it’s clear they are wrong. The GDP gains never reach the native pockets but only benefit the immigrants themselves. The per capita GDP of the nation actually decreases because immigrants tend to earn lower wages. The supposed “economic benefits” don’t benefit anyone other than the foreigners who come here and the corporations that take them in because they refuse to pay an American a fair wage.
For the sake of the argument, assume the critics are right and mass immigration does benefit the economy. What good is the boost to your GDP if you don’t have a nation? The United States is not an economic zone; it is a nation. America is a distinct people with a shared history, shared language, and shared values. Mass immigration destroys that foundation.
America needs an immigration moratorium. Trump can slam the brakes with one signature. The President can invoke Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, suspending visa issuances, asylum claims, and refugee admissions in the interest of national security. Doing this would give us the breathing room necessary to implement necessary policies, such as mandatory E-Verify nationwide, ending birthright citizenship, ditching H-1B visas, and building a system that puts American citizens first. If necessary, Congress can step in and extend the moratorium until we make a system that lets in a heavily limited number of immigrants per year and allows Americans to get the same shot at the American dream as their forefathers.
The clock is ticking. With each passing day, more people enter the country. Housing costs are skyrocketing. Hospitals are buckling. Schools are overflowing. American jobs aren’t going to Americans. The moratorium is not forever. It is a hard reset on a machine spinning out of control. Hit the button now, or watch the gears seize and the engine explode.
America First isn’t just a national slogan. It’s national survival.
Jesse Hughes is a conservative columnist who has been published in the American Reformer, Human Events, and other publications. He is a JD candidate at Liberty University School of Law and a legal research assistant at the Standing for Freedom Center at Liberty University.
