A reader alerted me to the Peruvian election — no, not the balloting in Peru, but here. In northern Virginia, the crowds caused a traffic jam, and the only news coverage on the balloting appears to have come from New Jersey, where the number-two vote-getter had actually campaigned. Now, if legal residents who are citizens of other countries want to vote in homeland elections, that’s great — I voted absentee in 1984 (from Soviet Armenia, so I’m pretty sure my vote for Reagan didn’t get counted).

But no one seems to have asked the obvious question — were any of the of Peruvian immigrants voting yesterday U.S. citizens? Some of them surely were — probably thousands. And the oath of allegiance they took starts this way: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.” That either means something or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t — which I’m afraid is the case, regardless of which group of multiculturalist post-Americans occupies the White House — how can anyone concerned with the coherence of our republic continue to support mass immigration? If we had little immigration, dual citizenship would remain morally wrong but would have little practical effect. Likewise, if we had an elite with a strong sense of cultural and civilizational confidence, mass immigration (while still creating economic and other problems) would not have the same social consequences. In response to those (like Fukuyama, for instance) who agree, but say there’s nothing wrong with mass immigration that ending multiculturalism won’t fix, I say: end multiculturalism (of which dual citizenship is a manifestation) first, then we can talk about immigration.