The United Kingdom (UK) voted last week to break away from the European Union (EU), with immigration being a major factor in the final 52 percent to 48 percent decision to leave.  The vote sent shock waves through the U.K. and around the world, and sparked the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron.  

 

British Home Secretary Theresa May, who had warned years earlier that the government needed to stop ‘uncontrolled mass immigration,’ is now a leading candidate for the vacated prime minister position. 

 

The decision by U.K. voters to pull out of the E.U. is a clear, unequivocal repudiation of the policies of uncontrolled mass immigration. The Brexit referendum passed despite efforts to bully the British public to remain in the E.U.  

 

What happened in Britain is not an isolated incident. The same scenario is playing out here in the United States. Americans across the political spectrum have shown increasing anxiety about the decimation of the middle class due to job losses and wage depression resulting from the arrival of more than 1 million immigrants a year.

 

The Brexit underscores the fact that the immigration debate is not a left-right issue, but rather one that pits the economic, social and political elite against ordinary citizens. The elite are largely immune from the consequences of mass immigration – job loss, wage depression, impact on schools and other social institutions – while the majority of citizens in Western nations are undermined by unchecked immigration. The American political leadership would be well advised to heed the Brexit as a warning that citizens will not continue to tolerate immigration policies that do not recognize the American people as the primary stakeholders in those policies.