What America Can Learn from Ancient Rome’s Death by Mass Migration

September 18, 2024

By Matt O’Brien

It is a common historical myth that Rome fell in 476 A.D. after Odoacer, King of the Goths, sacked the capital city and forced Romulus Augustus to abdicate his throne.

The historical reality is rather different. Over the course of nearly a century, Germanic tribes – fleeing everything from war, famine and tribal politics – moved, unimpeded, into Roman territory. And the Empire died not by traditional invasion but by unchecked mass migration.

During this period, Rome was ruled by a disaffected elite. Rather than send out a legion or two to kick some culus and take nomen, they decided it would be easier and cheaper to just wave them in and grant them citizenship. In return for citizenship and farmland, entire clans of Angles, Burgundians, Franks, Ostrogoths, Vandals and Visigoths agreed to serve in Rome’s military forces. The fact that this upended centuries of Roman law and practice regarding citizenship didn’t cause the upper echelons of Roman society to get their subligaculum in a bunch. They figured, now that the barbares were citizens, they’d just start acting like Romans.

That was overly optimistic thinking on the part of the Romans. Assimilation tends to occur when people enter a new culture, in small numbers, and experience social pressure to blend into their new communities. Assimilation tends to make it easier to get along in one’s newly adopted homeland because it eliminates barriers to economic success, like being unable to speak the local lingua franca.

But Rome admitted too many Germanic tribesmen, too quickly. Suddenly Rome’s elite found themselves trying to persuade guys with names like Giselric the Plunderer or Hairuwulf the Skull-Crusher to slap on a toga and eat stuffed grape leaves while daintily reclining on a Roman lounge chair. As you may have guessed, that didn’t work out so well.

In the end, unchecked mass migration, bulk amnesty and pay-for-citizenship schemes didn’t rescue Rome, they killed it. Following about three centuries of political confusion, the remnants of the society spawned by the Eternal City morphed into a distinctly Germanic simulacrum of the Empire called the Holy Roman Empire.

If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself, “Gee, that sounds kind of like the U.S. today!” you may be onto something. families together, it should encourage them to either stay home or migrate to America legally.

Over the last four years, the United States has experienced an unprecedented infusion of at least 10 million, mainly Spanish-speaking migrants. They’re fleeing the same general conditions of civil strife that drove the Germanic tribes across Rome’s borders. And they’re seeking the modern equivalent of Roman farmland – access to the American economy. Moreover, they’re showing no signs of wanting to assimilate but seem to feel quite comfortable telling us how we should run things in our country. The parallels with Rome in its dying phase are stunning.

Caravans of uninvited migrants keep showing up at our border, pouring across the Rio Grande, the same way the Goths attempted to cross the Danube into Roman territory. American politicians have suggested that we give foreign lawbreakers (a.k.a.: invaders) a path to citizenship through military service. Anyone who opposes the elites’ plans to welcome uninvited foreign guests is branded as a racist (notwithstanding the fact that immigrants aren’t a “race”). And assimilation is derided as being impolite to immigrants who bring valuable diversity to the United States.

Meanwhile, the daily news reads like contemporary accounts from Romans who witnessed the slow-motion invasion by the German tribes. Migrants have been brawling with police in Manhattan. The Tren de Aragua gang has been on a crime spree across the country. An unanticipated influx of Haitian migrants has strained city resources to the breaking point in Springfield, Ohio, prompting the state’s Attorney General to remark that, “The problem is not migrants, it is way, way too many migrants in a short period of time.”

In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson once asked, “Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here.”

Jefferson’s “20 millions” of foreigners have now arrived. And our nation is rapidly becoming more turbulent, less happy and less strong. So, all Americans should be asking themselves, is the U.S. on its way to becoming the next Rome? Or will we do what Rome failed to – eject uninvited foreigners, insist that those who came here lawfully assimilate to our culture, and refuse to allow U.S. citizenship to be purchased?

If we don’t wake up and stop fiddling while Rome burns, we may soon find ourselves fondly looking back on what America was like before her decline and fall.

Matt O’Brien is the Director of Investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute and the co-host of IRLI’s podcast “No Border, No Country.” Immediately prior to working for IRLI he served as an immigration judge. He has nearly 30 years of experience in immigration law and policy, having held numerous positions within the Department of Homeland Security.

Also published at American Thinker, September 18, 2024.

Photo credit: Thomas Cole, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons