"We need to control immigration and immigrants need to be told that assimilation is not a request, it is a requirement for the privilege of living in the United States and becoming a citizen of this country." This, of course, has not been the case so far. And we must recognize that what Lewis wrote about Islam and Europe - that Islam could soon be the dominant force in a Europe which, in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control, also applies to the United States. Europe's multiculturalism has been anti-assimilation, and what exists in the U.S. today is nothing less than an "Anti-assimilation movement," such as described by Frank Salvato (Hat tip - From Sea To Shinning Sea):

Assimilation - defined as the act of becoming part of or more like something greater - is a hot-button issue these days. Whether alluding to the calls for a return of the American Southwest to Mexico by the Reconquista movement or the encroachment of radical Islam on the streets of Paris, the fact remains that members of immigrating minority groups are increasingly refusing to assimilate into the cultures of their resident countries. The lack of assimilation by immigrants to the United States - both legal and illegal - is culminating in an American identity crisis and poses a serious problem for the future of our country.

... This movement toward anti-assimilation stands in stark contrast to the very concept of our nation. E pluribus unum, "out of many, one," is the motto of the United States. This motto, this dedication, was originally selected by the Great Seal Committee in 1776. It acknowledged that the thirteen separately governed British Colonies had banded together to form one inclusive nation, a country that stood independent from the British Crown, the United States.

[...] Today, as the politically correct tool of cultural diversity serves to Balkanize our nation, it can be argued that the Progress-Left, the one-worlders, the globalists, those who have grown to practice the narcissism of placing oneself before all else, have ignorantly fostered an anti-assimilation movement in the United States that is tearing our country apart at the seams.

The establishment of this anti-assimilation movement was born of the divisive ideology that brought us the practice of segregating ethnic groups through the use of hyphenated labels. This ideology is the aggressive dogma of "multiculturalism."

Introduced as an effort to celebrate the importance of being proud of one's national heritage, a heritage that sometimes transverses several generations, multiculturalism, as employed by the Progressive-Left, has served to divide and polarize the people of the United States. Where once it was possible to be proud of familial heritage while also being patriotic, today the shadow set of laws known as political correctness encourages those who immigrate to the United States - whether legally or illegally - to place their nationality and customs before those of their community and, in some cases, the laws of our constitutional government.

This problem is best illustrated by two examples; the aggressive Reconquista movement in the Southwestern US and the developing and sometimes violent row with the growing Islamic community in the United States.

The militant Reconquista movement embraces the divisiveness of multiculturalism more fervently than Dr. Leo Buscaglia used to embrace his patients. Their motto, "Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada" - which translated means "For the Race, everything, for those outside the Race, nothing" - encapsulates the dangers multiculturalism poses to a nation's identity.

Those who join in this movement believe that anyone not of Mexican heritage existing on American soil is a foe. They believe that all those who immigrated to the United States since the days of the pilgrims - including those who came as slaves - are invaders and that the American Southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. They refuse to assimilate into mainstream American culture choosing to speak Spanish over English whenever possible and vehemently discourage marrying outside "the Race."

And while they hold nothing for contempt for the United States, they are incrementally infusing themselves and their movement into our American system of government. Both Cruz Bustamante, the current Lt. Governor of California, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa were members of MEChA, a radical organization that promotes Latino superiority.

The aversion toward assimilation in the Islamic community is more prevalent. Islamic leaders and special interest groups alike routinely pressure governmental entities around the free world to acquiesce to their cultural laws. Many times, when their requests fail, the response is violent.

Having created Islamic enclaves in communities outside of the French capitol, disgruntled Islamic youth who practice anti-assimilation are literally waging an intifada on Parisian police. In the wake of societal debate over whether it was appropriate to wear Islamic headscarfs (hijabs) or burquas in public in a post-9/11 world, riotous Islamic youth took to the streets under the guise of protesting financial inequities based on race and religion. They refuse to allow authorities into their neighborhoods as they physically battle police and threaten to impose Shari'a Law in their communities.

In Britain, the anti-assimilation movement has engaged the "tolerant," inclusive British government. Just days after British and American authorities broke up a terrorist plot to blow-up jetliners over American cities, "moderate" Muslims approached the British government demanding that they not only change their foreign policy where the Middle East was concerned, but that they make two Islamic holidays official British holidays and that profiling be forbidden in British airports. All of these demands made as the wounds of the terrorist bombings - the radical Islamist terrorist bombings - of 7/7 still lay gaping upon the country's soul.

Meanwhile, representatives from the Council for American-Islamic Relations (there's that hyphenated nationality label again) are exploiting the multicultural abyss in the United States by imploring Muslims residing in America to file civil rights complaints should they "feel" as though they have been discriminated against by US airlines while they travel to the Hajj.

And while Mosques in the Islamic enclave of Dearborn, Michigan trumpet the call to prayer five times a day over loudspeakers causing non-Muslims to feel intimidated to the point of relocation, California schools are employing curriculum that requires American children to "be Muslim for a day" in the name of cultural diversity, something that the ACLU would immediately file lawsuit over if the words "Catholic" or "Jewish" were substituted for Muslim.

Today, several countries in the European Union have come to grips with the dangers of the multicultural movement. The Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany and Britain have all abandoned multiculturalism as an abstract failure that threatened their very existence.

Sadly, because the Progressive-Left in the United States have intertwined multiculturalism with political correctness - and because the negative consequences of both are rarely highlighted by an agenda-driven mainstream media - the anti-assimilation movement continues to grow.

In our post-9/11 world, as we fight a very real war against radical Islamofascism, it would behoove Americans to understand that we are also fighting a war for the preservation of our American Heritage. As long as political correctness and multiculturalism remain viable, as long as the anti-assimilation movement remains strong, it will be impossible re-establish one of our founding principles, that of E Pluribus Unum.

Indeed, immigration and immigrants must be controlled. Assimilation must be a mandatory requirement for immigration, and immigrants must be made to recognize that it is a basic equirement for the privilege of living in the United States and becoming a citizen of this country. Our failure to make this a reality can only result in the U.S. suffering the same fate as Europe, now almost Islamacized. Whether it be 'Islamization' or 'Mexicanization', both cases stem from multiculturalism's anti-assimilation environment - an environment that must be changed if we are to survive with our national identity intact.

Highly recommended and important reading: Immigration and multiculturalism: Why are the conservatives silent?