Is the U.S. “Full”? How Rome Built an Empire by Welcoming Aliens

Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons

Yesterday, President Trump declared: “Our country is full, our area’s full, the sector is full. We can’t take you anymore, I’m sorry, can’t happen. So turn around, that’s the way it is.”

This post offers a perspective that is not in the news: How Rome built an empire around a liberal view of welcoming aliens.

Today’s teacher is Prof. Edward Manson. He authored an article in 1902 (not a typo) titled, “The Admission of Aliens.” Here is a paragraph that summarizes his understanding of Roman immigration law:

The "Jus Hospitii" at Rome.-This liberality of treatment prevailed at Rome from primitive times, and is typified in the legend of Romulus’ Asylum on the Seven Hills. Rome was a commercial city indebted for the commencement of its importance to international commerce, and with a liberality not less wise than honourable it granted, as Mommsen remarks, the privilege of settlement to every child of an unequal marriage, to every manumitted slave, to every stranger who, surrendering his rights in his native land, had emigrated to Rome. The result of this liberality was that there grew up around the old genres a large population of mixed elements remnants of conquered peoples, foreign traders and settlers, and emancipated slaves. The gentes took their place as an aristocracy of birth, with a monopoly of civic and religious privileges; the plebs had to content themselves with a subordinate position-the enjoyment of legal rights without civic honours.

What are Prof. Manson’s key points?

First, Rome capitalized on its geographic proximity to international commerce by adopting a liberal view of treating foreigners.

Second, Rome encouraged foreigners to make their homes in the empire, and raise families there. They did this through legal residency—that is, by granting “the privilege of settlement to every child of an unequal marriage, to every manumitted slave, to every stranger who, surrendering his rights in his native land, had emigrated to Rome.” In other words, getting a “green card” in Rome was easy.

Third, Rome grew by assimilating people of very different backgrounds and colors. As Prof. Manson puts it, as Rome matured it had a “population of mixed elements remnants of conquered peoples, foreign traders and settlers, and emancipated slaves.”

That sounds like the U.S. in 2019. Whether we are “full” or have capacity to grow our population is not a matter of land or resources: It is whether we treat aliens as a national threat or as human resources for building the nation.