Bill Maher used his Friday night platform to make a blunt case on immigration, arguing that newcomers to the United States should embrace core American principles such as free expression, equal rights for women and protections for gay people. The comedian stressed that those ideals are “not White values,” but liberal democratic ones.
On the latest episode of HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher criticized Democrats and Republicans alike, saying both parties have pushed immigration politics too far in opposite directions. In his view, there is “no doubt” that each side has “went to extremes.”
“If you want the American dream, you have to take the American values,” Maher said.
A public policy professor at Penn State University, however, told Fox News Digital that Maher’s argument missed the mark.
“Biden’s policy of open doors, and then Trump’s policy of broken windows,” Maher continued. “Now, I’m on the page of America doing what it used to do so well — stealing hard-working, talented immigrants from around the world and making them Americans.”
Maher said he believes the tone around assimilation has shifted, suggesting that some people coming to the U.S. no longer feel an obligation to adapt to Western cultural norms.
“Now, most immigrants still want to assimilate, but some now have this other attitude of, ‘melting pot? F— you, you melt,” Maher said, mixing the criticism with a joke. “Look, you don’t have to love everything about America. We don’t. That’s why Yelp was invented.”
“But, you know, if you do get past ICE, America’s actually pretty cool,” he continued. “We say, ‘You do you.’ Eat the food your grandma cooked. Speak another language at home. Celebrate religious holidays. We welcome your food, your art, your fashion, your first ladies.”
But according to Maher, the price of immigration comes with a cost.
“But you have to answer one question: Do you like Western civilization? Because that’s what we are. And that’s not negotiable,” he said.
“Honor killings, not letting women show their faces, polygamy, cousin f—ing, female genital mutilation — there’s lots of stuff we don’t do here, and it’s non-negotiable,” Maher said. “And it’s not ‘White values.’ These are liberal values. People fought and died to establish them. And it’s not racist to say if you want to come here to help form a more perfect union, great. But some things are too fundamental to change.”
But the framing itself drew pushback from Nicole Kreisberg, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy and the Department of Sociology at Penn State, who told Fox News Digital that Maher had the country’s history backward.
“In my view, Maher makes it seem as if America is built on a foundation of the ‘melting pot,’ rather than on ‘assimilation,’” Kreisberg said. “To me, America is built on an attitude of ‘assimilate or don’t come.’”
Kreisberg said that immigrants from all countries have historically been expected to assimilate to American culture, with harsh cultural consequences for those who either fail or cannot manage to do so.
“Throughout history, the US state has actually built up systems to discourage immigrants from pursuing this ‘melting pot’ strategy,” Kreisberg told Fox News Digital. “Immigrants often face discrimination for speaking languages other than English in public; and for immigrants to advance in their US careers, they often must speak English.”
Kreisberg added that for over two centuries, immigrants who hailed from countries with a large European population fared better than those who arrived in the country as racial minorities.
“Immigrants past and present — such as Irish and Italians historically, or Chinese immigrants today — have sought to assimilate to avoid discrimination by changing their names to more ‘American’ ones, by adopting their food preferences for their children and by changing their political preferences,” Kreisberg said, adding, “But unlike was the case with Irish or Italians, who eventually did manage to assimilate to become ‘White’ Americans, contemporary immigrants are struggling because of pivotal differences in how they are racialized.”
“In other words, no matter how much they try to assimilate, they may continue to face discrimination based on their skin tone,” she said.
On Friday, Maher turned to the audience and asked if “gay rights is one of our values that’s non-negotiable?” — eliciting a round of applause from the crowd.
He pointed to congressional candidate Melissa Chaudhry, a progressive Democrat challenging longtime Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and her failure to include LGBTQ+ rights as one of the causes she supports.
When she was previously asked why her website did not mention LGBTQ+ issues, Chaudhry reportedly said, “because a lot of Muslims do not feel that way, unfortunately,” according to The Stranger.
Maher blasted this stance during his segment Friday, while condemning what he believes is a shift in progressive policy to see “everything as oppressor versus oppressed, but can’t see who actually does a lot of oppressing.”
“So let me ask, is this the progressive policy now? Is Ms. Chaudhry right?” he said. “We throw gay people under the bus any time it clashes with what makes Muslims uncomfortable?”
He then looked to dismantle a quote from activist Linda Sarsour, saying, “Our number one priority is our community. It is not to assimilate.”
“OK, but that’s not really how immigration works,” Maher said. “If I move to Japan, I don’t get to say, ‘OK, everybody. A couple of changes. First of all, shoes stay on in the house now. Also, no more tentacle porn, that’s gone.’”
Maher’s argument continued as he pointed out several cultural practices that are considered taboo in western civilization — adding that anyone who comes to America should not expect the country to compromise on such beliefs.
However, Maher concluded his argument by contradicting Kreisberg’s stance, insisting that his belief that immigrants should respect American values has nothing to do with “Islamaphobia,” but instead a basic belief that those living within the country should respect the fundamental rights it protects.
“Now, you can, and I’m sure some of you are screaming, ‘Islamophobia!’ But that’s just a bulls— word to cow people into not talking about this,” Maher said. “This has nothing to do with non-whites becoming the majority. I don’t give a s— about that. I don’t give a s— about colors. White people — they’re White, they’re not pandas. I care about liberal values being replaced by illiberal ones.”
Fox News Digital’s Stepheny Price contributed to this report.
