OPINION/NEWS
From two blocks away, you could hear the screaming coming from the Capitol steps. A crowd of at least 100 young people and adults had amassed for what was permitted to be an “Equality Rally.”
What happened was anything but that. The crowd was predominantly young, school-age children, many of whom were carrying signs with slogans critical of ICE—many of which were filled with profanity. The crowd could be heard clearly from inside the Capitol Building. Many elected officials, in Cheyenne for the legislative session, left the Capitol complex for the duration of the protest.
The rally wasn’t about equality. One sign read, “Love thy Neighbor.” The phrase, “Unless You’re Law Enforcement” should have been added. This rally was about one thing: the lack of knowledge our children have about this country and how it was founded.
The debate over immigration in America has deteriorated into slogans painted on poster boards and shouted across campuses. When phrases like “No one is illegal on stolen land” become the centerpiece of civic argument, it is clear we are no longer engaged in historical reasoning. We are reacting emotionally to fragments of the past instead of grappling with the full sweep of it.
If we are going to debate immigration policy honestly, we must begin with history, REAL HISTORY, not selective chapters pulled out of context.
Empire Building Was the Structure of the World
For most of recorded human civilization, expansion was the norm. Empires rose and fell by pushing borders outward. From the 15th through the early 20th century, global empire building accelerated dramatically. Land meant survival, agriculture, trade routes, strategic advantage, and power. Expansion was not an American invention. It was the geopolitical structure of the world.
When Europeans crossed the Atlantic, they did not arrive as private individuals seeking citizenship in an existing republic. They came as colonists under imperial authority. They planted flags for crowns. They extended political control for distant monarchies. Colonization was part of a global struggle for influence that reshaped continents.
It was often violent. It involved displacement and hardship. It was part of a larger human pattern that had unfolded for centuries across every region of the globe.
Something unprecedented happened on this continent. Out of colonies emerged a revolution. Out of imperial rule emerged a constitutional republic. A collection of settlements declared that the government derived not from kings, but from the consent of the governed.
From Empire to Republic
When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” it articulated a principle that would echo across the world. When the Constitution was drafted, it established limited government, separation of powers, and the rule of law as structural safeguards against tyranny.
Law is not hate. Law is structured. It protects citizens and newcomers alike. A nation without enforceable law becomes unstable and instability harms the most vulnerable first.
Every country on Earth enforces immigration laws. Every country distinguishes between lawful and unlawful presence. To recognize this reality is not hostility toward immigrants. It is recognition of governance itself.
The United States did not simply replace one empire with another. It built a system where liberty was protected by law, not granted by a throne. Sovereignty is not a slogan. It is the defining feature of modern international order. A sovereign nation possesses the authority to establish borders, determine citizenship, and regulate entry.
How Education Is Framing the Past
So why are so many students persuaded that immigration law itself is illegitimate?
Part of the answer lies in how history is presented in classrooms. The teachers unions—including the Wyoming Education Association—use the phrase pedagogical theory. That’s a fancy way of saying A philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in and how we view the past. This is where “social justice” begins. History becomes feelings and not facts.
The truth is, history is neither good nor bad; it just is. While examining injustice is important, and necessary, injustice is not the sum-total of our 250 years of lived American experience.
Many modern pedagogical approaches draw from critical social theories that interpret historical events primarily through power structures. Students are often encouraged to analyze the past through an “oppressor vs. oppressed” framework.
When students are repeatedly told that the land itself invalidates the nation, it is not surprising that they question modern law. If the foundation is illegitimate, everything built upon it must be illegitimate too. That is the logical conclusion of a one-dimensional historical lens. And one that creates rallies like the one held at Wyoming’s Capitol.
If education continues to present the American story as nothing more than conquest layered over grievance, we will continue to raise students fluent in protest but unfamiliar with their own country or how it works.
History Is Bigger Than a Chant
The slogan “No one is illegal on stolen land” collapses five centuries of history into a single accusation. It ignores the evolution from empire to republic. It ignores sovereignty. It ignores the Constitution. It ignores the reality that nations exist within a framework of international law.
The same constitutional system that protects the right to protest also establishes the authority to enforce immigration law. We cannot celebrate one while dismissing the other. It is possible to acknowledge the pain woven into history while also recognizing the extraordinary achievement that emerged from it.
The American experiment produced the most expansive expression of ordered liberty in human history. It established religious freedom, freedom of speech, due process, representative government, and peaceful transfers of power. It created mechanisms to correct injustice through reform rather than perpetual revolution.
That achievement deserves to be taught in full. History is not a chant, and it is not a protest sign. And if we want citizens capable of reasoned debate rather than rehearsed outrage, we must start by teaching it that way.