{"id":47416,"date":"2026-08-15T21:51:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=47416"},"modified":"2026-08-15T21:51:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T16:51:40","slug":"maher-says-some-immigrants-now-reject-assimilation-demand-cultural-exceptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=47416","title":{"rendered":"Maher says some immigrants now reject assimilation, demand cultural exceptions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/08\/15\/AP26180045855828_s1440x960.jpg?f72536d07237fdd262042ae8f5e6e6de3b865f3c\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/bill-maher\/\">Bill Maher<\/a> used his \u201cNew Rules\u201d closing segment on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/hbo\/\">HBO\u2019s<\/a> \u201cReal Time\u201d Friday to argue that a growing number of immigrants are rejecting the idea of assimilating into American culture, breaking from what he described as a longstanding national tradition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want the American Dream, you have to take the American values \u2026 Most immigrants still want to assimilate, but some now have this other attitude\u201d of resisting assimilation, Mr. Maher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/clips\/2026\/08\/15\/maher-there-is-change-of-some-immigrants-opposing-assimilating\/\">said<\/a> at the top of the segment.<\/p>\n<p>The comedian and longtime <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/topics\/hbo\/\">HBO<\/a> host said both major parties bore some responsibility for the current state of the immigration debate, faulting former President Joe Biden\u2019s \u201cpolicy of open doors\u201d and President Trump\u2019s \u201cpolicy of broken windows.\u201d Mr. Maher said he still supports the traditional American model of \u201cstealing hard-working, talented immigrants from around the world and making them Americans,\u201d but argued that model is being undermined.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Maher said immigrants are not required to embrace every aspect of American culture, joking that dissatisfaction with the country is \u201cwhy Yelp was invented.\u201d He said the U.S. welcomes newcomers\u2019 food, art, fashion and religious practices, but drew a line at what he called Western civilization\u2019s core, nonnegotiable values.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed to a gay cruise ship that was recently denied permission to dock in Turkey and Egypt as an example of a foreign government enforcing its own cultural boundaries, and suggested the U.S. should be similarly unapologetic about its own. Homophobia, he said, is not something \u201cwe just don\u2019t do \u2026 here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Maher extended the same standard to the political right, saying he would tell \u201cChristian nationalists\u201d that the separation of church and state is equally non-negotiable, even for native-born Americans who want to reshape the country\u2019s civic foundations.<\/p>\n<p>                        <a name=\"pagebreak\"\/><\/p>\n<p>He also moved to head off accusations that the segment was about race, saying the argument had \u201cnothing to do with non-whites becoming the majority\u201d and that his concern was about liberal values being displaced by illiberal ones, not demographic change.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<\/aside>\n<div>\n<p style=\"font-size: 18px; color: #3e3e3e;\"><em><br \/>\n                          This article was constructed with the assistance of artificial intelligence and published by a member of The Washington Times&#8217; AI News Desk team. The contents of this report are based solely on The Washington Times&#8217; original reporting, wire services, and\/or other sources cited within the report. For more information, please read our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/ai-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\">AI policy<\/a> or contact Steve Fink, Director of Artificial Intelligence, at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2026\/aug\/15\/bill-maher-says-immigrants-reject-assimilation-demand-cultural\/mailto:sfink@washingtontimes.com\">sfink@washingtontimes.com<\/a><br \/>\n                      <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: 18px; color: #3e3e3e;\"><em><br \/>\n                          The Washington Times AI Ethics Newsroom Committee can be reached at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2026\/aug\/15\/bill-maher-says-immigrants-reject-assimilation-demand-cultural\/mailto:aispotlight@washingtontimes.com\">aispotlight@washingtontimes.com<\/a>.<br \/>\n                      <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Maher used his \u201cNew Rules\u201d closing segment on HBO\u2019s \u201cReal Time\u201d Friday to argue that a growing number of immigrants are rejecting the idea of assimilating into American culture, breaking from what he described as a longstanding national tradition. \u201cIf you want the American Dream, you have to take the American values \u2026 Most&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/twt-thumbs.washtimes.com\/media\/image\/2026\/08\/15\/AP26180045855828_c0-331-7955-4971_s1200x700.jpg?cd06b9c436b3cbe1692f5049b3ab2149cb1c767f","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}