Italys school veil ban exposes Europes assimilation fight as expert warns US could be next

In what it called a "Schools Decree," the Italian government announced last month that no student may cover their face in class no classroom may exceed 30% foreign-born pupils and parents who skip mandatory Italian lessons could face fines of up to $1,120.

The decree, which takes effect next summer, is framed as a push for "integration," but it raises the question of whether a Western democracy can force assimilation, or is it already too late?

Nile Gardiner, director of The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom said that it is "The single biggest issue of our time in Europe: Mass migration and Islamification." And had an ominous warning, "What youre seeing in London and other European cities can easily happen in the U.S… These cultural shifts will all come to America, unless American leaders are willing to fight back."

Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni defended the decree on X, calling the new rules "Tools of common sense that do not divide, but truly help to integrate, avoiding ghetto classes and giving all students the same opportunities. This is the direction we want to continue to follow: a school that integrates without giving up on rules, that supports those who have more difficulties and that puts everyone in a position to start from the same point."

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Experts say the decrees principles are not extreme. "Learning the national language and participating in your childs education are reasonable expectations," said Simone Rodan‑Benzaquen, Senior Envoy to Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Requiring students to keep their faces visible in an environment built around communication and interpersonal contact is also entirely reasonable." The question, she told Fox News Digital, is whether such measures actually improve integration or simply target the most visible symptoms while ignoring the deeper forces that discourage participation in wider society.

Italy is not alone. Governments across Europe of every political stripe are tightening integration rules. They range from the "ghetto laws" of Denmarks center-left government, to France restricting religious symbols in schools, to Germany requiring language and civic courses, to the Netherlands testing newcomers before they even arrive.

Swedish Political scientist Daniel Schatz says, "The real divide is increasingly not between left and right, but between those who believe a state may set firm conditions for membership in a national community, and those who fear those conditions can become discriminatory or exclusionary. It is about whether integration is a voluntary offer or a civic obligation. That question cuts across traditional party lines."

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University of California Irvine political science professor Sara Wallace Goodman calls Denmark "an interesting case where you've seen broad consensus on the immigration issue." She says that due to Denmarks "very generous welfare state" that "applies to their citizens," the government has been forced to make it "very difficult for outsiders to establish themselves and really to gain access to those similar entitlements."

Goodman, who also works with the European University Institutes Global Citizenship Observatory, says Denmarks