You wrote: "Democrats were beginning to think of immigration less in terms of borders and national sovereignty (and even economics) and instead with a greater focus on the humanity of those destined for the U.S."
Interesting. Professional class Democrats seem far more interested in the humanity of immigrants than the humanity of people they call "Magats", most of whom are working class citizens who pay a high price for an increase in undocumented immigration. "Magats" are those dirty people who care less about cheaper smoothies and more about living wage blue collar jobs.
"Oh, the humanity!" the Professional Class says. But if your humanity fails to align with their political beliefs "I hope you die of Covid" is the response.
We've seen through the "Be Kind" illusion, and there is no turning back.
Dirty little secret: it's not about jobs. Working class Americans aren't clamoring for stoop labor in the fields or jobs in slaughterhouses. It's the immigrant underclass turning neighborhoods into slums, doing all their socializing loudly in the streets until 3 in the morning, dumping trash in tenement courtyards, harrassing women on street corners. Unlike most members of the professional class I lived with these people. And the icing on the cake is that professional class promoting 'identity' are opposed to efforts to assimilate them. When you come to the country you leave your culture at the border.
Reminiscent of Merkel's policies which wrecked Germany and Europe in general. It is possible to feel compassion for people living in countries that do not serve the needs of their citizens without inviting them all to come here (where here can mean either the US or Europe). The responsibility of a government, even an authoritarian one, is to its own citizens.
Read Heather McDonald's deep dive on Germany in the City Journal. Stunning reporting. In 5 years, migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, only, committed 52K rapes in Germany. Those were just the reported numbers. Germany now suffers nearly 800 gang rapes a year. Migrants are 6 times more likely than native Germans to commit crimes. Migrants comprise roughly 18% of the German population, but utilize 42% of German welfare benefits.
If it was not McDonald, the Godmother of statistical reporting, it would be hard to believe the numbers, they are so horrendous. Germany, just a few decades ago ,was one of the safest places on the planet.
It's the major issue that Trudeau's fall turned on in Canada. The elite view of this is that without mass immigration, population collapse will follow, which destroys economies and retirement systems.
The interesting point about that is that the potential for mass immigration won't last much longer - the same demographic forces at work in the US and Europe are at work in the migrants' origin points. In 30 years (past my checkout date, but still...) there won't be sinks of migrants waiting at the gates.
We'd best get to work on what that future world is going to look like, with aging populations that are shrinking.
At some point, progressives decided that all immigration restrictions are racist. Period. End of discussion. The inability to understand and acknowledge non-racist reasons for wanting to control the border doomed them.
That was a sales tactic. This is about something larger, births being below replacement rate for the foreseeable future. I'm not a huge fan of mass immigration but there is a point to this policy.
Good piece thanks. I've said for years that Democrats can't care more about NON citizens than citizens. Why? They don't vote. What Democrats telegraph is that they care more about illegals than working class Americans. It is political suicide as NON citizens can't vote and working class Americans can.
Great article. How do we reconcile your point about a loss of "national identity" with Americans' opinions on legal and high-skilled immigration? Just looking at some polling on high-skilled immigration, Americans seem to support keeping it steady at current levels. Is public opinion on immigration purely thermostatic? More illegal immigration means souring opinions on immigration generally, and a more defensive posture on national identity? Or can Americans balance an appreciation for high-skilled immigration while seeking to clamp down on illegal immigration? Any research on that?
Yeah, there were some nuances to this conversation that I didn't have space to get into here! I'm not basing this on any survey research, but my guess is the last option (balancing) is closest to reality. I wouldn't be surprised if a common assumption among Americans is that people who come to the States on their own volition (to be student, to work, etc.) are likelier to possess a desire to "be American" and to assimilate at least somewhat into the culture, whereas people who come out of necessity (fleeing violence, etc.) are less likely to share that. If I'm right about that assumption, I think it would help make more sense of the appreciate-high-skilled-immigration-but-unhappy-about-illegal-immigration dynamic.
The words "high skilled" mean many different things. Is that a framing carpenter or an electrical engineer? A bachelor's in STEM from a well accredited University ok, a way for low life professionals to get cheap labor no way. The working class has been screwed over for too long.
We should be looking to the frightening spectre of growing support for AfP in Germany which, from what I understand, is rooted in massive increase in % of Germans who are foreign-born. Massive backlash.
While it is true that people in NYC live in an ethnically diverse environment, it is not the case that all white professional class people are familiar with the diverse viewpoints of immigrants or non-white people. I live in Portland, which has been one of the whitest American cities, and many of the recent immigrants here are highly skilled IT professionals. There is also a significant population of Hispanic people who are more likely to be working class Mexicans. The leftists I speak with, which is most of the people I meet, are remarkably ignorant about the differences in political perspectives among the Hispanic population. They aren't even very aware that Mexicans are different from Venezuelans, or that later arriving Venezuelans are here for different reasons than the earlier immigrants. Leftists typically do not have friends who are working class, and I don't know a single white leftist who has black friends.
“Polling showed that voters blamed Biden for the bill’s demise as much as they did the two parties in Congress, while Trump received the least amount of blame of anyone.”
This post is great and correct, but that paragraph above is maddening to me.
As Ruy often writes, some of us (I include myself in this) have a tendency to vastly overestimate how much people pay attention to the news. It seems like responses like this might be based more on the vibes many people had about the actors involved more than it would have been if they’d followed every development.
Agree. Not everyone has to like politics or be interested in current events, but we all need to be informed to an acceptable degree. Sadly, we are definitely not there. It’s changed my perspective on what events in politics are noticeable to the average voter, that’s for sure.
Since Trump was out of office, it is tough to blame him more than the actual participants advancing the legislation.
Once the word got out that the bill merely put a ceiling on the the number of illegal immigrants per day, then people realized it was a scam, especially when the "toughest ever" language was coming from the left and the media.
The WSJ has always favored mass migration because it lowers the cost of labor, which increases GDP. They fail to mention it drives down working class wages, and dumps the cost of welfare for migrants on US tax payers. Blue Collar workers in CA, one of the highest cost of living states, have nearly the lowest Blue Collars wages in the entire US, because of the over abundance of low skilled workers.
The Immigration bill codified into law Biden's numbers. The bill had limits per day, and then had exceptions for limitless migration from 5 Central American nations. It , likely, would have resulted, in was 2- 3 million migrants a year, which was essentially Biden's numbers.
McConnell had Langford draft it, because he was a youth minister before arriving in the Senate. His religion demands care for the poor, regardless of borders. Mitch wanted endless cheap labor for his Chamber of Commerce friends.
I think the WSJ favors pathways to legal immigration, and that is because we already have a labor shortage and workers help power our economy and GDP, as you say. However, it does undercut Americans' wages to some extent, and what the right number is in terms of legal immigrants coming to help our economy vs. limiting their entry to raise Americans' wages, I am not sure.
I doubt that bill would have codified into law Biden's numbers. Do you really think James Lankford would have agreed to a bill that did so--one of the most conservative senators in the country? Just because he was more conciliatory than most (if not all) the rest of the GOP senators, doesn't mean he would have agreed on a compromise that was codifying Biden's numbers.
The bill set stricter limits on asylum, which would have led to more rejection of people who are claiming it without real persecution.
Thanks for your comment. I don’t think it matters much that Trump was out of office. The fact he is singularly responsible for the bill’s demise shows you how influential he still was.
It wasn’t a perfect bill, but it gave the executive more power to shut down the border completely after a certain quota was met, and it changed asylum law—something that is very important and can only be done by Congress. At any rate, it was better than the status quo.
The fact people held Trump the least responsible just shows how much they don’t pay attention.
They negotiated a bill for months and were gaining momentum to pass it, and then as soon as Trump called Capitol Hill, that momentum stopped. Maybe not singularly responsible, but largely responsible. Shapiro and other pundits certainly played a role. I disagree about the substance of the bill.
Do you read the WSJ editorial board? I don’t how you can conclude that it is anything other than conservative. The news reporting is down the middle.
The left cut Trump off of social media, so he wasn't really calling the shots - nobody cares about Truth Social. The mainstream media buried the true intent of the bill, the podcasters exposed it, and once the people found out they flipped out.
At that point, the Republican Establishment still thought that the R voters would support them no matter what they did. They were wrong. We are in a new era, and R voters are tired of Washington Generals Republicans.
The leftist talking point that Trump killed it was just that - a talking point.
Trump didn't kill the bill. Math killed the bill. Shutting down the border is a power every President already enjoys. Look at what Trump just did in mere days.
The bill was not better than the status quo. It codified into law the status quo, which was multiples of normal previous migrations. Greg Abbott had more to do with killing it, than Trump, because Texas could no have endured those numbers, permanently, without collapse.
I was mistaken in that original answer, as DHS would have had that authority under the bill. See that article above. The president can't shut down the border himself, Trump hasn't now and will not be able to do so (at least not legally). Much of Trump's actions will be challenged in court, and there is a chance the results will go against him. Hence, the need for Congress.
I think it was worth supporting, but reasonable people can disagree. Like I said, I don't think it codified into the law the status quo. Texas certainly has more pressure on them in managing immigration given their proximity to the border. I am sympathetic to that, but I am not sympathetic to Greg Abbot's politics on this issue and his demonizing of immigrants.
What is clear is when Biden loosened immigration restrictions in the executive, tons more people came. When he tightened them, less people did. That was totally in his control, and there is no excuse for his utter failure there. Trump's behavior and cynical calculation, however, still angers me.
The shift in the Democratic party on immigration is due to its embrace of the ideology of globalism. Individual nation-states are regressive and the world must move toward a unified government. Think of the EU on steroids. In a globalized world, populations should have free movement across borders just as capital and upper middle-class tourists do. Interestingly, this is also the position of the Catholic (universal) Church
I'm a historian. I follow politics closely. I cannot recall one time in all of Obama's terms where anyone called him the "Deporter in Chief." Quite the contrary, all anyone remembers of Obama's immigration policy is the unconstitutional DACA.
I did find a number of contemporary statement by legacy media and activist groups saying exactly that. It is also worth remembering that the "Trump cages" were a legacy of the Obama administration, rebranded by the legacy media. You are probably correct about the collective memory.
The Open border was all about turning Texas Blue. CA single party rule for nearly 2 decades, made Dems believe they could impart the same governance on the entire US, with a little help, from the Lone Star State.
A Blue Texas would foreclose Reps from the WH, in perpetuity. It would also, eventually, yield many Dem Congressional seats, as Texas is predicted to surpass CA's population in the next 2 decades.
Dems assumed Texas Hispanic American citizens would cheer 2 or 3 million additional Hispanic migrants in Texas, and vote Blue in perpetuity, in gratitude. A mass amnesty, whenever Dems controlled both House and Senate again, would yield 10 million new Dem voters, or more, and establish Dem US single party rule, forever.
It was likely the worst political calculation, in the modern Dem party. Texas is far more Red, then it was pre Biden. Also the combination of Texas and FL , is now a bright line against Coastal Progressive insanity.
Dems were so successful, at memory holing the Covid debacle, they assume 10 million migrants will be quickly forgotten. That seems like a bad bet.
This post is very useful but I want to push back against the claim that immigration, the economy, "wokeness," and other policy issues can explain why Trump won. His Republican rivals for the nomination campaigned on the same issues, without the liabilities of being too old, four times indicted, a nasty disposition, etc. - yet Trump easily dispatched them. We must stop pretending that we live in halfway normal times and that our political system functions adequately. Trump's appeal, I argue, is that he can present himself as an outsider and threat to a broken and unresponsive political system. He successfully channels Americans' justified anger at a complacent political class and two parties that have failed us all. See, e.g., my 12/19/24 Substack post: https://danmcmillanphd.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/153386745?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts
Well documented immigration policy failures, though Baharaeen reserves what arguably is his strongest point to his closing statement; the party's "recent leftward movement" was met by overwhelming defeat in November.
And while a mission creep "open borders" advocacy may have provided the most glaring example of a party losing its way, it is hardly the Democrats' only failure. From DEI to anti-Semitism and Woke speech codes on college campuses, Democrats have been tried, tested and found lacking in coherence on fundamental American Bill of Rights issues like due process, equal protection under the law and even free speech and association guarantees in our Constitution.
Trump's historic political comeback represents of course a tribute to his remaking of himself, his uncanny ability to outmaneuver career politicians in embracing the concerns of a majority of Americans. Those successes could not be possible without the conspicuous failure of today's Democratic Party to form a coherent, thoughtful, mature and loyal opposition alternative.
Your problem is worse than you think. I ran across a post compiling opinion by Gen Z about immigration. The sheer level of rage was stunning. Admittedly, these were internet bros and may not be representative but they were also the more articulate and engaged plart of their cohort. This is the stuff of revolution. Bottled up talent has traditionally drifted left but this time looks different. They were about as angry at the Republican donor class too but, of course, Trump is not seen that way.
You have hit the nail on the head. Talk to young Texans, whether they have Master's degrees, or are looking for work, right out of high school. It's 1980 all over again.
'a somewhat unflattering moniker on him: “deporter-in-chief.” Under his presidency, deportations hit a record high. '
Keep in mind that Obama's 'high' deportations image was blue smoke & mirrors. Up until his administration, there had been 2 - or maybe 3 - levels of getting illegal aliens out of the US. Deportation meant that the person was caught miles into to US and sent back from there. There were also returns and removes for those caught near the border and simply returned to their country, often willingly, as that was less likely to get them on a list of repeat offenders. Under Obama all of these were counted as deportations. He even explained this to some supporters.
Also Biden's initial 'immigration' proposal included practically no enforcement likely to work. Mandatory E-Verify would make it very hard for an illegal alien to find work or change jobs and should have been in place for years. It still isn't, which is why we hear of people working in the US illegally for 15+ years. The Democrats say they want employers to bear more legal fault for employing illegal workers but refuse to even consider E-Verify.
And FWIW since when is persisting in illegal behavior for a longer time supposed to be a noble thing? Bernie Madoff ran his Ponzi scheme for 20 years but got 150 years in the slammer, not public sympathy with people asking for leniency for his crimes!
You wrote: "Democrats were beginning to think of immigration less in terms of borders and national sovereignty (and even economics) and instead with a greater focus on the humanity of those destined for the U.S."
Interesting. Professional class Democrats seem far more interested in the humanity of immigrants than the humanity of people they call "Magats", most of whom are working class citizens who pay a high price for an increase in undocumented immigration. "Magats" are those dirty people who care less about cheaper smoothies and more about living wage blue collar jobs.
"Oh, the humanity!" the Professional Class says. But if your humanity fails to align with their political beliefs "I hope you die of Covid" is the response.
We've seen through the "Be Kind" illusion, and there is no turning back.
Progressivism has become a religion. And it is more judgmental and mean-spirited than the 80s Religious Right ever was.
Dirty little secret: it's not about jobs. Working class Americans aren't clamoring for stoop labor in the fields or jobs in slaughterhouses. It's the immigrant underclass turning neighborhoods into slums, doing all their socializing loudly in the streets until 3 in the morning, dumping trash in tenement courtyards, harrassing women on street corners. Unlike most members of the professional class I lived with these people. And the icing on the cake is that professional class promoting 'identity' are opposed to efforts to assimilate them. When you come to the country you leave your culture at the border.
Reminiscent of Merkel's policies which wrecked Germany and Europe in general. It is possible to feel compassion for people living in countries that do not serve the needs of their citizens without inviting them all to come here (where here can mean either the US or Europe). The responsibility of a government, even an authoritarian one, is to its own citizens.
Read Heather McDonald's deep dive on Germany in the City Journal. Stunning reporting. In 5 years, migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, only, committed 52K rapes in Germany. Those were just the reported numbers. Germany now suffers nearly 800 gang rapes a year. Migrants are 6 times more likely than native Germans to commit crimes. Migrants comprise roughly 18% of the German population, but utilize 42% of German welfare benefits.
If it was not McDonald, the Godmother of statistical reporting, it would be hard to believe the numbers, they are so horrendous. Germany, just a few decades ago ,was one of the safest places on the planet.
It's the major issue that Trudeau's fall turned on in Canada. The elite view of this is that without mass immigration, population collapse will follow, which destroys economies and retirement systems.
The interesting point about that is that the potential for mass immigration won't last much longer - the same demographic forces at work in the US and Europe are at work in the migrants' origin points. In 30 years (past my checkout date, but still...) there won't be sinks of migrants waiting at the gates.
We'd best get to work on what that future world is going to look like, with aging populations that are shrinking.
I think the open borders policy was about turning Texas purple. If they could do that, they would never lose another Presidential election.
The left never thought that Hispanics would turn on the idea of open borders.
At some point, progressives decided that all immigration restrictions are racist. Period. End of discussion. The inability to understand and acknowledge non-racist reasons for wanting to control the border doomed them.
That was a sales tactic. This is about something larger, births being below replacement rate for the foreseeable future. I'm not a huge fan of mass immigration but there is a point to this policy.
Good piece thanks. I've said for years that Democrats can't care more about NON citizens than citizens. Why? They don't vote. What Democrats telegraph is that they care more about illegals than working class Americans. It is political suicide as NON citizens can't vote and working class Americans can.
Great article. How do we reconcile your point about a loss of "national identity" with Americans' opinions on legal and high-skilled immigration? Just looking at some polling on high-skilled immigration, Americans seem to support keeping it steady at current levels. Is public opinion on immigration purely thermostatic? More illegal immigration means souring opinions on immigration generally, and a more defensive posture on national identity? Or can Americans balance an appreciation for high-skilled immigration while seeking to clamp down on illegal immigration? Any research on that?
Yeah, there were some nuances to this conversation that I didn't have space to get into here! I'm not basing this on any survey research, but my guess is the last option (balancing) is closest to reality. I wouldn't be surprised if a common assumption among Americans is that people who come to the States on their own volition (to be student, to work, etc.) are likelier to possess a desire to "be American" and to assimilate at least somewhat into the culture, whereas people who come out of necessity (fleeing violence, etc.) are less likely to share that. If I'm right about that assumption, I think it would help make more sense of the appreciate-high-skilled-immigration-but-unhappy-about-illegal-immigration dynamic.
The words "high skilled" mean many different things. Is that a framing carpenter or an electrical engineer? A bachelor's in STEM from a well accredited University ok, a way for low life professionals to get cheap labor no way. The working class has been screwed over for too long.
We should be looking to the frightening spectre of growing support for AfP in Germany which, from what I understand, is rooted in massive increase in % of Germans who are foreign-born. Massive backlash.
While it is true that people in NYC live in an ethnically diverse environment, it is not the case that all white professional class people are familiar with the diverse viewpoints of immigrants or non-white people. I live in Portland, which has been one of the whitest American cities, and many of the recent immigrants here are highly skilled IT professionals. There is also a significant population of Hispanic people who are more likely to be working class Mexicans. The leftists I speak with, which is most of the people I meet, are remarkably ignorant about the differences in political perspectives among the Hispanic population. They aren't even very aware that Mexicans are different from Venezuelans, or that later arriving Venezuelans are here for different reasons than the earlier immigrants. Leftists typically do not have friends who are working class, and I don't know a single white leftist who has black friends.
“Polling showed that voters blamed Biden for the bill’s demise as much as they did the two parties in Congress, while Trump received the least amount of blame of anyone.”
This post is great and correct, but that paragraph above is maddening to me.
As Ruy often writes, some of us (I include myself in this) have a tendency to vastly overestimate how much people pay attention to the news. It seems like responses like this might be based more on the vibes many people had about the actors involved more than it would have been if they’d followed every development.
Agree. Not everyone has to like politics or be interested in current events, but we all need to be informed to an acceptable degree. Sadly, we are definitely not there. It’s changed my perspective on what events in politics are noticeable to the average voter, that’s for sure.
Since Trump was out of office, it is tough to blame him more than the actual participants advancing the legislation.
Once the word got out that the bill merely put a ceiling on the the number of illegal immigrants per day, then people realized it was a scam, especially when the "toughest ever" language was coming from the left and the media.
Even the conservative WSJ editorial board endorsed it, if that lends any credibility.
The WSJ has always favored mass migration because it lowers the cost of labor, which increases GDP. They fail to mention it drives down working class wages, and dumps the cost of welfare for migrants on US tax payers. Blue Collar workers in CA, one of the highest cost of living states, have nearly the lowest Blue Collars wages in the entire US, because of the over abundance of low skilled workers.
The Immigration bill codified into law Biden's numbers. The bill had limits per day, and then had exceptions for limitless migration from 5 Central American nations. It , likely, would have resulted, in was 2- 3 million migrants a year, which was essentially Biden's numbers.
McConnell had Langford draft it, because he was a youth minister before arriving in the Senate. His religion demands care for the poor, regardless of borders. Mitch wanted endless cheap labor for his Chamber of Commerce friends.
I think the WSJ favors pathways to legal immigration, and that is because we already have a labor shortage and workers help power our economy and GDP, as you say. However, it does undercut Americans' wages to some extent, and what the right number is in terms of legal immigrants coming to help our economy vs. limiting their entry to raise Americans' wages, I am not sure.
I doubt that bill would have codified into law Biden's numbers. Do you really think James Lankford would have agreed to a bill that did so--one of the most conservative senators in the country? Just because he was more conciliatory than most (if not all) the rest of the GOP senators, doesn't mean he would have agreed on a compromise that was codifying Biden's numbers.
The bill set stricter limits on asylum, which would have led to more rejection of people who are claiming it without real persecution.
Here's a good PBS article on some of its key features: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/whats-in-the-senates-118-billion-border-and-ukraine-deal
The WSJ editorial board has favored massive immigration for decades.
I think they are pro legal immigration, yes, but I also think they are pro border security. That's where most Americans are.
The WSJ hasn't been conservative since the Bush Administration.
Thanks for your comment. I don’t think it matters much that Trump was out of office. The fact he is singularly responsible for the bill’s demise shows you how influential he still was.
It wasn’t a perfect bill, but it gave the executive more power to shut down the border completely after a certain quota was met, and it changed asylum law—something that is very important and can only be done by Congress. At any rate, it was better than the status quo.
The fact people held Trump the least responsible just shows how much they don’t pay attention.
No, Trump wasn't responsible, let along "singularly responsible."
It was a scam, and support from Republicans died when their constituents realized it was more about optics than anything else.
Trump didn't make that happen. Guys like Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, etc. did.
They negotiated a bill for months and were gaining momentum to pass it, and then as soon as Trump called Capitol Hill, that momentum stopped. Maybe not singularly responsible, but largely responsible. Shapiro and other pundits certainly played a role. I disagree about the substance of the bill.
Do you read the WSJ editorial board? I don’t how you can conclude that it is anything other than conservative. The news reporting is down the middle.
The left cut Trump off of social media, so he wasn't really calling the shots - nobody cares about Truth Social. The mainstream media buried the true intent of the bill, the podcasters exposed it, and once the people found out they flipped out.
At that point, the Republican Establishment still thought that the R voters would support them no matter what they did. They were wrong. We are in a new era, and R voters are tired of Washington Generals Republicans.
The leftist talking point that Trump killed it was just that - a talking point.
Trump didn't kill the bill. Math killed the bill. Shutting down the border is a power every President already enjoys. Look at what Trump just did in mere days.
The bill was not better than the status quo. It codified into law the status quo, which was multiples of normal previous migrations. Greg Abbott had more to do with killing it, than Trump, because Texas could no have endured those numbers, permanently, without collapse.
I was mistaken in that original answer, as DHS would have had that authority under the bill. See that article above. The president can't shut down the border himself, Trump hasn't now and will not be able to do so (at least not legally). Much of Trump's actions will be challenged in court, and there is a chance the results will go against him. Hence, the need for Congress.
I think it was worth supporting, but reasonable people can disagree. Like I said, I don't think it codified into the law the status quo. Texas certainly has more pressure on them in managing immigration given their proximity to the border. I am sympathetic to that, but I am not sympathetic to Greg Abbot's politics on this issue and his demonizing of immigrants.
What is clear is when Biden loosened immigration restrictions in the executive, tons more people came. When he tightened them, less people did. That was totally in his control, and there is no excuse for his utter failure there. Trump's behavior and cynical calculation, however, still angers me.
I disagree with that take, and I think you are underestimating Trump’s influence. But it’s all good. Appreciate your thoughts!
The shift in the Democratic party on immigration is due to its embrace of the ideology of globalism. Individual nation-states are regressive and the world must move toward a unified government. Think of the EU on steroids. In a globalized world, populations should have free movement across borders just as capital and upper middle-class tourists do. Interestingly, this is also the position of the Catholic (universal) Church
I'm a historian. I follow politics closely. I cannot recall one time in all of Obama's terms where anyone called him the "Deporter in Chief." Quite the contrary, all anyone remembers of Obama's immigration policy is the unconstitutional DACA.
The only people who thought Saint Barack was tough on the border were the Groups.
I did find a number of contemporary statement by legacy media and activist groups saying exactly that. It is also worth remembering that the "Trump cages" were a legacy of the Obama administration, rebranded by the legacy media. You are probably correct about the collective memory.
Oh yes. That was what he was named.
The Open border was all about turning Texas Blue. CA single party rule for nearly 2 decades, made Dems believe they could impart the same governance on the entire US, with a little help, from the Lone Star State.
A Blue Texas would foreclose Reps from the WH, in perpetuity. It would also, eventually, yield many Dem Congressional seats, as Texas is predicted to surpass CA's population in the next 2 decades.
Dems assumed Texas Hispanic American citizens would cheer 2 or 3 million additional Hispanic migrants in Texas, and vote Blue in perpetuity, in gratitude. A mass amnesty, whenever Dems controlled both House and Senate again, would yield 10 million new Dem voters, or more, and establish Dem US single party rule, forever.
It was likely the worst political calculation, in the modern Dem party. Texas is far more Red, then it was pre Biden. Also the combination of Texas and FL , is now a bright line against Coastal Progressive insanity.
Dems were so successful, at memory holing the Covid debacle, they assume 10 million migrants will be quickly forgotten. That seems like a bad bet.
This post is very useful but I want to push back against the claim that immigration, the economy, "wokeness," and other policy issues can explain why Trump won. His Republican rivals for the nomination campaigned on the same issues, without the liabilities of being too old, four times indicted, a nasty disposition, etc. - yet Trump easily dispatched them. We must stop pretending that we live in halfway normal times and that our political system functions adequately. Trump's appeal, I argue, is that he can present himself as an outsider and threat to a broken and unresponsive political system. He successfully channels Americans' justified anger at a complacent political class and two parties that have failed us all. See, e.g., my 12/19/24 Substack post: https://danmcmillanphd.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/153386745?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts
Well documented immigration policy failures, though Baharaeen reserves what arguably is his strongest point to his closing statement; the party's "recent leftward movement" was met by overwhelming defeat in November.
And while a mission creep "open borders" advocacy may have provided the most glaring example of a party losing its way, it is hardly the Democrats' only failure. From DEI to anti-Semitism and Woke speech codes on college campuses, Democrats have been tried, tested and found lacking in coherence on fundamental American Bill of Rights issues like due process, equal protection under the law and even free speech and association guarantees in our Constitution.
Trump's historic political comeback represents of course a tribute to his remaking of himself, his uncanny ability to outmaneuver career politicians in embracing the concerns of a majority of Americans. Those successes could not be possible without the conspicuous failure of today's Democratic Party to form a coherent, thoughtful, mature and loyal opposition alternative.
Your problem is worse than you think. I ran across a post compiling opinion by Gen Z about immigration. The sheer level of rage was stunning. Admittedly, these were internet bros and may not be representative but they were also the more articulate and engaged plart of their cohort. This is the stuff of revolution. Bottled up talent has traditionally drifted left but this time looks different. They were about as angry at the Republican donor class too but, of course, Trump is not seen that way.
You have hit the nail on the head. Talk to young Texans, whether they have Master's degrees, or are looking for work, right out of high school. It's 1980 all over again.
Mrs
'a somewhat unflattering moniker on him: “deporter-in-chief.” Under his presidency, deportations hit a record high. '
Keep in mind that Obama's 'high' deportations image was blue smoke & mirrors. Up until his administration, there had been 2 - or maybe 3 - levels of getting illegal aliens out of the US. Deportation meant that the person was caught miles into to US and sent back from there. There were also returns and removes for those caught near the border and simply returned to their country, often willingly, as that was less likely to get them on a list of repeat offenders. Under Obama all of these were counted as deportations. He even explained this to some supporters.
Also Biden's initial 'immigration' proposal included practically no enforcement likely to work. Mandatory E-Verify would make it very hard for an illegal alien to find work or change jobs and should have been in place for years. It still isn't, which is why we hear of people working in the US illegally for 15+ years. The Democrats say they want employers to bear more legal fault for employing illegal workers but refuse to even consider E-Verify.
And FWIW since when is persisting in illegal behavior for a longer time supposed to be a noble thing? Bernie Madoff ran his Ponzi scheme for 20 years but got 150 years in the slammer, not public sympathy with people asking for leniency for his crimes!
I notice we still don't have any sort of plan of when or how to implement E verify.
The problem isn't the immigrants, it's the jobs.