For a savvy politician, the disconnect between what voters want on illegal immigration and how the President is addressing that want is an opportunity to agree with the principle while bemoaning the practice, but Democrats cannot bring themselves to take advantage.
To a rational adult, two things can be true simultaneously. It is possible to believe that illegal immigrants should be deported, but also think that President Donald Trump has been too aggressive in doing so. In fact, even as a long-term supporter of the President’s, there is something of an argument to be made that he has inflamed the issue more than necessary to achieve the goal by deploying squads of masked ICE and Border Patrol on our city streets in roving patrols, physically scooping up the targets of administrative warrants and those that are with them, causing violence and the deaths of two American citizens, and because of this, there simply has to be a better way to achieve the same goal. We see at least some evidence of this dichotomy in recent polling on the topic. Last month, the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 52% think the President has gone too far in his efforts to deport immigrants living in the United States illegally shortly after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Preeti, while late last year a Pew Research poll put the figure at 53% (technically the question was doing “too much”) even as 56% of Republicans said all illegal immigrants should be deported and 62% of Democrats said some. As Pew themselves described the result in December, “a large majority continue to say at least some of these immigrants should be deported.” The White House itself has cited similar numbers including 73% who agree that entering the U.S. without permission is breaking the law and 61% who support deporting illegal aliens to their home countries. The question in that case, especially in light of polling suggesting that President Trump has gone too far, is what are the best means to satisfy the public’s wishes without exceeding the threshold.
Undoubtedly, this dynamic led to President Trump to make illegal immigration a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, where he used real people to illustrate the risks of unchecked migration and posed a simple principle. As he put it last Tuesday night, he’d met a day earlier with “angel moms and families that for decades our government betrayed and our media totally ignored. Totally. It was terrible. Hard to believe, actually. In 2023, a 16-year-old high school cheerleader named Lizbeth Medina was supposed to perform in her town’s Christmas parade, but she never arrived. Her mother, Jacqueline, went home to look for her, and she found her lying dead in a bathtub, bleeding profusely after being stabbed 25 times. Lizbeth’s killer was a previously arrested illegal alien who had broken in and brutally, just brutally extinguished the brightest light in her family’s life. Violently and viciously. Her heartbroken mother is in the gallery to remind everyone in this chamber exactly why we are deporting illegal alien criminals are – our country at record numbers, and we’re getting them the hell out of here fast. We don’t want ’em. Thank you very much, Jacqueline. Thank you…We can never forget that many in this room not only allowed the border invasion to happen before I got involved, but indeed, they would do it all over again if they ever had the chance. If they ever got elected, they would open up those borders to some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world. The only thing standing between Americans and a wide-open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress.” To prove that was the case in front of the American people, President Trump declared, “I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration and reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” When Democrats refused to stand, he goaded them, “Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself for not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
To savvy politicians, the disconnect between what voters want and how the President is addressing the want represents an opportunity to agree with the principle while bemoaning the practice, but Democrats simply cannot bring themselves to take advantage. Instead, they have chosen to rather bizarrely double down on illegal immigration, making their refusal to prioritize American citizens at the State of the Union even more plain. Thus, California has set aside $35 million to fund lawyers, provide social services, food, and other assistance on behalf of illegal immigrants despite an almost $3 billion budget deficit, protecting them from what Governor Gavin “Cobra Kai” Newsom described as a “federal assault.” Echoing those claims, State Senator Lena Gonzalez, chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus, noted, “The federal government is waging a war on our communities – and we won’t stand for it. We are putting money behind an effort to stop the fear, stop the separation of our families and stop violating our basic rights.” Likewise, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are encouraging illegal immigrants to register for tax-payer funded childcare in a Spanish language video. “If your child is turning three or four years old in 2026, you can enroll them in free 3-K or Pre-K in New York City,” Representative Ocasio said. “But you must apply by February 27, which is the deadline. Any New York City parent, regardless of your occupation, income, or immigration status, is eligible to sign their child up.” “You can call this number … and receive translation in more than 200 languages. Because no family should be shut out from our programs just because of the language they speak.” she added. This is in addition to other programs including low-cost or free healthcare, reduced or free school meals, and reduced public transportation costs. It is also after the City spent some $8 billion housing 250,000 illegal immigrants while President Joe Biden was in office. New York City is expected to face a budget deficit as well, incredibly around the same size as the entire state of California at $5.4 billion over two years. To address the gap, Mayor Mamdani proposes to raise taxes on everyone else. Last month he said, “Faced with no other choice, the city would have to exercise the only revenue lever fully within our own control. We would have to raise property taxes. We would also be forced to raid our reserves.” On a smaller scale, Boston is also expected to spend $2.2 million to protect illegal immigrants.
Simultaneously, Democrats in Congress have been perpetuating a partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, and the Coast Guard over the issue of illegal immigration enforcement. As The Hill described it previously, “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) laid out Senate Democrats’ demands for changes to DHS policy — ending roving immigration patrols and tightening rules around the use of warrants by immigration officers; establishing a universal code of conduct governing federal law enforcement officers’ use of force; prohibiting federal officers from wearing masks; and requiring them to wear body cameras and proper identification.” Perhaps needless to say, “some progressive Democrats in the House want to go further, including a requirement that the administration pull back its ICE operations throughout the country.” For their part, the notoriously anti-Trump The Bulwark put the stakes of this shutdown fight as dramatically as possible, as only an outlet that equated Minneapolis with Gettysburg could, completely convinced that this is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for to influence immigration policy in favor of illegal immigrants, claiming “it’s time to play hardball” and “Democrats do have an advantage they never had.” Left unsaid is the reality that billions of dollars allocated in the Big Beautiful Bill can be used for immigration enforcement, meaning there will not be the slightest change to that effect, while average the Americans suffer at airports, the security of our nearby waterways is at risk, and anyone who needs assistance from a natural disaster or emergency might well do without, not to mention the increased threat level following massive strikes on Iran. Senator Schumer also rather strangely believes now is the time to restart the perpetual comprehensive immigration reform cycle, complete with the unicorn of a pathway to citizenship that has been rejected over and over again. From there, the Senator proceeded to laud his fellow Democrats for refusing to stand up in defense of American citizens. “Yes, we want to protect Americans,” he insisted, though they didn’t stand up at that point. “He’s not doing it … So, it was legitimate and right.” “By his reckless ICE agency in Minnesota, two Americans were killed. Americans are being pulled out of their cars and beaten. Americans’ houses – the doors are being knocked down, you know, without a warrant,” he added.
When you consider that as late as the fall of 2024, Democrats were at least pretending to care about a secure border by backing a bill President Trump opposed that would’ve locked in a lower number of border crossings than previously, that President Biden himself would frequently claim the border was secure even when it wasn’t, and that the Democrat President before him, the practically sainted Barack Obama was sometimes known as the “Deporter in Chief,” what accounts for completely changing their position despite the public broadly supporting both secure borders and deportations? If you don’t believe they’ve changed their position, a recent CNN segment was unearthed from May 2016. At the time, CNN reporters spent a day with ICE Agents in Chicago – a city that has now firmly rejected any and all ICE actions and even passed executive orders to that effect – when President Obama was in the Oval Office. The difference between then and now couldn’t be more stark. CNN, of all places, questioned whether sanctuary cities put Americans at risk, talked up how ICE is there to arrest criminals in the US who are here illegally, and that they might need to act covertly. Reporter Pamela Brown set the stage, “Just before the sun rises in the Windy City, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fan out across Chicago to arrest criminals in the US illegally. CNN was granted exclusive access to witness some of those raids.” Incredibly, when the agents accidentally arrested the suspect’s brother, it’s depicted as how difficult this work actually is, rather than the agents being bloodthirsty thugs willing to arrest everyone in sight. There were no Democrats brought on to decry these tactics, no bemoaning the fate of those arrested, or questioning the nature of the warrant used to do so. Instead, deporting illegal aliens was generally depicted as normal and necessary while those who opposed cooperating with ICE were questioned rather than championed.
Once again, why the difference? How is it possible that supposedly intelligent politicians could so badly misread the will of the voters and their own previous positions? Have they truly had some epiphany that illegal aliens should be allowed to remain in the country indefinitely or that border enforcement is an essentially unjust enterprise? Anything is possible, but as ever, the simplest explanation is the most likely. Democrat politicians would probably prefer to do what the public wants, but among their own constituents, there is a vocal, extremely influential contingent that continues to support essentially open borders and believes deportation is a worse crime than entering the country illegally. Rather than confronting this contingent, which if you look beneath the surface of groups like ICE Watch is also radically anti-police and other law enforcement agencies, with the truth they are afraid of it, and so they pander rather than lead, even if it will ultimately be to their own detriment.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 