Donald Trump will not be president for almost another two months.
Yet Democrat politicians, both federal and local, vie to be the most strident in denouncing his plans to begin deporting millions of foreign nationals who, over the last four years, have entered the U.S. illegally. Trump pledges to focus initially only on the 400,000 to 500,000 current felons and some 1.4 million additional aliens who have ignored legal summons for their deportation.
Weekly we read of thousands of illegal immigrants arriving from areas controlled by violent Mexican cartel gangs or failed, strife-torn South American countries that have emptied their jails to send their felons northwards. Hundreds of thousands of them have been committing violent crimes while demanding still more free housing and support from strapped American taxpayers.
Big-city left-wing mayors and city councils boast that they will do all their best to nullify federal immigration laws, even as their cities face near insolvency housing, feeding, and monitoring the influx. More specifically, they brag they will continue to order local and state authorities to resist all efforts of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. They scream about possible “massive deportations” to come under Trump, callously ignoring that their own advocacy has fueled rising crime waves of unaudited illegal aliens. And they appear absolutely indifferent to the social costs imposed by illegal immigration upon their own poor and middle-class constituents.
Virtue-signaling Democratic governors and mayors have so far not dared to utter a word of criticism about what has been the Biden administration’s truly historic “massive importation” of illegal aliens into the U.S. over the last four years.
Why?
Largely because these political grandees and media demagogues have the money, connections, zip codes, and influence to be immune from the fallout of their own performance-art advocacy of illegal immigration. They take for granted that the baleful consequences of open borders always falls upon the distant and vulnerable Other.
Again, consider the left-wing logic: it is deemed moral to dismantle the border, disrupt the social fabric of the country, and destroy federal immigration laws. But it is immoral to restore U.S. sovereignty, secure the border, stop the flux of lethal cartel-supplied fentanyl and child sex trafficking, and follow the law?
In this regard, the party that prides itself as progressive is regressively adopting the states’ rights arguments of 19th-century southern states that boasted they would resist all federal enforcement of tariffs. By the late 1850s, these future Confederates were asserting that the national government had no jurisdiction in their state domains. Such brazen nullification would lead to the Civil War.
Note the left assumes that conservatives will not emulate their tactics and thus declare swaths of federal firearms or environmental laws null and void within their red state and county jurisdictions. They know that doing so would start a cycle of lawlessness that would eventually result in either civil war, total anarchy, or both.
The open-borders left’s more immediate spiritual predecessors are states’ rights resisters like former segregationist Governor George Wallace. He boasted that federal civil rights legislation had no sway over his own state’s laws. Wallace, remember, in a historic moment, was removed from blocking the entry of black students to the University of Alabama by federal troops.
Given that nullification now has been turned upside down, will California Governor Gavin Newsom or New York Governor Kathy Hochul block the entrance to their state jails to prevent federal agents from sending home murderers and rapists who arrived in the U.S. illegally?
The left has learned nothing and forgotten nothing from the recent election and decisive Trump victory. The defeat of left-wing candidates was a result most prominently of the Biden administration’s deliberate destruction of the southern border and the illegal welcoming of some 12 million foreigners without legal sanction or health and criminal background audits.
This lawlessness ensured that Kamala Harris, who had sanctioned it, was going to lose the election. The daily sight of thousands swarming the border with impunity, coupled with Orwellian assertions of President Biden, “Border Czar” Vice President Harris, and Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas that the border was absolutely “secure,” doomed the Biden and then Harris campaigns.
Violating U.S. sovereignty and laws while sending millions into already frayed health, food, housing, medical, legal, and education social services designed to help American citizens was never a winning campaign strategy.
Yet almost nothing could deter the Biden-Harris administration from their fixation with undermining the border and federal immigration law while seeking to change the very demography of the American southwest. The resulting influx of illegal aliens within just three years proved comparable in size to the creation of some 12 American cities, all the size of San Francisco.
The mass crossings resulted from an effort by Joe Biden to utterly disregard his oath to faithfully execute the laws of his country. He was also helped in his lawlessness by some 600 state and local “sanctuary city” jurisdictions that subverted federal law by using their own offices to thwart immigration enforcement. Indeed, left-wing state and local officials pledged their own greater fealty to the welfare of the illegal millions who ignored the law and swamped the border than to their own overtaxed and underserved American citizen constituents.
Finally, on November 5, the people said no more. In historic fashion, traditional Democratic constituencies of the working class and minorities turned on their own left-wing politicians who had first turned on them.
Yet the cynicism of the left had known no bounds. As the presidential campaign had heated up, and the polls, first for Biden and then for his surrogate Harris, began to erode, both began to lie that their vanished border was in fact “secure.”
In other words, they knew they had permanently alienated the American public, knew that it would cost them the election, and so then frantically first tried to deny the truth they had welcomed in millions of illegal aliens. Then they pivoted and sought belatedly to stop the public relations disaster at the border for a few weeks before the election, vainly hiding the sheer cynicism of such an insincere effort.
Earlier, they had tried blaming border hawk Republicans for not signing onto a false border “bipartisan,” red-herring bill. The left introduced it in Congress solely to allow blanket amnesties for millions of illegal aliens while still allowing 4,000 illegal aliens daily to enter the U.S.
The great majority of sane senators who did not sign the Trojan Horse bill were then immediately demonized for the mess by Biden and Harris themselves, who deliberately created the catastrophe.
Now that the election is over, an enfeebled Joe Biden has two months left on his presidency and no longer worries about reelection. So, in its final gasp, the left is again trying to invite in more illegal aliens. Apparently one final huge caravan is forming south of the border and plans to make its way northward just days before Trump takes office and begins to fulfill his promises to the majority of voters to close the border.
Finally, why did illegal immigration explode to levels never seen before?
One, the left saw millions of desperately poor foreign nationals as a natural long-term constituency for their big-government, anti-poverty programs. They felt that some 20-30 million illegal aliens over the last 50 years, along with their children, had flipped California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado—and soon Arizona—from blue to red as planned. Of course, should the sudden Hispanic backlash against the immigration insanity of bicoastal elites persist, then the left might turn on their Hispanic voters as illiberal or brainwashed by the right—and ironically move to close the border to preclude more MAGA boosters.
Two, Mexico and Latin America received some 120 billion dollars per year in remittances, mostly sent by their own citizens residing illegally in the U.S. and reliant on American government services that free them up to send billions into the coffers of our own increasingly hostile neighbors. Mexico further sees its 20 million expatriate illegal aliens as a strong lobby group to promote Mexico City’s agendas. The more Mexico exports its impoverished citizens, the more it saves on social services for them, while cynically noting that the more distant and longer their citizens reside away from Mexico, the more they romanticize it, safely from afar.
Three, corporate employers like cheap labor from Latin America, especially when the U.S. government subsidizes such workers with massive housing, food, transportation, and health social services.
On the other side of the ledger, the left cares little that an open border is destroying support for legal immigration and de facto punishes immigrants who wish to follow our laws. A cynic might argue that the left also may fear legal immigrants applying under meritocratic standards, as too independent, self-supporting, educated, skilled, and law-abiding to become its predictably loyal constituents at the polls.
So, what might change to close the border and stop the massive influx?
Donald Trump won the electoral college and the popular vote with a mandate to restore border security and immigration sanity. He received a near-record number of minority voters for a Republican candidate, given they believed that most often must deal with the realities of what elites have unleashed.
In other words, the proverbial people are on to the no-borders elites. They suffer firsthand from their utopian bromides and are tired of being smeared as racists and xenophobes for simply wishing the United States to follow the law, restore secure borders, and end illegal immigration.
And now they have the power and mandate to do all of that.
Good analysis, missing a bit of an explanation of why the “country club” Republicans, the RINOs and the Uniparty has acquiesced & seem to tolerate massive demographic change. But perhaps i repeat myself.
Lew, I think he covered your point – albeit peripherally enough to give me solid second thoughts as I type this reply – when he didn’t clearly outline the groups not on the Left who are generally soft on illegal immigration for the same reasons many country club Republicans and Rinos Etc. are, for the cheap labor. Also
mentioned was how these same people pushing for this human flood generally don’t live amongst the hordes they advocate for – most of the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial board most often live in gated communities or Manhattan buildings with beefy doormen. Many of these illegals are actually good people who work hard and keep their heads down, but a sizable percentage are not those at all, and the US cannot continue the sheer madness of open borders, unless we have the same speed dial access to National Guard as did the Martha’s Vineyard grandees during those 24 awful hours of unexpected elbow rubbing with 51 illegals.
Many of these illegals are actually good people who work hard and keep their heads down
fine. Le them go back home and apply through legal channels to cime back and become a VALID and LEGAL oar of our amazing naion. I “get” why few want to live in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicarague, Venezuela. hose sorts want out. there IS a way, a legal way. Use i.
Agreed Fred. There is always time for subtlety and tacit messaging. Not now. I wanted to make the point that, much the same as 2016, opposition to the President is not limited to Democrats. Happy Thanksgiving.
Both political parties have to understand that there is no Cheap Labor and there are no Cheap Votes!
I wish Biden would resign right now and Congress would appoint Trump as acting-President until his inauguration. Close the border and stop the carnage in Ukraine which makes no sense. As well, some progress could be made with the Abraham Accords in the Middle East.
Absolutely correct. The Rhine is Russia’s natural western border, if not the Atlantic seaboard.
Craig, you might want to actually read Article II of the Constitution and the Presidential Succession Act before you let your imagination run wild.
I understand, but there are some serious issues about Harris in handling the southern border & the Afghanistan withdrawal which disqualify her from serving in that office.
There is also a predetermined pathway when the VP cannot stand as President when the sitting Pres is removed for whatever reason. READ your Constitution, its all there. those gys were incredibly smart.
Further you forgot another disqualifying issue for Harris. she is NOT a Natural Born Citizen, thus cannot serve as President. She was born in the USA, but of two parents who were NOT US CITIZENS, the requirement for NBC. I;m not even certain both were here legally, as they came as visiting students then stayed on wthout bothering with the paperwork.
Craig, it wouldn’t work that way. Should Biden resign now, by our constitution, Kamala would be POTUS through the remainder of his term…
Let the sanctuary cities and states have their criminals. Maybe they will one day see the light!
The Democrat Progressives promote reparations and equity for the sins of slavery past, while they also promote slave trade today over the open border. This is pure immorality.
300,000 missing children. Think of it! What kind of evilness allows these children to fall into the hands of criminals? Democrat Progressives who have done this are themselves criminals for supplying defenseless human beings to a flesh eating machine.
Every single Democrat Progressive politician and activist who enables this modern slavery should be give the name of a missing child and be forced to find and rescue them.
An internet search regarding modern day slavery in the United States presents an estimate that may be over a million.
Really, a million slaves, like black, brown and white people endentured to service?
The mayors and the governors of blue cities and states might attempt to block entry to the city and state incarceration facilities to Federal Agents, but it will be TREASON, nothing less.
I will bet large sums of money at rather high odds that the military/NG that will be deployed to “open up” some of these cities will far outnumber the corruptocrats now enslaving those cities. I’d also bet that a surprisingly large number of local residents will gladly step up and help clear out the cancer… starting with the local out of control and treasonous governments, then the illegals being removed.
Can hardly wait for the nightmare to begin to end.
“They felt that some 20-30 million illegal aliens over the last 50 years, along with their children, had flipped California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado—and soon Arizona—from BLUE TO RED as planned. ”
Didn’t you mean red to blue?
Easy enough slip to make from someone who grew up with Repubs denoted in blue, and dems in red. I believe the dems wanted the colors reversed because they knew people associated red with communism; and as always, they were keen on diverting attention from their own communist proclivities.
I caught that too!
I think he did make a mistake on this one Bobbie. I saw the same thing. Does anyone have an email address for the editor or Victor to check?
Articles like this remind me of the insanity of politicians and the voters who support them.
Self-destructive border policies and lawlessness indicate that there is a failure in the human heart to reason properly and I am drawn back to the Bible for an explanation.
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:2, 22a, 28)
The insanity of our times and people are troubling.
Although I am relieved, thankful, and humbled by Republican elections, I know that new government policy will only slow the madness and cannot stop it because its roots are spiritual, that is they are a consequence of man’s relationship to God.
We anticipate a reprieve for the next two to four years in faulty government policy and law enforcement. May God give us more grace as we continue to seek him.
In the memorable words of Ronald Reagan, “There you go again.” Dr. Hanson never tires of comparing the Progressive left’s positions to those of the Southern positions before and during the War Between the States (WBS). Yes, their argument — horror of horrors! — is grounded on the principles of federalism, which were purposely built into the Constitution.. in point of fact, an earlier generation of “Northern “progressives were the first, eager practitioners of nullification as a principled means to resist unpopular/unconstitutional central government acts. Historians who portray the lead up to the WBS as “the South didn’t like tariffs and wanted only to preserve slavery” engage in graphic novel-level analysis. As a former student of Dr. Hanson’s, I’m confident he is not unaware of the much more nuanced lead up and competing power struggles over the preceding decades than to do this out of ignorance. The record is quite clear the North (embodied in the new but inaptly named Republican Party first headed up by Lincoln) had for many years imposed tariff and tax schemes that disproportionately benefited Northern, industrial interests at great cost to Southern interests (e.g., large, costly infrastructure built in the North but paid for by tariffs on Southern ag products). Hanson’s “the Democrats are the equivalent of the slaveholding Confederacy” comparisons are Increasingly threadbare. I detest the Progressive left and what it’s done to America, but Confederates? Really?…
My name is Theron Few. I live in Raleigh NC and have been registered as “”Unaffiliated since 2003 because George Bush did not pay for his unjust war against Iraq. First big deficit spending spree. Obama was even worse in his 8 years. And Trump and Biden in their four made the debt even more using Covid as an excuse for buying votes at $1,400/clip. And the beat goes on without a single Presidential veto of outrageous spending and failure to tax those able to pay … who should pay.
Our government is out of control. Though I did not vote for him, I hope Trump stops the train wreck.
You did not vote for Trump. Therefore you are morally not entitled to enjoy the coming prosperity to be brought by Trump.
Amen. I have exhausted myself trying to explain this to so many. Thank you for being honest about the Civil War.
Really? I didn’t realize Andrew Jackson was a federalist Republican when he opposed John C. Calhoun in 1830.
While in the main, Professor Hanson’s comments are correct and worthy, his article needs a little more proofreading. California, Nevada, Colorado, etc., have not been shifted from “blue to red” by the massive influx of illegal intruders (please stop calling them “immigrants”) but rather, the reverse is the case.
“Confederates” is the correct term for those who nullify Federal Law.
Confederate Americans, I might add, who had a variation on a theme of liberty, freedom and interpretation of the Constitution.
Open borders policy is part of a movement ( not a conspiracy)… Qui bono? The lobbyists, senators, deep state operatives are the usual suspects…who are the leaders and beneficiaries who gain from a weak USA? Obama (who appointed the top layers of the cadres, Soros, who provides seed capital for loyal prosecutors, China, Iran’s IRGC, via drug cartels, and NGOs. The goal – lowering the profile of the USA, was announced publicly on 2008 by Obama, who knew that few would take him literally….
Victor, you say that “the Left has learned nothing and forgotten nothing from the recent election and decisive Trump victory.”
I disagree.
The Left has learned something, and they are intensively studying what happened during this last election. They have learned that most Americans are not as stupid as they thought they were. Hence, the reelection of Trump to the presidency after a one-year period of endless lawfare against him. The Left has also learned they cannot just ‘buy elections’ by simply buying off the Left-prone legacy media and the Hollywood Left who helped them lie their way into office and force their opponents out of office during past elections.
Democrats have also learned that their ‘Woke agenda’ has caused many of their constituents to bolt from the Democrat Party and join the Republican Party. The Democrat Party is now the part of the rich elites and neocons, which is 180 degrees out of phase from what they were thirty years ago. When you study Trump’s methods, you will see that he is using Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’ against the Democrats who, by using those Rules, ran most of the Republicans off the playing field years ago. Trump has been out-Alinsky-ing the entire Left Wing, including Pocahontas and ‘The Squad’. Rather than bitching about it, just grab some popcorn, sit down, and enjoy the Democrat implosion. I am.
Besides the erroneous ‘Blue to Red’ previously pointed out by Bobbie P; I take exception to the “anti-poverty programs” statement. Opening the borders to hoards of empoverished immigrants not only bring more poverty individuals and familes into the country, it places a greater burden on the citizens of the US having to deal with the costs.
Not only are our taxes being spent to feed, house and treat medical conditions of the millions of illegal immigrants, our schools are being required to teach children who have limited English language skills, if any. This not only requires hiring additional ESL teachers but slows down the learning of reading writing and arithmetic to native born children in the classroom. Already our education system failures have led to the decades of education decline in comparison to Asian nations. While the millions of immigrant children entering our school system is not the only factor in that decline, may not even be the greatest factor, it obviously has a negative effect on impoverishing our youth’s education.
America has always been addicted to slavery. Biden and Democrats have turned America into a lawless, failing sh*thole that I’m glad not to be part of and would not even venture to visit, perhaps save Texas and Florida. It remains to be seen whether Trump can execute his plans with RINOs still controlling the Senate. American politics is an utter cesspool of treason, illegality, corruption and depravity. None of the Founding Fathers would recognize the place and if Lincoln knew how it all turned out, he wouldn’t have bothered.
Mr Hanson should take a look at how they deport people in Iceland. Now that’s a story.
I hope someone has a good solution to defeat the injunctions that some federal district judges are likely to issue, which will cause the deportations to grind to a halt. These judges will be wrong, but months will be wasted while their orders are appealed to the US Circuit Courts of Appeal, and then to the Supreme Court.
Remember, Trump has only 24 months for sure to get lots of these deportations done. We can’t rely on the Senate and the House remaining in Republican control after the 2026 midterm election.
A talking head recently said it best- the People have had enough of suicidal empathy
I’m waiting for that day Homan is authorized to use as many aircraft carriers he needs loaded with cots and cornmeal to make burritos for the cruise taking illegals home and I do mean home. If countries use their navy to stop the repatriation… live fire.
Also there should be an investigation into all the organizations that serve the illegals and act as halfway houses for both food and a respite from the torturous journey. Who are these NGOs, where do they get their funding and can they be prosecuted for aiding illegal trespass?
Leftists have said Jan 6 was an illegal debacle and too many were sentenced to solitary (before a legal hearing) because they trespassed. Governors and the leaders of NGOs should be treated the very same way. These examples should be a deterrent as much as the wall.
Ron, good points. Church related NGOs, a minimum, should lose their no tax status for participating in a national political ploy organized by the Dems.
It would be interesting in January to get an accurate estimate of taxpayer funds spent on the Dems’ Biden invasion that used buses, planes, church NGOs, smart phones, overseas ads to come on in, iow, what did we pay for this historical, national debacle.
VDH,
Tom Homan is a force.
What an inspiration.
An individual who wants to do good, how refreshing.
We need more people like him to clean up the entire mess.
VDH,
many times my mind turns to thinking about the “machine politics” in all the horrible Blue State’s there Governors and all the bad people in there administrations. The sanctuary state and city nonsense they impose on their constituents who literally want no part of any of it.
It is the Machine Politics of these States that has to change, entrenched for years, that gives power to incompetent people like Phil Murphy of NJ, Gavin Newsom, JD Pritzker, and Kathy Hochul.
VDH, is there a ny hope for that happening?
Do you think, all them illegal aliens will vote for the left in 26 and 28?
“Just” those that were registered to vote at the DMVs, Amos.
“ Largely because these political grandees and media demagogues have the money, connections, zip codes, and influence to be immune from the fallout of their own performance-art advocacy of illegal immigration”
– Spot on, Dr. Hanson. You have nailed it, especially here in the bluest of all blue states, Connecticut.
I expect even our chief law enforcement person, AG Tong, to stand in the doorway of courthouses and jails preventing deportation. I am hoping Homan will stay strong and cart he and other “performance artists”
away.
It is easy to get caught up in the hysteria of Trump’s election, but I just don’t see Trump, who I supported since 2016, as getting the overwhelming mandate being proclaimed. It reminds me of that supposed mandate Clinton received in ‘92 with 43% of the vote. Yes, Trump won, and we dodged a bullet that might have been fatal. Yes, more blacks, Mexicans, etc voted for Trump, but they still supported their democrat masters by overwhelming majorities.
With senators like Susan Collins, Trump is not guaranteed support from the Senate. Trump begins his term as a lame duck. Senators, as most Washington politicians, think of themselves first. Don’t expect them to risk their necks. They are very sensitive to wind direction.
The democrat bureaucrats have their barbed claws firmly set into the fabric of government. Just like a fish hook that penetrates the skin, it cannot be reversed, but needs to be cut. Talk about deportations? Just think of the mass firings necessary to eliminate the bureaucrats.
I sincerely hope Trump accomplishes his intentions. The deck is stacked against him. I will be satisfied with anything he does.o