As the U.S. southern border begins to function once again, it’s time to consider what kind of immigration policy we should adopt. President Trump’s move to deport huge populations, upwards of 10 million just since 2021, could prove to be among the most decisive actions a president has taken in decades.
The Biden Administration’s oddly permissive policies ironically have stiffened Americans’ opposition to immigration across the board. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who wish to reduce all immigration has soared from 41% just two years ago to over 55% in 2024, although many still embrace legal migration.
Even among Latinos, Pew notes, half of those polled associate the current wave with increased crime in their communities, including the growth of Venezuelan gangs and the takeover of large blocks of housing in some urban areas. Today a majority of Latinos support mass deportations, as do most Americans.
The Coming Conflict
Given the national mood, some conservatives—and roughly half of all Republicans—might like to end all or most immigration, but this could prove damaging to the national interest. Progressives are not making this argument, however. Instead, they are indulging in their usual racial rhetoric, even openly supporting criminal migrants and talking of resisting “mass expulsions,” with some suggesting that migrants will be victims of government “atrocities.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has already advanced plans to block federal agents with a “Tiananmen Square” style occupation, something that could land him in jail. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Tim Walz suggested that if Trump built a wall, he would build “a ladder” so migrants could go over it. Some progressives even seek to grant the undocumented free college, education, and access to driver’s licenses.
Automatic defenses for all undocumented immigrants are commonplace in Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the latter of which has nearly a million undocumented immigrants alone. California is even allegedly threatening to take pensions from—and even imprison—police who help federal agents. However, it does not seem like such things as blocking freeways, which a mob waving Mexican flags did recently in Los Angeles, is the best advertising for leniency. But these actions may be paired back soon, as the system of federal transfers California and big American cities use to pay for migrant housing and other needs has fallen into jeopardy under Trump.
Read the rest of this piece at American Mind.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: Jeff Myers via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
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