Who would have thought that if one talks tough on immigration, suggests tough immigration policy, enacts tough immigration policy, and enforces the law on immigration, illegal immigration goes down
(Washington Times) President Donald Trump’s immigration policies – even those not yet fully in effect – are already a huge success. How do we know? Well, for one thing, The New York Times is crediting Mr. Trump’s policies with having had a swift and significant effect on curbing illegal immigration. And, although we don’t often have cause to say this, in this instance, The NYTimes is absolutely correct.
In a full-length piece in Monday’s print edition, reporter Kirk Semple (note: The WT forgets to cite the article, which is here) makes the persuasive case that President Trump’s get-tough approach to immigration policy has played a significant role in the decrease of illegal immigration into the United States. From the article: “From February through May [of this year], the number of undocumented immigrants stopped or caught along the southwest border of the United States fell 60 percent from the same period last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection – evidence that far fewer migrants are heading north, officials on both sides of the border say.â€
Mr. Semple argues that would-be illegal immigrants are no longer making the trek to the United States because the risk that they will be deported is too great. In other words, the chances that the United States will actually enforce its immigration laws are a far greater probability in the Trump era than in the previous administration’s era of immigration lawlessness.
The NYTimes piece displays two of the paper’s chief defining characteristics – East Coast elitism that is willfully out of touch with Real America, coupled with a patronizing insistence that our nation’s immigration laws are not only un-enforceable, but they are also borderline inhuman. It is precisely this worldview The NYTimes possesses that is so utterly at odds with the worldview of the vast majority Americans. And it is this exact reason that The NYTimes elites were so caught off guard by Mr. Trump’s surprising win.
As far as the win goes, Politico is noting that Trump is winning on immigration after winning the election
Trump Is Winning the Immigration Debate
With his penchant for tweeted insults and GIFs, Donald Trump will never be mistaken for a master of the sweet art of persuasion. Yet he is clearly winning the public argument on the issue of immigration.
He isn’t doing it through sustained, careful attention. He tweeted the other day that the media will eventually have to cover his success at the border, even though he himself has devoted more energy to his war with CNN than promoting the reduction in illegal border crossings.
No, it is the sheer fact of his November victory, and the data showing the importance of the issue of immigration to it, that has begun to shift the intellectual climate.
It had been assumed, even by many Republicans like Sen. John McCain, that opposition to amnesty and higher levels of legal immigration would doom the GOP to minority status forevermore. Trump blew up this conventional wisdom.
Now, intellectuals on the center-left are calling for Democrats to rethink the party’s orthodoxy on immigration, which has become more and more hostile to enforcement and to any skepticism about current high levels of immigration.
One of the reasons Trump is winning the debate is because he doesn’t back down like so many Republicans. He isn’t getting squishy. And, despite Credentialed Media rhetoric, he isn’t absolutist. He has been willing to make accommodations, especially among the recipients of Obama’s deferred action, the DACA. He knows that it all starts with enforcement of the law and in reducing the flow of illegals to the U.S. Instead of using talking points that essentially encourage people to come to the U.S. unlawfully, the rhetoric from Trump and his people is meant to discourage it.
And it’s working. Illegal immigration is way down, while detentions and deportations are going up. People are self-deporting. This is shocking to the illegal aliens supporters, mostly made up of Democrats and a few squishy Republicans. They’ll continue to be shocked.
