Now that Donald Trump has won a decisive election victory, there will be great attention to how his second term will differ from his first. On the issue of immigration, one of the centerpieces of his campaign, it should be the same, only better.
Despite all his opponents’ hysteria about how Trump is going to dump illegal aliens into gulags before shipping them out of the country on cattle cars, we are likely to see the most sensible and proactive immigration policies of our lifetimes. If those policies seem aggressive, it is only because the damage inflicted by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has been so severe that the situation desperately requires it.
The tactics used in the first Trump administration’s immigration policies were right for the time, but a lot has changed in the last four years. More than 10 million illegal aliens have been allowed into the country. Our cities are under siege from violent transnational gang members who came here posing as asylum seekers. The southern border as it exists today is mostly just a line on a map. Our finite resources are being expended to deal with the rush of migrants instead of the needs of citizens and legal residents.
To deal with this unprecedented challenge, look for the second Trump presidency to focus on a number of key areas when it comes to immigration policy, including:
Build the wall, secure the border. When the bathtub is overflowing and the house is flooding, the first step is to turn off the water. Trump built over 500 miles of a border security system, but left office before the job was finished. The absentee landlords who succeeded him let the already-purchased wall materials rust in the desert sun. Finishing the border barrier is a vital step in regaining border security.
Another no-brainer is re-establishing the Remain-in-Mexico policy. It was a game-changer last time in terms of reducing the crush of aliens in detention facilities and deterring those south of the border from attempting the dangerous journey. Biden foolishly rescinded Trump’s Remain-in-Mexico policy on his inauguration day, and the results speak for themselves. Bringing it back will go a long way to curbing the lawlessness in south Texas and Arizona.
Enhanced interior enforcement. Of all the nonsensical Biden-Harris immigration policies, few make less sense than catch-and-release. Illegal aliens apprehended in the U.S. interior are simply given a court date months or years in the future and allowed to live here in the interim. Far from a deterrence, this has been an incentive for countless others to break into America. Detention and ultimately deportation is the only response to such flagrant violation of our laws.
The corporate media tried to generate panic in the country with sensational coverage of plans for mass deportation, a remedy Trump and his surrogates have mentioned frequently during the campaign. Yet if we have suffered the greatest illegal mass incursion into the country, the only appropriate response should be mass deportation.
As Tom Homan, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director, Immigration Reform Law Institute senior fellow and likely key player in the second Trump White House said in a recent 60 Minutes interview, such actions would not be mass roundups but targeted enforcement operations with violent criminal aliens and suspected terrorists as the primary targets. After a period of consistent, humane deportations, word will quickly spread around the world that attempting to enter the U.S. illegally is a fool’s errand and not worth the effort.
The end of sanctuary cities. As President-elect Trump said many times on the campaign stump, sanctuary cities need to go. The policy of jurisdictions openly defying federal immigration laws has resulted in unacceptable levels of crime, overcrowding, and squalor, all while bankrupting cities with the monstrous costs associated with housing, feeding, and caring for so many new arrivals. Such policies which harbor aliens from deportation also serve as a powerful magnet that attracts even more newcomers. While delusional sanctuary mayors and city councils pushed back on Trump’s previous efforts to curb their insubordination, look for Trump’s team to use all the force of the executive branch to save these cities from themselves.
These are just some of the many actions that will be required to undo the damage of the last four years. Others moves include cracking down on employers who hire illegals, preventing noncitizens from voting in federal elections and overhauling the H1-B visa program that allows foreign nationals to take jobs from U.S. citizens.
No one should believe that these actions will be implemented without opposition. The anti-borders movement is impervious to the charge that they are driving the country into an existential crisis with their twisted agenda, and it will fight Trump vociferously every step of the way with lawsuits, investigations, and media manipulation. We should expect to have to fight back.
The good news is that, after four years of being treated like neglected children by our government, Americans will finally be getting leadership that prioritizes them and not foreign nationals. Buckle up, fellow Americans. Help is on the way.
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