A couple decades ago, I was talking with a Washington, D.C., journalist friend of mine who had written a cover story about the nation’s immigration system for a major political magazine. The system, then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), had dual and dueling tasks: Keep immigrants from coming into the country, and welcome immigrants into the country. That matched up with Americans’ attitudes toward immigration: They generally welcomed immigration, but they didn’t want too much of it. As a result, public policy tended to swing between increasing then decreasing the amount of immigrants allowed in, as well as periods of leniency and then strictness regarding illegal immigration. Basically, my friend said, “You know how messed-up the DMV or IRS are thought to be? The INS is much worse.” And it’s Americans’ own fault.
Immigration has been Donald Trump’s prime target from that day he descended the escalator at Trump Tower in front of an audience of onlookers paid $50 each to create a crowd. But he no longer needs to buy an audience for his nativist campaigns; the mood of the country is largely behind him.
We’re already seeing a bit of the clown-show results you get when you staff your administration with zealots instead of competent professionals. According to the Politico Illinois Playbook, Trump’s border czar and Project 2025 contributor Tom Homan explained that deportation raids hadn’t started yet in Chicago as had been promised. Why they were widely expected is the fun part. Says Politico: Homan claimed “officials have pivoted because information was leaked about raids starting this week. Homan had announced last month during a Chicago visit that he would start deportations here when Trump took office.” So the “leaker” was Homan talking publicly about Trump’s plans.
Many Democratic governors and mayors have gone all-in on announcing their opposition to the raids and the deportations. The problem is, the people who elected them and pay their salaries aren’t necessarily behind them.
Chicago’s progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson, whose approval rating has been at — I kid you not — 14 percent, told MSNBC the city has “reaffirmed our commitment to ensure that undocumented individuals will have the full protection” of Chicago’s sanctuary city ordinance. A measure in the city council to weaken the ordinance failed, but it’s significant that an effort was even made. Recent polling shows that huge majorities across the political spectrum think local police should cooperate with ICE on some or all deportation cases.
California’s leaders have agreed to set aside $50 million to cover legal costs of fighting Donald Trump. Expected fights include more than just mass deportations, but the plans do have $25 million “for local efforts that provide legal aid services related to immigration defense,” reports Cal Matters.
Democrats, the call is coming from inside your house.
According to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, there are huge bipartisan majorities for deporting illegal immigrants guilty of violent crimes. According to the poll, 89 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of Democrats want illegal immigrants deported if they’ve been convicted of a violent crime; for legal immigrants convicted of violent crimes, 81 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of Democrats want them gone. But only 61 percent of Republicans want all illegal immigrants removed even if they have not been convicted of a crime; only 19 percent of Democrats want that.
That would suggest that Democrats would be wise to moderate their stance and instead of going to the wall to oppose deporting anyone here illegally, they actually support removal of those convicted of violent crimes.
The AP quotes Manuel Morales of Moline, Ill., who says “I want to see more people coming here legally …. But at the same time, I’m against all these caravans coming [to the border], with thousands and thousands of people at one time.” Who is Morales? He’s “a 60-year-old Democrat” who “first came to America by crossing the border illegally from Mexico nearly 40 years ago.”
Latino man. Democrat. Was illegal immigrant. Strongly opposes illegal immigration.
Democrats, the call is coming from inside your house.
Birthright mess
An easier target for Democrats and many Republicans is President Trump’s executive order scrapping birthright citizenship. In a press release, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statement that was shorter than the title of the press release. Newsom said, “This is unconstitutional.”
Because it is. It’s actually crazy to think that the Supreme Court, even this Supreme Court, will allow a president to simply do away with constitutional provisions and amendments as he sees fit. If they allow this, can a future Democrat repeal the Second Amendment? It’s as silly as President Biden declaring the Equal Rights Amendment to be law of the land, or Donald Trump saying he could retroactively declassify documents in his mind.
Whether birthright citizenship is good or bad isn’t even the point. There are about 30 countries that have it and function just fine; and there are many countries that don’t have it and also function well. The point is that Trump is riding high as he begins the first year of his second term. He has basically one year to get stuff he wants done. Soon attention turns to the midterms, and if he loses the House in 2026, it’s a whole new ballgame.
Trump is partially in tune with Americans on illegal immigration; he’s quite off-key on immigration generally. And he’s inventing weird new music with his birthright citizenship crusade. He can’t have it all. Even in America 2025, he’s not king. Meanwhile, the Democrats are also partially in-tune and partially not; which fights they choose to fight — and which other concerns that are more popular with voters that they choose to ignore — will say a lot about how they fare for the next four years.
So expect a lot of fast moves, hysterical reactions on both sides, and enough legal drama to rapidly drain California’s $50 million legal war chest.
