When it comes to immigration, why must the United States swing from one extreme to the other?
Recent reporting by The New York Times revealed just how out of touch the Biden White House was regarding the southern border. The record-breaking number of border crossings during the Biden years had been foretold by the president's aides before he took office in 2021.
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They predicted that President Joe Biden's lax stance toward illegal immigration could turn the border into "chaos," and that is exactly what happened. But even as border officials struggled to manage the flow of newcomers and asylum-seekers who overwhelmed border towns and later major cities, Democrats resisted calling it a crisis. They blasted Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star -- an initiative to reinforce the border with state troopers and National Guard members in the absence of federal leadership.
This is history worth revisiting because of the moment we find ourselves in. Biden's misreading of the border soured the American public against Democrats and helped return Donald Trump to the White House. Trump was elected in part to bring order to the border. He's succeeded there, but he's gone far afield of where most Americans are on immigration.
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The question, now, is whether Republicans will learn from Democrats' mistakes. According to the Times' reporting, Biden and his aides hesitated to crack down on the border for fear of alienating Latinos, as if that demographic group were a monolith. Many Latinos in border states like Texas flocked to the Trump ticket in 2024.
Now Trump is risking that Republican breakthrough. In fact, most Americans reject Trump's immigration policies. About 60% of U.S. adults said in December that they disapproved of Trump's handling of immigration, compared to half of them in March, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll.
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That's no surprise. Americans wanted a president who would stem illegal border crossings. Trump's crackdown goes far beyond that, deploying federal agents to detain people based on their looks and aggressively targeting even immigrants without criminal records. Americans are tired of news stories about seemingly arbitrary detentions, families pulled apart, beloved community members deported and children tear-gassed or pepper-sprayed during immigration raids.
As we said repeatedly during the Biden years, Democrats overlooked Americans' frustration with illegal immigration at their own peril. But Trump's thoughtless immigration sweeps are not what Americans want either.
The American Middle supports responsible border management and the humane treatment of immigrants. We're a country capable of both, despite what the Biden and Trump administrations would have us believe.
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