As President Donald Trump implements his immigration agenda, proponents of lawless border policies are finding it tough to mount a coherent opposition.
Last year, the anti-borders activists saw their movement firmly rejected by the American public as Trump was overwhelmingly re-elected on a promise to restore American sovereignty, law, and order. Since the president’s inauguration, he has done exactly what the American people awarded him a mandate to do, driving illegal border crossings to historic lows and effectively ending the border crisis that has plagued this nation for the past four years. Anti-borders activists remained largely mum on the administration’s successful efforts to secure the border, perhaps understanding that advocating for more illegal crossings would be an untenable political position.
Last year, activists and politicians touted a border bill as the panacea for the illegal immigration crisis, blaming then-candidate Trump for scuttling the bill, and by extension continuing of the crisis. Then, in his first two months in office, with nary a single additional piece of border security legislation, Trump ended the border crisis, exposing the cynicism and fecklessness of those who had sworn a new act of Congress was needed.
Having restored full operational control over the border, the Trump administration is turning much of its focus toward interior enforcement, and anti-borders activists are trying to use this as an opportunity to sour the public on Trump’s immigration policies.
During his successful 2024 campaign, Trump vowed enhanced deportations in order to remove the millions of illegal aliens currently residing in the United States. The president has vowed to target violent criminals and gang members for removal, and that is exactly what he is doing. Most recently, the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in order to remove members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang that has terrorized American cities and communities in recent years.
The administration has reached an agreement with the government of El Salvador to take in these illegal aliens to get around the Venezuelan government’s intransigence. In response, the anti-borders Left has responded with hysterics reminiscent of their approach to Trump’s first term. They have decried a supposed lack of due process for suspected gang members and pointed to edge cases to demand the administration abandon its efforts to remove violent criminals from the country.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has claimed that “democracy is at risk” because of Trump’s deportation policies. Anti-borders think-tank activists and left-wing social-media influencers have attempted to argue that Tren de Aragua gangbangers are not actually terrorists, have decried the effort to remove these violent gang members from the country as “evil,” and have even compared members of the administration to Nazis.
Anti-borders activists displayed similar hysteria during Trump’s first term, to some success, specifically when it came to opposing the president’s travel ban and so-called “family separation” policies. It is unlikely the moral panic strategy will work again for a variety of reasons. Accusations of racism and cruelty simply lack the force they once had given how much the Left has overplayed this card, and Trump’s historic electoral success with Hispanic Americans.
Trump was elected by a coalition of Americans of many different races, religions, and creeds who all simply wanted to see sovereignty and security restored to their country after four years of lawlessness. Illegal aliens are not a race or ethnicity, but a collection of people who have violated our laws and are subject to appropriate enforcement. The American people voted for Trump because they want to see these laws enforced, especially against violent criminals who threaten public safety and national security. In fact, nearly two-thirds of Americans approve of the president’s efforts to deport Venezuelan gang members, according to a recently released poll from Rasmussen.
The main reason these tactics from the anti-borders movement are not working is the American people just experienced the results of what having these activists in power actually looks like, and the accompanying horror and trauma their ideas produce. The lawless policies of the Biden administration led to a record number of Americans dying of fentanyl overdoses, the murder of innocent Americans, and the explosion of sex trafficking of migrant girls at the border. The death and destruction brought about by the previous administration’s immigration policies has given Trump a mandate not just to improve border security, but to reorient the country toward a more America-first immigration policy.
It is possible the administration will make some mistakes in implementation along the way. After all, no administration is perfect. Even if this does happen, however, it is hard to imagine a groundswell of support emerging for a return to the lawless policies of the preceding four years.
This is why the anti-borders movement is so angry right now. They had four years in power to implement their policies and believed the American people would view them as enlightened, compassionate leaders and embrace their desire for open borders and a large-scale amnesty for illegals. Instead, their ideology was firmly rejected and their political project permanently discredited.
The reason the woke, anti-borders Left can’t settle on a strategy to oppose Trump is because they can’t bring themselves to abandon policies that don’t work. So, now all they have left to do is kick and scream, as the president executes his mandate to restore American safety, security, and sovereignty, while hoping he will fail and the American people will somehow come back begging for their leadership. This is a pipe dream, and it is likely that, deep down, even the most militant anti-borders activists understand that, because their worldview is a fundamentally anti-American one.
Americans will never embrace a movement that rejects timeless ideals such as nationhood, borders, and sovereignty. The anti-borders movement was thoroughly defeated at the ballot box, and they will be defeated in their effort to stymie this president’s agenda.
Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.
