“President Donald Trump was returned to the White House this year largely on the strength of one issue: immigration. Trump’s narrative of a nation being overrun by violent migrant criminals was never real, but the Biden administration’s failure to prioritize border control was.
“It’s safe to say a great many Americans who don’t necessarily support Trump on other issues were hoping and expecting him to finally start enforcing America’s immigration laws.
“What they’ve gotten instead is a counterproductive and often lawless approach to immigration enforcement, one that weaponizes the issue for the sake of partisan politics, with a foundation of abject cruelty that every American should be ashamed of.
“Consider Trump’s core campaign promise — to rid America of undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes. . . .
“Why the urgency to round up these particular immigrants? Simple: Trump has vowed ‘the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,’ but there aren’t that many immigrants here who commit violent crimes; statistically, they are less likely to than are native-born Americans. Snatching up the law-abiding ones by taking advantage of their willingness to follow the process of getting citizenship is an easy way to goose up those deportation numbers.
“Does that make anyone reading this feel safer? Or feel proud to be an American? . . . Other migrants have been shipped to foreign prisons with no due process, even in violation of court orders. So much for the trope that Trump is just ‘enforcing the law.’
“Trump has hardly bothered denying the partisan aspect of all this, targeting Los Angeles for his chilling and likely illegal deployment of U.S. troops against the wishes of California’s governor and directing his immigration forces to target other Democratic-controlled cities such as Chicago and New York. . . .
“This administration’s approach to immigration is lots of things — arbitrary, capricious, cruel — but no one should mistake it for just ‘enforcing the law.” — Trump Not Just ‘Enforcing’ immigration law — He’s Weaponizing It, Editorial Board, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 6/24/25 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Donald Trump didn’t promise just to deport violent illegal aliens, he promised to deport all of them, with priority given to the violent ones. Contrary to what this editorial suggests, there is no such thing as a “law-abiding” illegal alien. Someone who breaks our immigration laws, by definition, is not law abiding. And it’s not just immigration laws that illegal aliens break. To remain in the United States, they violate other laws too, and these crimes aren’t victimless. Americans pay a price for the presence of all illegals.
The editorial repeats the claim often made by the media that illegals commit fewer violent crimes than native-born Americans. This claim is questionable, as it is based on a faulty analysis of available data. In any case, even one violent alien is one too many.
Effectively enforcing our immigration laws will be a challenge after lax enforcement for so long. In meeting this challenge, it’s inevitable that the Trump Administration will make some mistakes and that there will be disputes over interpretation of laws involving deportation. So far, however, no real evidence suggests that the administration’s enforcement campaign is “arbitrary, capricious, [and] cruel.” One wonders if those making such charges would be comfortable with any kind of enforcement at all.
The leaders of sanctuary cities like Los Angeles and Chicago appear to have this mindset. Their indifference to the rule of law made them appropriate targets for the administration’s enforcement efforts. It is partisan only to the extent that Democratic officials see their party’s interests as reason to shield illegal aliens.
As illegal alien advocates throw up every barrier possible to enforcement, many people would like to know what it is about the word illegal that they don’t understand.