Trump’s immigration policy is a disaster for Republicans. Just ask Karl Rove.
On Jan. 17 on Fox News, Karl Rove, the Republican operative and former President George W. Bush’s adviser, said the quiet part out loud: Trump’s support among Hispanic and independent voters is cratering because it is now glaringly obvious that his immigration policy is going after the wrong people.
As Rove explains, most Americans are “forgiving” toward those whose only offense is that they entered this country without permission. So long as they (as he so quaintly puts it) “kept their noses clean” and (otherwise) played by the rules, the American people are “more forgiving” toward them. That is the exact opposite of what the Trump administration is doing.
Instead of going against the “worst of the worst” — which we all support — this administration is going after the very people that the American people most want to “forgive.”
Rove wants to have his cake and eat it too, by giving Trump “credit” for securing the border without any new laws. That is, of course, because he is the first president to approach this problem by breaking just about every law in the book.
And because the cruelty of Trump’s policy is the very reason fewer are trying to sneak in. (Shoot, I could have told you that turning America into a police state, and showing desperate people thinking about sneaking in to the country that they might instead be shipped off to prisons in distant lands, would deter people from coming here).
Trump showed greater restraint on immigration during his first term
In his first term, Trump got a lot of “results” (in terms of deterring illegal entry) by terrorizing a relatively discreet and small population of people: families trying to sneak in to America together.
They were separated at the border, perhaps never to be reunited. That “worked,” if you want to call it that, but at a cost — to our sense of who we are, and to our national honor — that each person must reckon for himself.
Likewise, at the beginning of this term, the spectacle of people who had long ago entered the country without permission but had otherwise led exemplary lives being shipped off to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador also had some “positive” impact on attempts to enter the country without permission. At an even greater cost to our national honor.
The trouble for Trump supporters, politically speaking, is that Trump’s enablers don’t know how to quit when they’re ahead. Because hundreds of thousands of people who have been deported, with a goal of millions more people to be deported — who have “kept their noses clean” — is not what the American people want.
Brutal ICE enforcement is turning Americans against Trump policies
Let’s face it: There’s been a long political stalemate on the illegal immigration issue since the last time this country adopted a comprehensive immigration reform law that was both humane and fair. Under President Ronald Reagan, a pathway to legal status was given to those who had entered the country illegally, but who had thereafter worked hard and played by the rules. Also, new resources were devoted to securing the border.
That was a policy that was supported by President Reagan, a bipartisan Congress and a majority of the American people.
And, as it happens, that is the policy that a majority of Americans support today.
In fairness to Trump, such a policy was not supported by most Republicans before the brutality of his policy had burned itself into the minds of the American people, but enough believe it now. Thanks to Trump. Take progress where you can find it.
What the American people do not support is a policy that is both fundamentally unfair and deliberately brutal. Karl Rove is on to something, and all of us — Democrats and Republicans — would do well to listen. Especially Trumpers.
John Barrow represented Georgia’s District 12 as a Democratic congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2005 to 2015.
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