The Democratic Party’s tactic in the immigration debate has become familiar, and it's one the party uses in nearly every other issue area. Just call all opponents racist, brand all opposing arguments racist, and even declare any inconvenient vocabulary racist.
This effort to disqualify opposing arguments, a relic of the Obama era that has badly atrophied Democrats’ capacity for argumentation and imagination for new ideas, is not only cynical but also undemocratic. Immigration is a serious issue, and it should be discussed openly and decided by democratic institutions.
America’s immigration policy has long been the world’s most generous, even without counting the large number of illegal immigrants who have come here and not been deported. But no country is obliged to take anyone and everyone who wants to enter.
Free people have a right to determine, through democratic processes, who can enter and live in their country, and to do so based on their own interests. Despite what Democrats tell you, the public agrees with President Trump in this particular and on immigration in broad terms, even if not in all particulars.
More than 70 percent of Americans who watched Trump’s State of the Union speech Tuesday said they favored the basic immigration proposals that the president laid out. These are, first, a path to citizenship for those covered by former President Barack Obama’s policy for "Dreamers," illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children; second, funding for border security, including a wall; third, reforming the pathways by which immigrants lawfully enter the U.S.
Get the Exclusive
01.23.2025