Democrats’ problem on immigration is that they’re talking to themselves. The louder they talk, the righter they think they are. Wrong. The more Democrats talk about immigration, the more isolated they become from the rest of America.
At every opportunity, Democrats feel compelled to voice their priorities for immigration policy. These are effectively open borders, no deportation, and no distinction between those who crossed the border illegally and those who did not. (RELATED: Illegals Posing as Minors Imperil Our Children)
These priorities were the ones pursued over the last four years by the Biden administration, which opened the southern border, stood down CBP and ICE, and gave a wink and a nod to sanctuary jurisdictions equally derelict in their law enforcement. How well those immigration priorities were received by everyone who was not a Democrat is shown by Biden’s abysmal job approval ratings on immigration and crime. (RELATED: CBO Finds That Taxpayers Footed Massive Costs of Illegal Immigration Under Biden)
According to Real Clear Politics’ final average of his national polls, Biden’s overall approval rating was 40.4 percent approval, 56.1 percent disapproval. Bad as this was, Biden’s rating on crime was markedly worse: 38 percent approval to 59 percent disapproval. And on immigration, it was worse still: 33.5 percent approval to 64.8 percent disapproval.
Somehow, Democrats see this perception of incredible incompetence as something worth drawing attention to.
Upset that President Trump was not going to allow Los Angeles to become the remake of Raging Inferno, Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Alex Padilla chose political self-immolation in search of martyrdom: Newsom filed lawsuits; Padilla filled handcuffs. (RELATED: The Sanctuary State Confederacy)
Newsom and Padilla found cameras and microphones. Yet in their quests to cast themselves as political martyrs, they never got around to arguing that they wanted immigration law enforced. Nor what should take its place. Theater, not detail, is the strong suit of martyrs. (RELATED: Do We Have a Nation?)
Historically, in American politics, there has been incessant fighting between candidates over who will better preserve law and order. Amazingly, Democrats as a party now run against doing so. The issue has become anathema to them. Kamala Harris had been San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general. Yet, she rarely mentioned either in her 2024 campaign, despite these being the bulk of an otherwise thin resume.
Perhaps Harris’s omission was due to the crime San Francisco is now known for. Perhaps it was because under her watch, California passed the soft-on-crime law that triggered the state’s crime, drug, and homelessness problems of the last decade. Yet, undoubtedly, the biggest reason is that Democrats have become opposed to enforcing the law, instead proposing defunding the police and abolishing ICE. (RELATED: The Two Americas)
Harris knew her base. That same base is where the No Kings rallies took place this weekend. It is the same base that will continue protesting ICE enforcing immigration law.
For all the hype that the establishment media is trying to create about such rallies and protests growing across the country, it is worth noting where these are taking place — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Spokane, and other deep blue bastions. The people who attend will be outside agitators, leftist activists, and the far-left Democrats. The same places, the same people from earlier DOGE protests.
Democrats are insular. Comfortable only on their island, they refuse to leave. They speak only to themselves. And the language they speak on immigration is that of lawlessness.
Lawlessness is the common denominator of Democrats’ position on immigration. They want no law on the border. They want no law in their sanctuary jurisdictions. They want no law for those here illegally who break additional laws. And they want no law when they riot over their demands for immigration lawlessness. The denial of law runs from first to last, and through points in between, of Democrats’ immigration policies.
No wonder, then, that their protests descend so quickly into anarchic lawlessness. No wonder that outside agitators show up to organize these protests. No wonder that so many of those who attend these protests come with lawlessness in mind. It is the very heart and soul of Democrats’ immigration policy.
In their isolation, Democrats believe the rest of the world sees things as they do. Others do not. What they see is the lawlessness that Democrats have to offer, and that they do not want to live under it. Democrats only speak to themselves and for themselves on immigration. And, increasingly, only by themselves.
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READ MORE from J.T. Young:
Reduce Spending and Reduce Illegal Immigration
Democrats’ Real Problem with Populism
The Left, Radical Left, and Democrats: Three Peas, One Pod
J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing, and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of the Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.
