First, give Donald Trump some credit. He promised to restore order to the border, and he did. Granted, the slowdown in irregular border-crossings began under Joe Biden, who belatedly closed the loophole whereby nearly anyone could walk across, claim asylum and join the labour market. Mr Trump clamped down even harder. The southern frontier, which was visibly chaotic in the early Biden years, is now calm.
That success could have been the foundation on which to build a rational immigration policy. Voters like to feel in control of who comes in, which is why Mr Trump’s border wall has reassured many. Once they think the government has a grip, there is political space to discuss the rules of entry and exit.
De redactie van NRC selecteert de beste artikelen uit The Economist voor een breder perspectief op internationale politiek en economie.
Two questions must be addressed. What should the government do about the people who are already on American soil illegally? And whom should America welcome in the future? Mr Trump has offered a brutal answer to the first question, and a self-harming one to the second.
He has promised the „largest deportation operation in the history of our country”. One of his enforcers said he wanted to deport 100m people, roughly seven times the number of illicit migrants in America. The White House boasted it was rounding up „the worst of the worst”, though most of those detained have never been convicted of a crime. The mass deployment of shoddily trained, theatrically aggressive immigration agents to Minneapolis caused a political backlash, after they were filmed killing two American protesters.
