72 Comments
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Mark A Kruger's avatar

What is the Dem plan for reducing the number of illegal/undocumented immigrants that are present in the population? This is what people want — fewer undocumented immigrants present in the overall population. What’s the plan for that? Even if it is to increase amnesty or documentation that would be a plan. Just leaving them here “as is” is NOT a plan. it’s a tacit admission that Biden’s unpopular open borders policy is THE policy they favor. that is political suicide.

Mary Hartman's avatar

Thank you for drawing focus back to what is important; conversations about “a plan”. Removing undocumented people is only one part of this. Among the “undocumented” you have to sort through those who are “in process” and those who are not. You need to deal with the holes that were exploited by both the people and politicians who were using them. The social security numbers duplicated, the voter rolls padded, the welfare fraud, and every other misfire and/or abuse needs to be confronted and rebooted.

Mark A Kruger's avatar

Yes. All true and very complicated. all of a piece. It can be a complicated plan to be sure but the emphasis must be on reducing the overall number of undocumented by N Percent (whatever number is effective electorally). The American citizenry believe there are too many undocumented and it is uncontrolled and chaotic - they aren’t wrong. The Biden administration did this and a backlash was entirely predictable.

I am not making a moral case. I think we’ve seen how ineffective such a case is in politics now that it is beat to death on every single ideological soap box. I am saying if the Ds want to succeed they need to align their policy with the American public. It can be humane, orderly, include a path to documentation or whatever - but they have to persuade people and get them on board.

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

The Democratic party gave up on actual persuasion at least a decade ago. Since then they've been full steam ahead on bringing in illegals to vote for them instead.

Mark A Kruger's avatar

I want to say this is hyperbolic, but evidence seems to favor your position. 🙄

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

It almost always does:). That's the benefit of using facts, logic, and reason instead of being controlled by one's emotions.

Azalea lady's avatar

There are other aspects to illegal immigration besides crime. A nationwide safety crackdown on truckers last month took 700 truckers off the road. Of those 500 were not proficient in English. I don't know how many of those might have been here illegally; however, some of the horrendous crashes have involved drivers who were here illegally.

Jackson74's avatar

14% had a violent crime, 60% were accused or convicted of a crime. Non-violent crime includes some bad stuff like child pornography and human trafficking as well as drugs if Fox is correct…

https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-administration-pushes-back-cbs-claim-very-few-arrested-illegal-aliens-have-violent-criminal-records

Liberal, not Leftist's avatar

I agree with your premise, Batya. It’s been so long since we enforced a border that people think it's right-wing but it's just constitutional. If we actually had a center-left coalition to debate we could refine strategies but we don't because that whole contingent moved into the progressive arc. They've been busy telling us what to think.

Mike Homol's avatar

I’m so tired of everything being a disengenuous discussion from the onset. Ignore the damage of the last four years. Ignore the plethora of reasons that kind and decent people have decided that enough is enough and it’s time for us all to play by the same rules. Everyone’s motives get to be assumed to skipped over entirely just so we can be finger wagged at by our moralists of society who somehow simultaneously hate our American culture (or say there shouldn’t be one) but also want everyone to be able to stay in this virtual hellhole. Naturally they have never done anything wrong and the plebs are always to blame

Stephen Ungar's avatar

The Democrats like to talk about “our democracy,” but have no problem sending their shock troops into the streets in Minneapolis to thwart deportations that the American people voted for and, as the article points out, overwhelmingly support. For the Democrats and the left means getting what we want, regardless of what the American people support.

JK P's avatar

Don’t know improv - but what idiot can’t look at the tea leaves and not recognize the # illegals entering US in Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump years and not the deltas aren’t even close to the same. And don’t hide behind wordsmithing about existing immigration laws. Of course those on the books need to be redone. But gatekeeping is just that. The Dems made a concerted illegal entry stampede - letting Joe be the useful idiot - in an attempt to bolster voter rolls. Nothing completed here except chicanery. Dems are evil.

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

A biased idiot who tells lies.

BookWench's avatar

I voted for mass deportations, and I don’t care what percentage of those being nabbed have actually been convicted of “violent crimes.” Identity theft and distribution of child pornography are bad enough, but the fact is, the very presence of illegal aliens suppresses wages, increases housing costs, and affects our access to health care.

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

All true, and proof that the Democratic party is NOT on the side of the "little guy"; if they were, they'd jump at the chance to deport illegals, as the resulting lack of unskilled labor supply would increase demand and cause wages to rise.

Stephen Schrader's avatar

Batya driving nails. Again!!!

DemonHunter's avatar

56,000 violent illegal alien criminals arrested seems like a good start for his first year.

JR Man's avatar

I only want people here illegally to be deported. As in all of them.

Julie Spike's avatar

Further evidence that Democrats don’t care about our “Democracy.” They refuse to do what the voters want. The voters have spoken. They just don’t like the message given to them. It is all about maintaining their position of power.

Dave Vierthaler's avatar

Thank you for writing what so many of us believe.

Jill's avatar

Which voters are "getting what they voted for"? Certainly not the ones in Minneapolis. Why not send these ICE thugs to red cities like Houston instead, since that's what tHeY vOteD 4?

Tricia's avatar

Democrats never met a criminal they didn’t love. Minnesota does not get to make its own rules regarding immigration. ICE is federal, as are immigration laws set forth by Congress. Agitators do not get to impede ICE (again, federal) with no consequences. It is unfortunate that two trained agitators lost their lives, but thems the breaks. And before you get all upset and ask, no, I don’t care.

Stephen Schrader's avatar

Me neither. Thems are the breaks.

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

The voters who won the election are getting what they voted for. Haven't you heard? "Elections have consequences"-Barack Obama

ICE is getting sent to red cities. The difference there is that police are COOPERATING with ICE to uphold the Constitution and rabid leftists aren't allowed to assault and obstruct federal law enforcement.

Finally, anyone informed knows that Dems want to keep illegals to gain an undeserved advantage in the census, so removing them from blue states should be the highest priority for deportation.

AzAnt's avatar

Minneapolis is getting EXACTLY what they voted for - leaders who turn a blind eye to massive fraud and have turned their city into one massive cult.

As far as ICE in other cities, they've been performing operations to remove criminals, you just won't hear about it on CNN or MSNBC.

BookWench's avatar

We won.

Get over it.

The fact is, ICE is operating in red cities. It’s just that local police or sheriff’s deputies are aiding in crowd control, and providing ICE access to jails & prisons, so there is much less drama. As Homan has repeatedly pointed out, this access eliminates the need for ICE agents to go out into the community in search of specific illegal aliens with convictions for pedophilia, rape, or murder. In the process, when ICE agents encounter other illegal aliens, they scoop them up, too.

Oh well.

DemonHunter's avatar

Spot on. Cooperate with ICE and allow them to pick up illegals being released from jail or on bail and contact between ICE and citizens is radically reduced. And is a lot safer.

DemonHunter's avatar

Sanctuary cities tend to have more illegals.

Houston is not a sanctuary city.

Texas has acted independently to stop the flow of illegals. Minnesota has invited them.

Biden even sued Texas because of our success in capturing illegals.

Liberals like you support breaking the law (defending illegals and opposing legal efforts to arrest and deport them) and deny the reality that borders are more than lines on a map. That’s a nice world but reality presents a bit more harshly.

Dave Vierthaler's avatar

I’m from Mpls and it is what I voted for a long with a lot of people I know. The media is not telling you the full story.

Improv's avatar

I think it's always a mistake, no matter who does it, to inject meaning into the results of an election and use that as an excuse for things. People vote how they vote for a number of reasons, and while the end result is someone gets elected and gets a lot of power (ideally exercised with the normal restraint, respect for process and rule of law, decency, and such that we expect of government - something Trump's admin has failed at abysmally), that's not an infinite mandate. A president is not a dictator, nor are they the governor of every state, the chancellor of every university, the curator of every museum, and so on. Our system does not work with excessive centralisation of power, and the use of reserve power should raise eyebrows. Breach enough norms, and the system of pluralism, division of power, and our laws and norms fall by the wayside and we stop looking like the US.

It's good that at least some of the media still is doing their job, despite Trump's elevation of friendly podcasters, installation of a censor to lead CBS, and some other outlets bending to his whims. But it's unclear if the country will be entirely broken by Trump's movement and admin. Things are not looking good.

Kennedy's avatar

Do you subscribe here solely in order to troll? Bari Weiss is not a “censor” she is a center left liberal who has been successful in sometimes showing there are two sides to every story, unlike the Pravda mainstream media that you are so used to parroting your beliefs day in and day out. Did Biden have a mandate to open the floodgates and allow anyone and everyone including many criminals in? No, but it certainly didn’t stop him from doing it, and this is the result like it or not. Like it or not, this is what many people voted for and we are happy about it. Even if it’s one criminal among one million, it’s worth it. Borders and the rule of law need to mean something.

Improv's avatar

No, and I'm not trolling. I met Batya many years ago where she was part of an in-person debate in NYC.

You have several factual errors in your post:

* Weiss is not center-left, nor a liberal in either sense of the term

* Biden did not open the floodgates for immigration; there were not significant policy shifts on that topic for many decades over many presidents of both parties, because the legislature never managed to agree on how to deal with the issue.

* And no, some people voted for Trump because of this issue, some voted for Trump because of other issues, and you can't sum up someone being elected that way. If Obama had used executive orders to thread together some kind of single-payer, saying that people elected him to deal with single-payer, it would've been just as illegitimate because people vote for presidents for many reasons and presidents are not dictators. If you're happy with fascism, that's on you. You can't pretend to speak for the whole country. I agree that borders need to mean something, and I agree that rule of law needs to mean something (Trump doesn't seem to respect rule of law)

* Calling mainstream media "Pravda" is an unhinged thing to say

Kennedy's avatar

I’m pretty sure Bari would disagree with you. You, like most modern day Dems, believe your viewpoint is the only one who matters. You can call her whatever you like, but know that truth matters. It’s the entire reason she started the Free Press, which is not by any means a right wing publication. When you’re used to seeing your viewpoint reflected in all of the mainstream, you become intolerant to any little detail that diverges from the approved narrative. You clearly have no concept of how illiberal the modern day Dems have become and why so many former liberals like myself have and will continue to leave your party. And don’t say Biden didn’t open the floodgates when there was an unprecedented number of illegal crossings during his presidency. Again, truth and facts matter. And you don’t have them on your side.

Improv's avatar

I don't see why you think I'm a Democrat, or why you think I think only my viewpoint matters. You've worked yourself up into dreaming you're arguing with a very particular person that's not actually me, dreaming details into existence that don't fit the fact.

Biden did not in fact open the floodgates. The statistics don't back your assertion there, nor are there specific policies you can point to - his policies were not that different from the presidents of both parties before him.

An independent observer's avatar

In response to your claim that Biden did not open the floodgates and had no significant policy changes from prior administrations - a few facts:

1) he reversed Trump-era policy “reman in Mexico”

2)during presidential campaign he used rhetorics that everyone fleeing oppression should “surge to the border”. It directly lead to a surge

3)CBPone app allowed people making quick asylum appointments. Hundreds of thousands did that.

While Biden did not issue an official open-door invite, his rhetoric and policies led to the highest surge of illegal entries. 20 million of immigrants is probably an inaccurate number and includes encounters at the border - people sent back and not only those who entered the US. But even a conservative number of 11-13 million of undocumented immigrants is a lot. Telling us there was nothing to see and everything was normal is like telling us not to believe our own eyes.

Improv's avatar

1) That policy had no legal basis; reversing it was appropriate

2) Source?

3) Sure. As they should. Asylum is a legal part of our immigration system, by law and by treaty.

Biden also deported a lot of people (more than Reagan, and similar to BushJr!), and because his deportations were focused on criminals, it actually presumably did a lot more good than this reckless behaviour by ICE.

Illegal immigration is something both parties have only occasionally seen as a major issue. A lot of people, myself included, don't care much about it. I don't want it legitimised (and oppose driver's licenses and other legal-ish identity for people not legally here), but I don't see removal as a priority. This idea that Biden had an open-door policy is a myth.

Kennedy's avatar

I don’t care what party you subscribe to, but the facts are that only a far left progressive would call Bari a censor rather than a centrist. You’re being deliberately obtuse. 10 million or more illegal immigrants entered the country under Biden. So yes, it was his lack of policy that encouraged it.

Improv's avatar

If you don't care, then maybe don't assert it. I'm also not a far-left progressive. And again, Biden's policies were not markedly different from other recent presidents of both parties, and this is a matter that should be tackled by the Legislature, not by Presidents deciding on policy by fiat. The problem is that the Legislature couldn't agree on ideal policies, with both parties obstructing efforts at a new legal norm at various times. Your blame is misplaced.

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

Because you post as though deranged by Trump, such as with the hysterical lie that he is a "fascist", and almost all such people are Democrats.

Lying, as I showed above. Biden ended every Executive Order Trump had passed to secure the border AND ended the "Remain in Mexico" policy. Facts matter, though not, I suppose, to someone who calls his fellow Americans "fascist".

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

False. Trump has the border secured. When Biden came into office, he cancelled every Executive Order Trump had passed regarding the border AND ended the "Remain in Mexico" policy.

No, Presidents aren't dictators, which is why Trump has obeyed the Supreme Court rulings. Nonetheless, haven't you heard that elections have consequences?

Fascism; what hysterical falsehood. If that were the case, we wouldn't have any leftists left in Congress.

That's an obvious lie, as proven by Trump's adhering to Supreme Court decisions which go against him.

Lastly, no, calling mainstream media "Pravda" is a fair insult, given the massive leftward bias.

Improv's avatar

Many of those executive orders were illegal; ending them was appropriate. They would need a change in the laws to be compliant; I am aware that elections have consequences, but they don't give a President the ability to ignore laws, violate longstanding principles (like due process), murder people out on the oceans, set up concentration camps or send people to foreign gulags, or the many other beyond-the-pale things this admin has done.

It is deranged to call mainstream media Pravda. They're not perfect, but even in this late era when they're under assault by this presidency, where any unfriendly coverage leads Trump to call for journalists to be fired or licenses yanked, they're the best the country has for journalism.

Adam C. Mitchell's avatar

Citation needed! Which of Trump's first term Executive Orders regarding border security were "illegal"? Court ruling them illegal? News source?

Lying that Trump has "ignored laws" and military strikes in national defense are not "murder".

Deliberately invoking the Nazi imagery, I see, which would be justified only if we were exterminating illegal immigrants. Given we're humanely deporting them, it's insane terminology. Please tell me what solution you would use rather than camps until deportation is achieved, since we cannot pick them up and deport them in the same day?

No, they are Pravda, for they are irredeemably far left, as proven by a decade of lying about Trump is the Austrian painter in the hopes of getting him assassinated. 90%+ of the news stories about Trump in the last ten years aren't negative because he's uniquely horrible; they're negative because leftist journalists despised him and threw objectivity in the trash can when he was first elected President. Yellow journalism was more honest and less biased.

Improv's avatar

Murdering common people out on boats in the Atlantic or Pacific is not in national defense. They posed no military threat of any kind, and the admin admitted it probably couldn't convict them in a court of law. This is just plain murder.

Stuffing people into deliberately cruel camps in Florida and showing off how cruel it is, and doing the same thing with gulags in El Salvador, this is not at all humane. Not giving people a day in court to contest these things and making it hard for courts to retrieve them is not a just system.

And no, most of the news stories are bad about Trump because he is in fact uniquely horrible. Presidents of both parties going way back have generally been decent human beings trying to do the right thing. Not Trump - not at all. You won't find any prior president saying we should suspend the Constitution over him losing an election, looking for ways to seek an unconstitutional third term, openly conducting ops in Mexico, courting separatists in Canada, threatening to invade Denmark, siding with Russia in foreign affairs while it invades a sovereign country twice, sending military forces into US cities to quell vague ideas of crime that are not really there, and endless other abuses. No, Trump really is that bad, and it's deranged to still pretend he's at all normal.

DemonHunter's avatar

“Many of those executive orders were illegal; ending them was appropriate.”

Which ones? Go look at the SCOTUS decision roster and see how many you find. Then, demonstrate how Trump ignored them. Good luck.

I’ll even help you out. Here’s a list of every case decided by SCOTUS from Nov. ‘24 to June ‘25.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/24 (67 cases with links to the opinions)

The media under assault? That was Obama, during whose administration I’m thinking you were likely a toddler, who subpoenaed journalists and their notes. Not Trump.

Good lord, your comments are indicative of magical thinking. You are also quite unfamiliar with the authority that comes with the office. Just stop. Each post you reveal how much you rely on propaganda and how little you are familiar with facts. Educate yourself. Start with those cases decided in ‘25 so you know what happened.

DemonHunter's avatar

Wow. 🤦‍♂️

“If Obama had used executive orders…” lol - “I have a pen and a phone” that I can use to disregard Congress. Trump has used EOs for policy, not legislation. So your analogy is not analogous.

“If you're happy with fascism, that's on you.”

This is grade school logic. Disagree and then speak for your opponent by telling them what they think. You do not get to limit the options of your opponent’s opinions or responses much less dictate them to him or her. Don’t do this. Smart people see through it and immediately downgrade your credibility. But you will because Trump Trumpity Trump Trump Trump, Trump!

“I agree that rule of law needs to mean something (Trump doesn't seem to respect rule of law)”

This is just bullshit. Trump goes to court to litigate disputes. He is in compliance with every fully litigated issue he’s faced so far. You probably are unaware of this and want to reject it out of hand based not on facts but based on your bias and lack of curiosity.

see: https://www.law360.com/articles/2362197/us-supreme-court-term-in-review-what-you-need-to-know

Basically, it says, Trumps wins a lot at SCOTUS but complies when he doesn’t citing an entire term of decisions.

ED's avatar
Feb 11Edited

Biden didn’t open the floodgates of immigration. 😂

DemonHunter's avatar

Bwaahhaahhaaa!

People voted for Trump in huge numbers based on promises to close the border and deport illegals.

So, that’s what he is doing. Thus, the people got what they voted for.

“ it's unclear if the country will be entirely broken by Trump's movement and admin.”

I think you meant, “I’m terrified that our government isn’t being run by anonymous woke actors behind Biden’s chair.”

That’s fair, but closing the border was step 1 in fixing what was broke. Entirely broken, good lord, lol.

AzAnt's avatar

I couldn't give a rats ass of how "disappointed" a news organization might be - just truthfully report whats happening and let your readers/viewers decide what they think. Ive supported Bari Weiss for several years and I expect better than this..

DemonHunter's avatar

You only read the headline didn’t you.