The Rule Of Law, Not Resistance To Trump, Should Guide Democrats’ Response To The Immigration Crackdown

The violence in L.A. represents a reckoning on immigration policy brewing for over 30 years

The election of Donald Trump has presented an existential crisis for American democracy, but his immigration enforcement policies are not part of that crisis. In fact, his policies (with some glaring exceptions, like denial of due process and ending birthright citizenship) are in line with democratic norms. It is the progressive resistance to his efforts that has been, and continues to be, contrary to the rule of law, as we are seeing with this week’s violence on the streets of Los Angeles. The long pathway for Democrats to regain majority power in America needs to begin by realigning their approach to this issue with the preferences of most Americans. Doing so requires supporting the bulk of Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts and reserving criticism for the times when he egregiously oversteps his lawful authority.

I’ll start with what is happening in L.A.

There is nothing unlawful or unethical about Trump ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into workplaces populated by undocumented persons and taking them into detention. Peaceful protest of these actions is, of course, permissible (though I think mostly falls on deaf ears throughout most of the country). But once such protests descend into violence, the rule of law requires that order be restored and that those engaging in violence are arrested. Experience instructs us that domestic unrest of this sort is best addressed by local police forces with roots in the community and the training to manage such disturbances. When local law enforcement becomes overwhelmed, it may be appropriate to use National Guard forces to provide additional personnel and equipment to support law enforcement.

So, if I were Governor Newsom, I would take these measures: 1) work with local leaders to try to bring an end to the protests (which started out peacefully, but have become far too violent); 2) call out California National Guard troops to provide support and reinforcement to law enforcement, but instruct the commanders to maintain a low profile; and 3) ignore everything Donald Trump is saying or doing.

Trump’s nationalization of some California troops is a classic Trump maneuver to bait Democrats in charge of California into taking positions that are contrary to majority sentiment. Any criticism of Trump’s actions, even though they are intentionally inflammatory and counter-productive, makes Democrats appear to be aligned with the violence and in favor of continued illegal immigration, digging the political ditch Democrats are in even deeper.

Beyond the problems in L.A., it seems to me that Democrats should stop obstructing Trump’s immigration enforcement activities, as long as they comply with the rule of law. Democrats cannot—on the one hand—criticize the utter lawlessness of the second Trump Administration, while—on the other—block and refuse to cooperate with actions to find and deport undocumented migrants who are in this country illegally.

To understand how Democrats got into this precarious position, it is worth looking back at some history.

Republican anti-immigration activism began in earnest in the post-Reagan era. This sentiment came from the grass-roots—not the George H.W. Bush administration nor later from his son’s. Rather, California’s Republican governor, Pete Wilson, latched onto this grass-roots sentiment to boost his flagging re-election campaign in 1994 by endorsing the anti-immigrant Proposition 187, which had been put on the state ballot by a group of Orange County activists. The tactic worked. Proposition 187 passed with 59% of the vote, and Wilson came from behind in the polls to win by a wide margin. But it was a Pyrrhic victory. Proposition 187 was so unpopular with California’s exploding Latino population that Wilson’s support for it ended his political career and set the stage for Democrats to dominate state politics for the next three decades. From this episode, Democrats absorbed the message that opposing anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies was a winning political strategy. Adopting this strategy led to California becoming the deepest blue state in the nation, helped turn Nevada and Colorado from Republican strongholds into competitive states, and enabled Democrats to win Florida in 3 of 5 presidential elections from 1996-2012 (with a tie in 2000).

Besides opposing measures like Proposition 187, which was designed to punish undocumented people living in the U.S., Democrats also endorsed a lax approach to immigration enforcement. Democrats acknowledged the presence of undocumented migrants in the United States, but argued to voters that kicking them out of the country would be harmful because these migrants were hard-working law-abiding people who contributed to the economy by filling jobs few Americans wanted.

Both Presidents Clinton and Obama realized that while this position aided Democrats in some areas, it was evolving into a political liability for Democrats nationally. They both sought to balance their overall support for immigration and a pathway to citizenship for certain migrants with stronger enforcement efforts, especially against undocumented migrants who committed crimes. Clinton signed a tough immigration bill in 1996 and Obama upped deportations to record levels despite large-scale pushback from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

This balanced message on immigration seemed to work for Democrats until, suddenly, it didn’t. In 2012, Obama beat Mitt Romney, who called on undocumented migrants to “self-deport.” But four years later, Donald Trump sensed a shift in public sentiment on immigration far more accurately than Democrats and used it to help activate his base of voters and drive a wedge between Democrats and some of their traditional political constituencies. Remarkably and inexplicably, Democrats remained tone-deaf to the popularity of Trump’s first-term border crackdown. In the 2020 presidential primaries, Democratic presidential candidates fell all over themselves to embrace permissive immigration policies. The preferences of some progressive Democratic groups for these policies (again, inexplicably to me) carried over into the Biden Administration, resulting in the wave of asylum seekers at the border and ultimately to their admission into the country in such large numbers that they overwhelmed resources in cities across the country. The mass unpopularity of these policies aided Donald Trump in riding the promise of a harsh crackdown on illegal immigration to the White House for a second time.

And so, here we are.

What we are witnessing in the first months of the second Trump Administration is a reckoning for decades of an incoherent approach to immigration in which the laws declare certain forms of migration illegal, but a combination of economic realities, interest group politics, and resource constraints resulted in a growing population living in the United States unlawfully. Trump promised voters he would enforce the laws that were on the books and he won a convincing victory, especially among the Latino voters whom Democrats attracted back in the mid-1990s with their opposition to GOP anti-immigration sentiment.

Personally, I believe the Trump immigration crackdown is horribly unfair to people who have made their homes here for decades, paid taxes, and whose labor has been eagerly accepted by American businesses and households. I also fear the economic consequences of shrinking the workforce with inflation looming. And, of course, I oppose Trump’s distorted interpretation of his executive powers to deport without due process, reverse birthright citizenship, and deport people based on their exercise of constitutionally protected free speech.

But Democrats warned voters of the negative consequences of “mass deportations” and they elected Trump anyway. Failing to respect the voters’ preference on this core values issue could plague Democrats for many election cycles to come.

So, at this precarious moment, Democrats need to find their voice for a rule-of-law-based approach to immigration. They should stop exacerbating their problems by reflexively opposing every move Trump makes on immigration. And they should take aggressive steps to prevent violence in American cities related to immigration enforcement.

For once, take the focus off of Trump’s outrageous actions (like his unrequested federalization of the California National Guard) and get out in front of an issue with a message that is aligned with what the voters want.