When It’s Long Past Time To Fix The Immigration Crisis - 8/25/25

In this exceedingly and often intolerably polarized political environment, no issue divides us more deeply and emotionally than immigration.

Only two years after Republicans published a post-election analysis calling for a more inclusive tone and a commitment to comprehensive immigration reform, Donald Trump’s 2015 presidential announcement speech was laced with attacks on unauthorized Mexican migrants. Using terms like “rapists” and “murderers,” then followed weeks later by a call to ban all Muslims from entering the US, the future president staked out the most aggressive and divisive turf in this argument than the country had seen from a national political leader in decades.

Large numbers of Americans responded favorably to Trump’s stridency, giving him roughly half the popular vote in each of the next three presidential elections. But less noticed was an equally significant rise in intensity regarding these issues that had arisen on the political left. Since the early 1990s, Democrats had moved in sizable numbers toward more accommodating positions on border security, workplace and hiring practices, and legalization matters. By the spring of 2019, when Democratic presidential candidates were asked if they supported decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings, all but one (Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, whose candidacy peaked at just under 1 percent in public opinion polls) raised their hands.

Whether it was intentional or intuitive, Trump’s combative messaging tapped into a recurring pattern in American history. Since the end of the Revolutionary War, whenever the numbers of arrivals from other countries grew, political sentiment and legislative action against those migrants quickly followed. From the French and Irish immigrants in the 1790s to the pre-Civil War backlash against Catholics, from the Chinese Exclusion Act and other Gilded Age restrictions to the limitations and deportations during the Great Depression, the American experiment has been marred by periodic spikes in hostility toward recent arrivals.

So it should come as no surprise that when Trump declared his candidacy in 2015, the percentage of foreign-born US residents was at its highest level in almost a century—and that those numbers had grown to an all-time high when he was sworn into office again earlier this year. Raw numbers are not the only cause of such backlash: levels of integration and segregation between the native-born and new arrivals play a major role as well. And other societal concerns—most notably economic opportunity and public safety—also tend to inflate these reactions. But increased quantity and density have consistently driven equally intense backlash.

Key to Trump’s support on this issue has been his frequent assertion that he only targeted those migrants who had committed violent crimes or engaged in other serious unlawful behavior apart from their residency status. But over the last several months, it has become clear that Trump’s Administration has also targeted many migrants who had neither been accused nor convicted of any non-residency crime. As Americans see otherwise law-abiding individuals caught up in ICE raids, imprisonment, and deportation, their support for Trump’s immigration agenda has dropped precipitously. His poll numbers on these issues are at an all-time low.

Trump has begun hearing complaints from many of his political allies about the crackdown, especially those whose businesses rely on large numbers of unauthorized workers. Pressure from the agricultural, construction, home care, and hotel and restaurant sectors appeared to be convincing him to move toward some type of accommodation. But the MAGA base, much of whose loyalty toward Trump is based on immigration policy, would have none of it. So nothing has happened.

Trump’s policies are unquestionably having a dramatic real-world impact. The Pew Research Center released data last week showing that the foreign-born population here—both legal and unauthorized—has dropped by more than 1.5 million people since January, the first such decline since the 1960s.

But while Trump and his foes are digging in their heels, the American people have consolidated behind a series of bipartisan reforms, coupling enhanced border security with pathways toward legal status for those law-abiding migrants who are already living here, are employed, and have met other stability-related criteria. Large majorities of voters strongly support these steps, but the intransigence of the two parties’ most ideologically extreme members have prevented any progress.

The road to meaningful reform is clear. But it is still blocked by the type of scorched-earth politics that punishes elected officeholders for working across party lines and instead rewards their continued hyper-partisanship and obstinance. The obstacles are considerable, but the path forward is tantalizing—and still well within reach.