Why The Left Won't Say "Illegal"

And why the ICE raids could be backfiring.

In 2015, Trump was promising to deport what he called “rapists and criminals.” People like me, Democrats, sat horrified. We’d never heard anyone talk that way because in our world, you didn’t. As mostly white, mostly educated, mostly upper-middle-class people, we would never dare speak of non-white people that way, much less think of them that way.

Trump, we concluded, had to be a racist. That wasn’t the only proof we had. But it became one of the biggest fights for the Democrats. They wanted a secure border, so they said, but done humanely. Over the next ten years, the word “illegal” would either disappear entirely or be too offensive to utter, as in, “no human is illegal.” If you take that word away, you are left with one word, “immigrant.”

Once Biden was in power, the border was left unchecked, and border agents were accused of abusive behavior. A record number of people flooded in. They came from everywhere. Many of them were fleeing poverty and violence. Many of them just wanted the easy money that comes from working for rich people who like cheap labor. Many of them just wanted a better life, and they didn’t want to wait to be processed legally. Biden made it clear he didn’t care, so why wouldn’t they come?

Then, when Venezuelan gangs began taking over apartment buildings, with multiple women raped and molested by illegal immigrants, terrorist cells reported, the Biden administration dropped 30,000 Haitian refugees in small towns all over America, and the public began to notice, which helped put Trump back in power.

Now, the pivot is away from the border and back to Trump being a racist. It’s escalated to Trump being a Nazi, and this being 1930s Germany, with the Gestapo nabbing people off the streets and hurling them into detention camps with no due process.

It is no longer “illegal” immigrants to them. It is, simply, “immigrants” because it fits their narrative that Trump, like Hitler, is a “white supremacist” and only wants white people to live here. That’s how you get to this USA Today headline:

When you get to the first paragraph, you see “Undocumented Immigrants,” though that’s not the headline. Most people only see the headline, and it sends them cascading into yet more hysteria.

The Democrats give the American people no choice but to accept their version of things. Trump is a Nazi. His supporters are Nazis. They will all be going to jail once the “Nuremberg trials” begin after they take back power. They give American workers no consideration for their desire for an open border. They are also pushing for Medicare for All, which is becoming more popular now, according to polls.

Support for Mass Deportations is declining, and support for immigration is rising

Because Trump has secured the border, according to Gallup, worries about the border and the desire for mass deportation have eased. Looking at these poll numbers indicates, at least to me, that the campaign to portray Trump as a racist and ICE as the Gestapo has worked to shift public opinion and will likely come into play for the midterms and upcoming elections.

Says Gallup:

The surge in illegal border crossings during the Biden administration triggered heightened public concern about immigration and increased demand for stricter enforcement. The Trump administration’s swift and visible response appears to have defused that concern, particularly among Republicans. As a result, Americans’ attitudes on immigration have largely returned to where they stood before the recent border surge, marked by broader appreciation for immigration, less desire to reduce it, and more support for pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. At the same time, support for tougher border control and aggressive deportation policies has eased since last year, with these measures mostly losing their appeal among Democrats and independents.

The Democrats still shape the media narrative, and that narrative has focused intensely on ICE raids, which have made even those who supported deportation fearful. Crying children, mothers, and grandmothers are all they show on the news. Before that, it was the war in Gaza, and before that, Ukraine. I know because my mother is a news junkie who watches CNN and MSNBC. Whatever she is worried about reflects the media narrative.

I don’t think it’s fair to drop 30,000 Haitian migrants into a town of your choosing (though I wish they’d drop them into my town of mostly white, mostly liberal people because I would love to see their hypocrisy exposed). But I grew up in California, and it was mostly a way of life that those who worked the farms, cleaned houses, and worked in hotels were not legal.

I remember back in the 1980s, it was career-ruining for a politician to be discovered hiring illegal immigrants. I know Obama, Clinton, and Bush all mass deported those here illegally. The difference is that there were no cameras following them around, no social media to expose them, and no generation raised in the oppressed/oppressor mindset.

My brother told me he voted for Trump in 2016 because he kept getting outbid by contractors who were here illegally and could offer the job at half the price. That was the first time anyone explained it to me in a way I could understand. But I don’t think there are any easy answers.

It might be true that some Republicans are against immigration entirely, but it is dishonest to claim that those who are against illegal immigration are against all immigration. Either way, the ICE raids appear to be backfiring for Trump and the Republicans.