Op-ed: Mass Deportations Are Not Enough
By Mark Krikorian on November 15, 2024
Donald Trump has been given a mandate by the voters to reverse the disastrous anti-borders policy of the Biden/Bush/Obama/Cheney neoliberal uniparty. Whatever the specifics of the “largest deportation effort in American history,” there’s consensus among conservatives that the gaps – both physical and legal – in our immigration-control system have to be plugged and the millions who’ve wriggled through those gaps made to return home.
But then what?
Fences, detention centers, repatriation flights, worksite raids, etc. are not immigration policy, but merely the means by which we implement and enforce immigration policy. The policy itself must answer the questions of how many foreigners we should let in to live among us, and how to select them.
And here there is no consensus among this month’s winning coalition. If anything, there appears to be the same elite/public gap on immigration in the new Trump coalition as in the bad old days, with the elite favoring continued mass immigration — except that “they have to come legally,” as the president-elect has said on more than one occasion.
https://cis.org/Krikorian/Oped-Mass-Deportations-Are-Not-Enough
