Democrats Find Themselves Stuck in the Immigration Mire of Their Own Making

Good morning! Today is Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. Today in history:

2024: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad resigns and flees to Moscow

1987: The Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories begins.

1965: Pope Paul VI closes the final session of the Second Vatican Council.

1863: Abraham Lincoln issues his Amnesty Proclamation and plan for Reconstruction of the South.

1776: Washington crosses the Delaware.

Birthdays today include Ann Coulter, Jim Morrison, and Mary Queen of Scots

These sentiments came out loudly from the top down. President Bill Clinton, back in 1993, said in his State of the Union, “The simple fact is that we must not — and we will not — surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.”

Barack Obama was named “Deporter in Chief” by his far-left critics. (That’s hard to imagine, even today, anyone being farther to the left than Obama, but there it is.)

So why the change, then? Why the move from being, at least verbally, immigration hawks, to being what is best described as the party of the open border — aside, of course, from the notion of bringing new Democrat voters in, since American citizens aren't voting for them anymore?

Despite his public positions and the large number of deportations on his watch, Obama was the one who started DACA, which, among other things, allowed illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to remain and obtain work authorization.  

There has been much speculation with a fair amount of backing evidence, suggesting that Obama drove much of Joe Biden’s foreign policy.

On his first day in office, Biden placed a 100-day moratorium on just about all deportations and limited ICE’s enforcement to only those with what he called serious criminal records. The executive order on deportations was overturned in the courts almost immediately.

He then appointed Kamala Harris to oversee the challenges faced at our southern border, which resulted in absolutely nothing being done. As it turned out, Harris is remarkably good at doing nothing. (That would seem a major reason for the pasting she took last November, even amongst the Democrat voters.)

The result was that by the end of his four years, the number of illegal border crossings was setting records every month, essentially going four times over what we saw under President Donald Trump in his first term. All of which, in turn, led the voters to put President Trump back in the Oval Office. So weak was the Democrats' position that Trump not only won the electoral vote but also the popular vote.

Indeed, so wildly unpopular were the moves by Biden and his administration that polling from the deepest of cities, like New York and Chicago, showed serious worry that the cities couldn’t handle the influx created by Biden’s misbegotten policies, which I hasten to add, the Democrats are still looking to reinstate, apparently not having determined why most of their collectivist backside is missing at the hands of the voters.

The Democrats made the misguided choice of doubling down on Joe Biden’s policies, which contained the politically expedient knee-jerk of opposition to anything Orange Man Bad came up with, but little else.

All of this leaves the Democrats in the position of trying to defend the disaster that is their immigration policies. Alongside this is the move everyone has seen: Democrats desperately trying to secure free healthcare for those same Illegals. That’s been a serious drain on their polling. It has left them with the appearance of being pro-immigrant, but anti-American citizen, and in turn, wondering why the Citizens don't like them much.  

Our own Catherine Salgado suggested, “When a Democrat opens his mouth, you can be pretty sure he or she is about to lie — especially when it comes to immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.”

Well, not all of them, but enough to set the trend. However, some Democrats, seeing just how disconnected from the voters they have become, have been trying to allow common sense into their rhetoric, for example, the Laken Riley Act. Even that proved to be dangerous to the Democrats. Only 58 of the 215 House Dems voted for it. The situation surrounding the Laken Riley Act has proven to be a winner for the GOP, and the Democrats know it.

Recent polling points to around half of American adults holding increasing security at the border in one form or another to be their highest priority. Trouble is, the Democrats cannot acknowledge this without admitting they’ve blown the whole immigration deal. So they’re stuck halfway, not admitting that being in the country illegally is a crime, and one that hurts the American economy, but claiming to want to remove those illegals with what they call serious criminal records. Are the Democrats completely unable to build a consensus within the party? There's no way out of the trap they've constructed for themselves, no way to save any face at all.

Of a kind with this conflict is the fight against the cartels. The Democrats are apparently comfortable calling it the “war on drugs,” but they raise hell when facts confront them with Donald Trump acting as if it actually is the war it always should have been. That’s a mixed message which serves their immediate interests of chanting “Orange Man Bad” once again, but doesn’t mesh well with trying to convince American voters that they take their responsibility to protect America seriously.

The Democrats, as usual, are acting not out of conviction about what is best for America, but what is the most advantageous position, politically. The consequences to the Democrats on all this have yet to be played out, but we should not ignore the impact on the midterms. The rabid defense of their unpopular policies is not doing them any good with the voters.

The thing is that there's no way out for them in the short term, without admitting they were wrong. That may be the hardest task. I suspect they'd rather lose elections than take the blame for their misguided policies. Admitting their own fault is something they've never done in my memory, and I doubt that's going to change before the midterms. Even if they did that, would anyone believe them?

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