When President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Ross Douthat that aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday, November 8, he mentioned that he wouldn’t rule out doing a “deal” with the Democrats on illegal immigration. What that would look like is anyone’s guess, but it’s important to note that at no point did he specifically mention “amnesty.” Still, it’s hard to imagine any sort of deal the Democrats would accept without some form of amnesty.

Fox News Digital talked to an anonymous White House official who said, “We want Democrats to show their cards."

If this were a Capitol Hill deal for the budget or some environmental regulation, such talk is the norm in Washington. But amnesty, and the larger issue of illegal immigration, are different animals. Putting an end to illegal immigration has been the cornerstone of Trump’s political life since he launched his campaign for president on June 16, 2015, and ever since then, it’s been the one issue that resonated most strongly with the vast majority of Americans.

To change course on that issue now is enough to make you wonder what the whole point of the Trump presidencies was in the first place. In order for Trump to negotiate on the issue of amnesty, he would have to want something so badly that he’d agree to work with the Democrats on immigration. The only thing I can think of is election security, and not just the SAVE America Act.

If Trump were to do a deal on immigration, you’d have to start from the ground up. For the sake of argument, let’s do our own little tabletop exercise here. I’ll put some hypotheticals together that would serve as our virtual starting point for some fake negotiations between Trump and the Democrats. The reason for this is that at the end of this article, I want to get your own answer to the question: Would you trade immigration amnesty to get secure elections?

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So, on the issue of illegal immigration, you know the Democrats will demand open borders and immediate amnesty for all 15-20 million who are already in the country. Trump will balk at that.

Based on what I’ve seen over the years, the sort of amnesty I’ve heard some Republicans float that could be worth considering is one where you all agree to keep the borders sealed as a starting point. Then, you focus on discerning which illegals already here are deserving of amnesty according to various criteria, some of which the president mentioned in his 60 Minutes interview.

But it’s not that simple. Others have mentioned that no matter who gets amnesty, one caveat that should be added is a conditional one. No one who receives amnesty is permitted to vote in an American election for 20 or more years. That would remove the Democrats’ obvious motivation to move massive numbers of illegals into the country in the first place. They’d probably walk away from the table at that.

Would that be such a bad thing? Not for any good conservative, but it’s impossible to predict Trump. Even so, can you imagine what would happen if, 20 years from now, the voting rolls added those roughly 15 million in one day? The country would change overnight.

Now let’s look at the issue of election security. What if Trump could get the Democrats to agree to standardize paper ballots; mandate it so that states must turn over their voter rolls to the federal government and purge bad data before every election; eliminate mail-in voting with the exception of those who have government-verified disabilities; require that all voting happen in-person on one day, Election Day; require definitive voter ID; and mandate that all ballots be counted within 48 hours after the polls close on Election Day?

I’m probably missing some things, but those are the main ones. Still, would that give you pause?

These two issues – immigration and secure elections – are related, and they are two of the most important ones, respectively, for both Democrats and Republicans.

Illegal immigration is required to keep Democrats in power. The great replacement theory is real. The Democrats know they can’t win elections consistently without importing new voters and making them dependent on government benefits. These groups are also quite helpful for ballot harvesting.

I can see Trump being open to something like this, because he already tried the legislative route with his own party, and we saw how that worked out. Republican Senate leader John Thune (R-S.D.) undermined the entire process simply by doing nothing, clearly by intent. I can imagine Trump so desperate to lock something down on election integrity that he’d be willing to do a deal on the illegal immigration issue.

We all know how much he prides himself on being the master dealmaker in any situation. He just might see something like this as, potentially, the biggest deal of his lifetime and his legacy.

One school of thought says that if you fix election security so that only Americans can vote, it doesn’t matter how many illegals are in the country. Another school of thought says that with amnesty and their own limitless imagination for corruption and fraud, Democrats will always find a way to cheat. Giving into them on the amnesty issue would only make it easier for them.

Given all of this, what do you think? Would you trust the Democrats enough to do a deal with them, one where they give a little on election security and where Republicans give a little on illegal immigration?

To be sure, I realize how make-believe these scenarios I mentioned are, and that they would not exactly play out this way. The real world is a messy place, especially when you throw Democrat majorities in Congress and the Senate into the mix.

I’ve tried to play this out every which way to see what the potential upside is to any kind of deal on amnesty, and this is the best I could do in my fevered pipe dreams. In the end, I think Trump would be crazy to attempt any kind of amnesty deal with the Democrats. He’s already won on this issue. He doesn’t need to do anything more on this. It’s the Democrats who should be forced to explain themselves on their longstanding disastrous record on open borders and what they have done to this country.

My fear is that once again the Trump administration could be turning around to snatch defeat out of the hands of victory.

I’d trust the Democrats to keep their word as much as I’d trust the Iranian mullahs. The more pragmatic scenario I can easily imagine is the Trump administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill giving amnesty to large chunks of the illegal immigrant population, instantly destroying the chances for Republicans to ever win again in some states. And then when it’s the Democrats’ turn to keep their side of the bargain, passing legislation on election security, they just never do it.

Then those of us who’ve seen this play out time and again are once again ticked off, just as we are right now in the wake of the 2026 midterms.

What do you think?