When Pandora, the girl of Greek legend, opened the box, the ills of the world spilled out and could never be put back. The lesson was that some things, once done, cannot be undone. Let’s hope that mass illegal migration isn’t one of them.
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. border was virtually open. He may best be remembered for writing a massive check on his grandchildren’s account, as the financial and social costs mount from the millions released, paroled or just left alone to live without authorization on his watch.
Under President Donald Trump, this ended. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims “an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations and more than 675,000 deportations” occurred in Trump’s first year in office. I’m skeptical of round numbers and not sure of their accounting methodology. But if it’s anywhere close, that would be a great start on keeping his promise to remove people here illegally.
Meanwhile, at the border, the picture is clear: the tap has been turned off.
HOW ICE WENT FROM POST-9/11 COUNTERTERROR AGENCY TO CENTER OF THE IMMIGRATION FIGHT
“Encounters” is a term that means any time an alien with no visa or other right to enter the U.S. shows up at the border, airport or between land border ports and tries to get in. Let’s compare some months, using the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Nationwide Encounters page. In December 2023, 249,740 foreigners came illegally over our border between official ports. In December 2025, it was 6,472. That’s not nothing, but it is an acceptable “normal” we can live with.
What is more, January 2026 is the ninth consecutive month since DHS reportedly released zero illegal aliens at the border. Not a one. That’s what the law requires. Aliens caught entering illegally “shall be detained,” says the Immigration and Nationality Act, thanks to a 1996 amending law called the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Guess who signed that? President Bill Clinton.
That law was passed after an exhaustive bipartisan congressional review, known as the Jordan Commission for its Democrat chairwoman, looked at U.S. immigration policy. They determined that we needed to clearly distinguish between legal and illegal immigration and do much more to prevent the latter.
TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION VICTORY IN A MINNESOTA COURT IS A WIN FOR ALL LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS
Today, politicians on the left are doing all they can to blur that all-important distinction. They speak of “migrants,” to avoid the issue altogether. Minneapolis Democrat Mayor Jacob Frey uses the word “neighbors” to describe illegal immigrants. He wants to pretend there is no difference between an American citizen and a foreign national living here illegally.
“No human being is illegal” is the favored lawn sign of the left. What does that even mean? Yes, being human is not illegal. But being in someone else’s house without permission is illegal. It’s the act, not the person.
Activists talk about “due process,” but what they really want is new process – endless litigation, even when higher courts have set clear precedent, to buy more time and find more loopholes.
BIDEN SPEAKS OUT AGAINST IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN IN MINNESOTA, SAYS IT GOES AGAINST AMERICAN VALUES
A Fifth Circuit court of Appeals judgment just re-confirmed that aliens in the country illegally can (and should) be detained, even if they have long avoided detection. The court had to re-state clear law and precedent because, fueled by open donations and dark money, groups from the ACLU to Greater Waco Legal Services are suing left and right to prevent all deportations.
Democrats in Washington and in some blue states and cities are hell-bent on ending immigration enforcement altogether. We’ve all seen the organized obstruction by activists in Minneapolis, on the streets, at federal facilities, at hotels and even in a church during services.
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As well as impeding and harassing officers, activists want to force businesses to agree with them. In February, anti-enforcement group ICE Out Minnesota staged protests at Target stores to pressure the Minnesota-based chain to take a political stand. ICE Out’s demands include shutting down ICE, which means ending enforcement of U.S. immigration law.
Some angry women harassed staff at a Minneapolis Yoga studio for not putting up their anti-ICE sticker. Not coincidentally, the “revolutionary political group” Socialist Alternative took part in protests outside a Minneapolis Target branch. World socialism requires no borders, so the workers of the world can unite.
For now, open borders advocates are fighting to prevent enforcement in their strongpoints inside the country; mostly large cities from Boston to Los Angeles run by Democrat or Democratic socialist mayors and councils. But despite – or because of – Trump’s proven success in sealing the border, the left is planning and waiting for the chance to reopen all the migrant “pathways” like parole and mass release at the border.
If this country is to hold together, we must never again allow the high-water mark of illegal immigration to reach the level it did under Biden. Further, we cannot allow nullification of our immigration laws by law-breaking activists. Statutes to prevent a return of 2021 need to be passed, and the rule of immigration law locked in beyond legal challenge for the future.
