The perspective of the MAGA group is just divorced from reality. They're brainwashed. I understand that they are not crazy, but a man selling cyanide because he believes it saves lives is no safer than one who actually wants to kill people. None of their comments are true. Social Security is already taking a hit because illegals were paying into a system that they can't benefit from. The illegals were being victimized, not victimizing us. These people are being victimized, but it's by Trump and vested interests _inside_ the US.
The problem is that "the process" is broken and Congress refuses to fund a solution to fix it. Trumplicans would rather demagogue the issue than pass meaningful legislation.
They all sound like they do not know any immigrants. When they are born here they will grow up here, be educated and get jobs here. Then start paying income taxes for the Federal Govt and the State they live in. Also contribute to social security. The ones I know are hard working and successful and have contributed mightily to our community and State and Federal Govt.
Your headline says "Voters are Sounding More and More Like Trump on Birthright Citizenship."
Shouldn't you qualify the word "voters?"
They are Trump voters or MAGA voters. Maybe you could implement a crackpot test to contextualize the responses to whatever you are asking with whatever else these voters believe...
Do they believe the 2020 election was stolen?
Do they believe 9/11 or Jan 6 or the July 4 Patriot Front march were all Antifa false flags?
Do they believe race is a biological fact or a myth constructed for ulterior motives?
Do they believe Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's relationship is a ploy to influence elections?
Do they believe vaccines cause COVID?
Do they believe that political elites are replacing "white," native-born populations with "nonwhite" immigrants to manipulate voting demographics?
Longwell frequently holds focus groups with Trump voters. Here, was all the qualification required to read and assess these opinions:
"When we conducted a focus group with Donald Trump voters on the eve of the decision, participants expressed an alarming degree of skepticism toward the nearly 160-year old legal precedent."
I'm well aware of The Longwell Group. The headline was click-bait, I wouldn't have bothered to read it if the word "voters" had been qualified by "Trump" or "MAGA." So if I'm going to be duped by a headline at least entertain me with questions that reveal the whole of these respondents' views.
I am a citizen of my little Nation because my grandmother was enrolled on the Dawes Roll and received allotted land in 1907 when she also received citizenship in the United States of America. The fact that her people had been here for about 15K years was immaterial. So, no, birthright citizenship is relatively recent and in particular citizenship in the United States for us was capricious and predicated on American violation of the Treaty of 1866 which promised that we would never be part of any state of the United States. The Americans giveth and the Americans taketh away. Deal with it.
This doesn't surprise me at all, because it brings up the gut "fairness" issue that is frequently perverted by MAGA types and ignored or ridiculed by progressives. In most countries, citizenship at birth is primarily determined by descent – that is, by the citizenship status of the parents. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/31/us-style-birthright-citizenship-is-uncommon-around-the-world/. But that's not the law in the US because of the 14th Amendment, despite Trump's attempt to pretend otherwise and the attempts by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to graft some weird "domicile" requirement into the plain vanilla language of the 14th Amndnment (I knew all along this was going to be a closer case than many expected). At the same time, it's understandable that people like FG member Tatiana,, who has a problem with citizenship for the kids of parents who entered the US illegally, see this as unfair and line-jumping. I personally find it a bit obnoxious for Sarah to say (referring to people like Tatiana): "This is what I call the moral alibi. In these voters’ telling, they are not hostile to immigrants coming to America. It simply becomes a process question: one about fairness and rules, as opposed to a question about being pro- or anti-immigrant." It's unclear why asking immigrants to follow the process and play by the rules (even when the system is byzantine and in desperate need of reform) is a "moral alibi." Asking people (both citizens and aspiring citizens) to follow the rules seems like a reasonable ask. It's not an alibi. The other FG participants Sarah points to are saying nonsense, but Tatiana has a legitimate point, even if it does not align with the 14th Amendment (which I do not expect to be changed anytime soon).
This is where my views of immigration get so strong I kind of don't care where everyone else is. If I have to vote for Democrats, even Democratic Socialists to get an immigration regime that's simple and permissive and meritocratic, I guess I'll just hold my nose and do it. The people who disagree with that are just to caustic on our country for my patriotism to tolerate. Let the 14th stand and add in everybody who comes and works and pays taxes and stays out of trouble.
How do any of us prove our citizenship? How does Trump prove that he is a US citizen? How did Obama respond to Trump’s attacks on his eligibility to be president? If we relinquish our constitutional rights to birthright citizenship, we are all in danger of being deported.
"By ruling with such a slim majority, 'the Court has just handed right-wingers a new bloody shirt to wave in every single political campaign,' Aderson Francois, a law professor at Georgetown University, told me.
“'The main legacy of the decision is that for the next few years, this will become the new Roe v. Wade.'
"After all, conservatives now know they are only one vote away from eliminating birthright citizenship by judicial fiat."
See Adam Serwer's piece, "These Justices Are Not Impartial" ...
This is why we need good leaders. Humans lack big enough brains to handle issues like this. Well, most humans.
Or, as one of my friends from college put it: "People are a**h***s!"
I'm an optimist and a solid defender of people. But it's hard to defend them against this claim when they say things like, "If you want to come and live legally, just do it the legal way."
Is this because Tatiana is ignorant? Apparently not. She has some experience. But her experience doesn't help her understand how the system works in total.
Is she unable to grasp how our asylum system works? Or does she have a faulty brain, where she can't take a simple fact and reach a simple conclusion?
The premise of our government is that everyone gets a say in how we run the country. The premise is that our country is a democracy. Democracy is what gives a government legitimacy. That's the fundamental point of the Declaration of Independence. Governments are legitimate if they rule with the consent of the governed.
Who are these people?
Everyone here is a people. For the purposes of consent, we have to include everyone.
One big point of birthright citizenship is that it means everyone is included. It's a step in the direction of legitimacy.
We really are often dealing with the phenomenon where the last one in likes to slam and lock the gate. Or put in more vulgar terms: I got mine, the rest of you can p**s off!
This makes me wonder why people aren't hearing the stories of immigrant success; what contributions they make, what things they invent, etc. Who builds your roof, landscapes your yard, cares for the sick and aged, cooks delicious food in the restaurants you like? They pay taxes and social security. People need to hear the real story not Trump's crap.
They do not enjoy hearing that real competition is coming in on every flight, populates every freshman class, dominates graduate stem programs, and controls the valley.
Unfortuantely, there is and has for a long time been a Franco-ist faction within the country. That is to say, people who think the 'solution' to the complexity of a democratic society is to short circuit all that pesky democracy and rights stuff for a strong leader who will do the 'right' thing where what is 'right' is simply YOUR policy preference. It is a natural human condition that has to always be guarded against.
Every time a Republican, or Trumpican brings up immigration,everyone needs to be reminded that there were TWO immigration bills, on in 2013, the other in 2024 which, if passed would have significantly reduced the problem. BOTH died in the Senate, the first when Mitch McConnell, in keeping with his promise, refused to allow a vote lest Obama get credit. Then in 2024, Trump insisted the Senate kill the bill so he could run on immigration. And the second bill was substantially written by one of the most far right conservatives in the Senate! The only thing Republicans seem to be able to "fix" are the deficient incomes of the top 2%! I never felt a damn thing as a result of the tax cuts that were supposed to help the other 98%, which is where I fall!
Exactly and precisely correct. The Republican Party is totally responsible for any fault in our immigration system. Democrats literally offered to let them write the law, and they refused because they wanted their faulty leader in office.
As for your big bonus from their tax cuts, let me remind you of their motto:
>>>>> "You're on your own, sucker!"*
* Unless you're in the 1%. In that case, just let us know what you want.
I think you're right that the Trump anti-immigrant anti-birthright-citizenship view has legs bigger than we might have thought.
But I want to go further and examine its reach into the Democratic Party, and it's just as pernicious. There are Democratic podcasters here on Substack, whom I like and respect, who say that we (the Democrats) "screwed up on the border" in 2024. They never say what precisely they mean. What would NOT screwing it up have looked like?
Forgotten is that Democrats in Congress in 2024 got on board a Republican proposal to make immigration harder to show their seriousness. This proposal went down when Donald Trump demanded that Republicans drop it; he'd rather have had "the border" as an issue than any kind of bipartisan solution that would defuse it.
I live 60 miles from the Mexico border (Tucson, AZ). I see no crisis here. There are a large number of Spanish speakers here. But so what? Why is this a crisis? The only reason it might be is if one believes "there's just too many f'cking immigrants coming in". But Democrats can't say that and don't. They don't think that. But they are afraid to argue against it. Is saying anything pro-immigration what "screwing up on the border" means? Why this self-induced paralysis?
Then we had the Laken Riley Act. The act was named after Laken Riley, a young woman who actually was murdered by an illegal immigrant. There is a reason the Republicans running Congress named the Act after her. It sends a very strong message which I will define thusly: "all immigrants are criminals and all criminals are immigrants". They really believe that getting rid of immigration is an anti-crime program. Stopping one is stopping the other.
This is blatant nonsense. And yet no Democrats other than a few DSA types will offer any coherent take-down of it. Several of them actually voted FOR the Laken Riley Act, among them Ruben Gallego, my newly elected Democratic Senator, who is occasionally floated as a progressive dark horse candidate for President in 2028. My position is that I'd vote for his re-election but not for President - until he offers a coherent explanation of this vote and a better policy.
There's plenty of grass-roots Democratic resistance to these policies. In Chicago, Minneapolis, LA. But what is lacking is any official Democratic resolve to EXPRESS the truth of what immigration looks like.
I don't blame Democrats for any part of immigration. They literally offered to let a conservative Republican write the law, but the Republicans walked away from that to keep it alive as a political issue.
However, before the 2024 election, I did suggest the Democratic Party run (at least partly) on the immigration issue. I suggested that because campaigning on a Democratic policy would have blunted the Republican advantage.
Here was my three-part proposal for winning the immigration issue.
1 Immigration is a serious problem, and we need a real fix to it.
2 Republicans have no idea what this problem is or what’s causing it. So, they can’t be trusted to solve it.
3 Democrats have a comprehensive plan to solve the problem, one that will not just keep Americans safe, but will make the country stronger.
I agree that this is a problem within the Democratic Party. We have too many people who fault Democrats for screwing up “on the border”. That’s never been true. We’ve never had open borders. Democrats have not been weak on immigration policy.
But I think there was an opportunity for the Democratic Party to do a much better job in 2024 (and before) on this issue. To do that, we should have developed a much better proposal and run harder on it. That would include revising asylum so that it isn’t a path to citizenship and putting a lot more effort into helping other countries fix their governmental and economic problems. People should not have to move hundreds or thousands of miles to a new country with a different language and culture just to survive.
And the Democratic Party could have built an entire campaign around what Kamala Harris did in Central America, where she got pledges of around $5 billion in investments for that area. This is how you solve the root cause of the problem. Not just put band-aids on it, like the Republicans try to do.
Note the political implications of this. Republicans claimed Harris was a “border czar” who failed. By highlighting what she actually accomplished and calling for more of that, Democrats could have crushed this attack on Harris.
I think a bit of criticism is fair. But the idea “Democrats screwed up on the border in 2024” isn’t a fair critique.
I agree with your first paragraph and said much the same thing.
I don't think your three points are specific enough to have worked.
I think your idea about not making asylum-seeking a path to citizenship might have value.
But now, in 2026, the actual policies conducted by Trump and Miller and the rest of these assholes have already turned people in immigrant communities who believed Trump would only deport criminals against him. Hell, that was BIDEN's policy for Chrissakes.
And the heroic responses of the people of Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, etc. ought to provide enough fodder for Democratic campaigning.
"Random cruelty to immigrants won't solve the 'border crisis'".
I also offered details for each of those points at the time. But that is TMI for this discussion.
Part of the reason I think we need to separate asylum from citizenship is that it probably encourages people to apply for asylum just as a quick way to get into the country and potentially get citizenship. I think we should definitely provide asylum to those in real danger, but it should be only until they can safely return to their home countries. Then we should work hard to make that possible.
(For places like Afghanistan, we might have to just provide a path to citizenship, because their chances of going back are essentially nonexistent.)
Also, those people should be dispersed evenly around the country, so that no community feels overwhelmed by them.
Things like that. The Democratic Party could develop solid policy that solves the real problems without making immigration a divisive issue.
The perspective of the MAGA group is just divorced from reality. They're brainwashed. I understand that they are not crazy, but a man selling cyanide because he believes it saves lives is no safer than one who actually wants to kill people. None of their comments are true. Social Security is already taking a hit because illegals were paying into a system that they can't benefit from. The illegals were being victimized, not victimizing us. These people are being victimized, but it's by Trump and vested interests _inside_ the US.
The problem is that "the process" is broken and Congress refuses to fund a solution to fix it. Trumplicans would rather demagogue the issue than pass meaningful legislation.
They all sound like they do not know any immigrants. When they are born here they will grow up here, be educated and get jobs here. Then start paying income taxes for the Federal Govt and the State they live in. Also contribute to social security. The ones I know are hard working and successful and have contributed mightily to our community and State and Federal Govt.
My best employees are immigrants.
Your headline says "Voters are Sounding More and More Like Trump on Birthright Citizenship."
Shouldn't you qualify the word "voters?"
They are Trump voters or MAGA voters. Maybe you could implement a crackpot test to contextualize the responses to whatever you are asking with whatever else these voters believe...
Do they believe the 2020 election was stolen?
Do they believe 9/11 or Jan 6 or the July 4 Patriot Front march were all Antifa false flags?
Do they believe race is a biological fact or a myth constructed for ulterior motives?
Do they believe Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's relationship is a ploy to influence elections?
Do they believe vaccines cause COVID?
Do they believe that political elites are replacing "white," native-born populations with "nonwhite" immigrants to manipulate voting demographics?
Do they believe the Earth is flat?
Longwell frequently holds focus groups with Trump voters. Here, was all the qualification required to read and assess these opinions:
"When we conducted a focus group with Donald Trump voters on the eve of the decision, participants expressed an alarming degree of skepticism toward the nearly 160-year old legal precedent."
I'm well aware of The Longwell Group. The headline was click-bait, I wouldn't have bothered to read it if the word "voters" had been qualified by "Trump" or "MAGA." So if I'm going to be duped by a headline at least entertain me with questions that reveal the whole of these respondents' views.
I am a citizen of my little Nation because my grandmother was enrolled on the Dawes Roll and received allotted land in 1907 when she also received citizenship in the United States of America. The fact that her people had been here for about 15K years was immaterial. So, no, birthright citizenship is relatively recent and in particular citizenship in the United States for us was capricious and predicated on American violation of the Treaty of 1866 which promised that we would never be part of any state of the United States. The Americans giveth and the Americans taketh away. Deal with it.
This doesn't surprise me at all, because it brings up the gut "fairness" issue that is frequently perverted by MAGA types and ignored or ridiculed by progressives. In most countries, citizenship at birth is primarily determined by descent – that is, by the citizenship status of the parents. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/31/us-style-birthright-citizenship-is-uncommon-around-the-world/. But that's not the law in the US because of the 14th Amendment, despite Trump's attempt to pretend otherwise and the attempts by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to graft some weird "domicile" requirement into the plain vanilla language of the 14th Amndnment (I knew all along this was going to be a closer case than many expected). At the same time, it's understandable that people like FG member Tatiana,, who has a problem with citizenship for the kids of parents who entered the US illegally, see this as unfair and line-jumping. I personally find it a bit obnoxious for Sarah to say (referring to people like Tatiana): "This is what I call the moral alibi. In these voters’ telling, they are not hostile to immigrants coming to America. It simply becomes a process question: one about fairness and rules, as opposed to a question about being pro- or anti-immigrant." It's unclear why asking immigrants to follow the process and play by the rules (even when the system is byzantine and in desperate need of reform) is a "moral alibi." Asking people (both citizens and aspiring citizens) to follow the rules seems like a reasonable ask. It's not an alibi. The other FG participants Sarah points to are saying nonsense, but Tatiana has a legitimate point, even if it does not align with the 14th Amendment (which I do not expect to be changed anytime soon).
This is where my views of immigration get so strong I kind of don't care where everyone else is. If I have to vote for Democrats, even Democratic Socialists to get an immigration regime that's simple and permissive and meritocratic, I guess I'll just hold my nose and do it. The people who disagree with that are just to caustic on our country for my patriotism to tolerate. Let the 14th stand and add in everybody who comes and works and pays taxes and stays out of trouble.
How do any of us prove our citizenship? How does Trump prove that he is a US citizen? How did Obama respond to Trump’s attacks on his eligibility to be president? If we relinquish our constitutional rights to birthright citizenship, we are all in danger of being deported.
I used my birth certificate. But, oh, wait! That depends on birthright citizenship, doesn't it?
Well, I have a passport. Oh, yeah. That depended on proving I'm a U.S. citizen to the government.
As for Criminal Trump, he'd probably have to haul out a birth certificate. But that's not his main problem. He isn't an American.
He doesn't have American values.
This is no surprise. Trump voter. Florida.
The title made me afraid that voters other than these were the ones you were talking about.
Phew! I'm relieved.
Birthright citizenship is the new Roe v Wade.
From Adam Serwer last Friday in The Atlantic:
"By ruling with such a slim majority, 'the Court has just handed right-wingers a new bloody shirt to wave in every single political campaign,' Aderson Francois, a law professor at Georgetown University, told me.
“'The main legacy of the decision is that for the next few years, this will become the new Roe v. Wade.'
"After all, conservatives now know they are only one vote away from eliminating birthright citizenship by judicial fiat."
See Adam Serwer's piece, "These Justices Are Not Impartial" ...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/birthright-citizenship-dissents/687799/?gift=bSIPih9SGxGxkJ3EvsoMj9UtKL6GY-smlPfXRatX65w&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Sarah don’t you get tired of listening to these morons?
I am certainly getting tired of you repeating their uninformed, vacuous opinions.
I don't think she's "repeating" them so much as critiquing them.
It's important to know what they are thinking. It tells us where the right-wing conspiracy is getting through to the voters.
But I would never make the mistake of trying to change their opinions.
This is why we need good leaders. Humans lack big enough brains to handle issues like this. Well, most humans.
Or, as one of my friends from college put it: "People are a**h***s!"
I'm an optimist and a solid defender of people. But it's hard to defend them against this claim when they say things like, "If you want to come and live legally, just do it the legal way."
Is this because Tatiana is ignorant? Apparently not. She has some experience. But her experience doesn't help her understand how the system works in total.
Is she unable to grasp how our asylum system works? Or does she have a faulty brain, where she can't take a simple fact and reach a simple conclusion?
The premise of our government is that everyone gets a say in how we run the country. The premise is that our country is a democracy. Democracy is what gives a government legitimacy. That's the fundamental point of the Declaration of Independence. Governments are legitimate if they rule with the consent of the governed.
Who are these people?
Everyone here is a people. For the purposes of consent, we have to include everyone.
One big point of birthright citizenship is that it means everyone is included. It's a step in the direction of legitimacy.
When a System works for someone, they tend to think it works universally. "It may be cumbersome, but if I can do it, why can't you?"
We really are often dealing with the phenomenon where the last one in likes to slam and lock the gate. Or put in more vulgar terms: I got mine, the rest of you can p**s off!
This makes me wonder why people aren't hearing the stories of immigrant success; what contributions they make, what things they invent, etc. Who builds your roof, landscapes your yard, cares for the sick and aged, cooks delicious food in the restaurants you like? They pay taxes and social security. People need to hear the real story not Trump's crap.
They do not enjoy hearing that real competition is coming in on every flight, populates every freshman class, dominates graduate stem programs, and controls the valley.
Unfortuantely, there is and has for a long time been a Franco-ist faction within the country. That is to say, people who think the 'solution' to the complexity of a democratic society is to short circuit all that pesky democracy and rights stuff for a strong leader who will do the 'right' thing where what is 'right' is simply YOUR policy preference. It is a natural human condition that has to always be guarded against.
Every time a Republican, or Trumpican brings up immigration,everyone needs to be reminded that there were TWO immigration bills, on in 2013, the other in 2024 which, if passed would have significantly reduced the problem. BOTH died in the Senate, the first when Mitch McConnell, in keeping with his promise, refused to allow a vote lest Obama get credit. Then in 2024, Trump insisted the Senate kill the bill so he could run on immigration. And the second bill was substantially written by one of the most far right conservatives in the Senate! The only thing Republicans seem to be able to "fix" are the deficient incomes of the top 2%! I never felt a damn thing as a result of the tax cuts that were supposed to help the other 98%, which is where I fall!
Exactly and precisely correct. The Republican Party is totally responsible for any fault in our immigration system. Democrats literally offered to let them write the law, and they refused because they wanted their faulty leader in office.
As for your big bonus from their tax cuts, let me remind you of their motto:
>>>>> "You're on your own, sucker!"*
* Unless you're in the 1%. In that case, just let us know what you want.
Thank you, Sarah.
I think you're right that the Trump anti-immigrant anti-birthright-citizenship view has legs bigger than we might have thought.
But I want to go further and examine its reach into the Democratic Party, and it's just as pernicious. There are Democratic podcasters here on Substack, whom I like and respect, who say that we (the Democrats) "screwed up on the border" in 2024. They never say what precisely they mean. What would NOT screwing it up have looked like?
Forgotten is that Democrats in Congress in 2024 got on board a Republican proposal to make immigration harder to show their seriousness. This proposal went down when Donald Trump demanded that Republicans drop it; he'd rather have had "the border" as an issue than any kind of bipartisan solution that would defuse it.
I live 60 miles from the Mexico border (Tucson, AZ). I see no crisis here. There are a large number of Spanish speakers here. But so what? Why is this a crisis? The only reason it might be is if one believes "there's just too many f'cking immigrants coming in". But Democrats can't say that and don't. They don't think that. But they are afraid to argue against it. Is saying anything pro-immigration what "screwing up on the border" means? Why this self-induced paralysis?
Then we had the Laken Riley Act. The act was named after Laken Riley, a young woman who actually was murdered by an illegal immigrant. There is a reason the Republicans running Congress named the Act after her. It sends a very strong message which I will define thusly: "all immigrants are criminals and all criminals are immigrants". They really believe that getting rid of immigration is an anti-crime program. Stopping one is stopping the other.
This is blatant nonsense. And yet no Democrats other than a few DSA types will offer any coherent take-down of it. Several of them actually voted FOR the Laken Riley Act, among them Ruben Gallego, my newly elected Democratic Senator, who is occasionally floated as a progressive dark horse candidate for President in 2028. My position is that I'd vote for his re-election but not for President - until he offers a coherent explanation of this vote and a better policy.
There's plenty of grass-roots Democratic resistance to these policies. In Chicago, Minneapolis, LA. But what is lacking is any official Democratic resolve to EXPRESS the truth of what immigration looks like.
I don't blame Democrats for any part of immigration. They literally offered to let a conservative Republican write the law, but the Republicans walked away from that to keep it alive as a political issue.
However, before the 2024 election, I did suggest the Democratic Party run (at least partly) on the immigration issue. I suggested that because campaigning on a Democratic policy would have blunted the Republican advantage.
Here was my three-part proposal for winning the immigration issue.
1 Immigration is a serious problem, and we need a real fix to it.
2 Republicans have no idea what this problem is or what’s causing it. So, they can’t be trusted to solve it.
3 Democrats have a comprehensive plan to solve the problem, one that will not just keep Americans safe, but will make the country stronger.
I agree that this is a problem within the Democratic Party. We have too many people who fault Democrats for screwing up “on the border”. That’s never been true. We’ve never had open borders. Democrats have not been weak on immigration policy.
But I think there was an opportunity for the Democratic Party to do a much better job in 2024 (and before) on this issue. To do that, we should have developed a much better proposal and run harder on it. That would include revising asylum so that it isn’t a path to citizenship and putting a lot more effort into helping other countries fix their governmental and economic problems. People should not have to move hundreds or thousands of miles to a new country with a different language and culture just to survive.
And the Democratic Party could have built an entire campaign around what Kamala Harris did in Central America, where she got pledges of around $5 billion in investments for that area. This is how you solve the root cause of the problem. Not just put band-aids on it, like the Republicans try to do.
Note the political implications of this. Republicans claimed Harris was a “border czar” who failed. By highlighting what she actually accomplished and calling for more of that, Democrats could have crushed this attack on Harris.
I think a bit of criticism is fair. But the idea “Democrats screwed up on the border in 2024” isn’t a fair critique.
I agree with your first paragraph and said much the same thing.
I don't think your three points are specific enough to have worked.
I think your idea about not making asylum-seeking a path to citizenship might have value.
But now, in 2026, the actual policies conducted by Trump and Miller and the rest of these assholes have already turned people in immigrant communities who believed Trump would only deport criminals against him. Hell, that was BIDEN's policy for Chrissakes.
And the heroic responses of the people of Minneapolis, Chicago, LA, etc. ought to provide enough fodder for Democratic campaigning.
"Random cruelty to immigrants won't solve the 'border crisis'".
"Crime and immigration are not the same thing."
We shouldn't be playing defense here.
I also offered details for each of those points at the time. But that is TMI for this discussion.
Part of the reason I think we need to separate asylum from citizenship is that it probably encourages people to apply for asylum just as a quick way to get into the country and potentially get citizenship. I think we should definitely provide asylum to those in real danger, but it should be only until they can safely return to their home countries. Then we should work hard to make that possible.
(For places like Afghanistan, we might have to just provide a path to citizenship, because their chances of going back are essentially nonexistent.)
Also, those people should be dispersed evenly around the country, so that no community feels overwhelmed by them.
Things like that. The Democratic Party could develop solid policy that solves the real problems without making immigration a divisive issue.