Trying to get the two sides of the aisle to agree on immigration is like asking a divorcing couple to split custody of the dog when one of them wants to have him euthanized and the other wants to make Sir Barksalot the sole beneficiary of the multimillion-dollar trust. Which is why, when a glimmer of cooperation emerged from Washington this weekend, everyone understandably assumed hell had frozen over.
In what may go down as the shortest-lived bipartisan peace initiative since somebody suggested inviting Nancy Pelosi to emcee the International Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump briefly entertained the possibility of cutting a deal on deportations.
It was a beautiful moment. Democrats and Republicans, setting aside their differences to work toward a common goal. Nobody called anybody a fascist. Nobody threatened to abolish anything. It was practically a Hallmark movie. Somewhere, a bald eagle got its wings.
NARRATOR: “Nobody could have foreseen such a miraculous turn of events. Sadly, it would not last.”
During the now infamous possibly-going-to-hell interview with 60 Minutes, Trump gave himself a solid, well-deserved (in his estimation) A+ for closing the border, citing his administration’s eight-figure reduction in illegal crossings. He touted the removal of 11,888 murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and assorted other undesirables before acknowledging that his deportation policies may, in retrospect and after much reflection, have been a tiny bit heavy-handed. Sure, he was getting the bad guys out—in droves! by the busload! entire gangs!—but he might have accidentally rounded up a few taxpaying housekeepers and gardeners, too.
“In the last 17 months, zero people came in through our southern border, as opposed to 25 million people—25 million people,” Trump told Douthat. “They came in through caravans. Nobody ever saw anything like it. For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that—that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally. I think it might be too tough, yeah. And a lot of people would say that it’s great. But a lot of people think it’s too tough.”
TL;DR: “I was spectacular. Did I go a little too far? Maybe. But lots of people think I was spectacular.”
As POTUS sees it, there are essentially three schools of thought on immigration: people who believe every miscreant, molester, and murderer on the planet deserves a comfy bed and three squares, people who favor booting criminals while making allowances for longtime, law-abiding residents, and people—whom Trump described as “on the sort of pretty far right”—who want anyone unable to produce a birth certificate, three generations of family Fourth of July photos, and two eyewitnesses to their delivery cuffed and thrown on the next flight to Guatemala.
It was that last group Douthat had questions about.
DOUTHAT: “Do any of those people work in your administration? Are they in the building with us right now?”
Hahahahahaha. He literally asked that. Somewhere in the West Wing, Stephen Miller’s ears were on fire.
Trump went on to suggest that a deal with Democrats might actually be “doable,” adding that some had already called him. For nearly 24 glorious hours, bipartisan immigration reform was back on the menu.
Senator Dick Durbin immediately urged Trump to “keep your word” and work with Democrats on legislation protecting Dreamers. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed that Democratic lawmakers had been calling about a deal and even suggested he could support permanent legal status for DACA recipients (although he “draws a hard line at amnesty”). A Schumer aide reportedly asked if they should start referring to him as President Trump again.
Unfortunately, the whole thing lasted about as long as a keg at a frat party.
Conservatives took Trump’s comments to mean he was planning to put the welcome mat back out at the southern border or replace ICE raids with citizenship ceremonies and began hyperventilating into their MAGA tote bags. Someone had to talk Steve Bannon off a ledge. By Monday, Trump had apparently recovered from his brief bout of cooperation.
“We have a very strong deportation policy; there’s no amnesty, no, no anything, we keep that,” he informed reporters during an impromptu press conference in the White House briefing room. “Somebody suggested, will there be amnesty? No. They came in, they knew the law. My policy hasn’t changed.”
And just like that, the Great Immigration Compromise of 2026 was over. Please collect your commemorative t-shirts on the way out.
To be fair, anyone expecting Trump to soften his immigration stance might have noticed one tiny clue that he wasn’t exactly preparing to throw open the borders: Hours after publicly flirting with the idea of a hypothetical compromise, he appointed Stephen Miller—who brings to mass deportation the sort of enthusiasm normally reserved for a surprise tax refund—as his new chief of staff.
Miller, you may recall, is also the man House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries announced he would absolutely, positively, under no circumstances work with.
Once again, we’re back to the version of “bipartisan cooperation” that looks like two toddlers fighting over the last cheese stick.
On Tuesday, Jeffries appeared on PBS NewsHour, where he announced his support for bringing back DACA recipients who had already been deported. “Anyone, whether they are a citizen, whether they were here lawfully, whether they are DACA recipients who’ve been treated unfairly and unjustly by the administration, we need to provide remedial assistance to them and undo the damage that's been done to the country.” Good to know my tax dollars may soon be funding round-trip deportations while I’m over here clipping deodorant coupons.
So let’s review. Trump wants to negotiate immigration reform, except he doesn’t want any changes to his deportation policy. Democrats want to negotiate immigration reform, except they don’t want to deal with Trump’s chief of staff. Mullin is open to legal status for Dreamers, provided nobody uses the word amnesty. And Jeffries wants to bring certain deportees back into the country, presumably while Miller is locked in a broom closet.
This should go swimmingly.
The irony is that Democrats weren’t always allergic to border enforcement. Barack Obama directed so many one-way flights he earned the nickname “Deporter in Chief.” Hillary Clinton championed solid borders and tougher immigration enforcement long before Trump made building a wall his entire personality. And Tom Homan, Trump’s much-reviled “border czar”? Under Obama, he ran ICE’s deportation operations and received the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service—one of the federal government’s highest civilian honors. Apparently, the road from “distinguished public servant” to “despised public enemy” is approximately one administration long.
I guess somewhere along the way, border security became a Republican hobby, like collecting guns or boycotting Bud Light.
Meanwhile, the newly victorious Democrats are already sending somewhat mixed signals about what comes next. Minnesota Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan has promised to “rip ICE apart.” Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar insists he doesn’t believe in abolishing ICE and warned against Biden’s open border policies. Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego vowed to keep fighting for Dreamers “to continue building their lives and futures in America.” Somebody might want to get these people on a group text.
And in a stunning development only [*checks notes*] anyone with a pulse could’ve seen coming, massive migrant caravans are marching through southern Mexico as I type, with several citing the Democratic midterm victories as renewed reason for hope.
“There might be a light at the end of the tunnel, a way for us to get in,” a 47-year-old Nicaraguan who was deported from the US a few months ago told reporters. “We believe the Democrats will help us.”
Of course they will. What are a few broken laws among voters friends?
POLL REDUX FOR FINICKY PHONES:
What are your thoughts on amnesty for illegal aliens?
It’s right and humane.
Blanket? No. Case-by-case? Fine.
Reward criminals? Yeah, no.
DEPORT THEM ALL.
*combo/unsure/other
Jenna and peeps - gotta hijack the comments today. Let’s let no one ever forget what was done to our loved ones in hospitals during the plandemic. Please help promote Mikki Willis’s new documentary, Bad Medicine:
https://badmedicinemovie.org/
Bad Medicine conducts a pandemic postmortem that refuses to neglect the deaths of the 1,167,210 Americans who lost their lives in isolated ICU beds, fighting a potential biological weapon and, more disturbingly, the toxic treatment protocols designated for hospitalized COVID patients.
One day showing in select theaters nationwide on Wednesday, December 16th at 7pm
For those of you in NE Ohio, please join me and my peeps as we host these two showings in Aurora and Macedonia:
https://badmedicine.ticketspice.com/aurora-oh
https://badmedicine.ticketspice.com/macedonia-oh
I guarantee I would get zero leniency if I committed a crime, and it is offensive that people living among us (yes, here in Kentucky) are given a pass. I know a family, with 4 kids born here, who have lived here illegally for longer than I have. He owns a business! Wtf! No, they need to go.