In the rare instance when a Trump basher does not prejudge a Trump supporter’s motives and morality but instead asks with an open mind, “Why did you vote for Donald Trump?” a typical first response is: “Because he stands firmly against open borders.”
That’s when the bashers in question usually demonstrate how out of touch they are with the current political climate.
They suggest that “no one I know is for open borders.”
Perhaps those observers would get a clue as to how leftward the Democratic Party has veered — not only since the days of Presidents Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, but even since their last president, Barack Obama — by the evidence clearly set forth in that party’s most recent primary debate.
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If not the majority, then certainly an alarmingly high portion of the minority of today’s Democrats have gone so far off the rails that if Obama were running for president right now, he’d be run out of town as a lackey of corporate America, even as a white supremacist, and surely as a xenophobic jingoist.
Not only was Obama’s deportation policy summarily rejected explicitly by some and implicitly by all candidates onstage at the June 27 debate, but even Obama’s own former vice president, Joe Biden, barely and begrudgingly supported that administration’s record.
Jose Diaz-Balart, one of the moderators, asked a fantastic question in such a clear manner that there was no room for ambiguity and misinterpretation: “The Obama administration deported more than three million Americans … If an individual is living in the United States without documents and that is his only offense, should that person be deported?”
Biden answered first. But he sidestepped the question. He said this “[depends] on whether they committed a major crime.”
When Diaz-Balart persisted, Biden was a tad more committal: “That person should not be the focus of deportation.”
More emphatically, California Rep. Eric Swalwell — he has since dropped out, but even so — said, “No. That person can be part of this great American experience.”
His fellow Californian, Sen. Kamala Harris, was also crystal clear: “No, absolutely not. They should not be deported.”
She then emphasized that she disagreed with the Obama administration on that issue.
Obama said this: “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States, undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”
In fact, Obama in 2005 passionately implored that “we all agree on the need to better secure the border and to punish employers who choose to hire illegal immigrants. We are a generous and welcoming people, here in the United States, but those who enter the country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law and they are showing disregard for those who are following the law.”
“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States, undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully to become immigrants in this country,” he also said.
But in stark contrast, the 2020 Democrats who are striving to unseat President Donald Trump conveyed a far different message to people all over the world. They essentially said, “Want to come to the United States? Well, just figure out how to sneak in, and keep your nose clean, and President Harris or President Swalwell will absolutely not deport you. And President Biden would only deport you once the focus of deporting all criminal Persons Here Illegally (PHIs) was complete — which probably would not happen in your lifetime. So for all practical purposes, you would never be deported in a Biden administration, either.”
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Far too many Americans fail to realize the significance of such a message. The United States remains far and away the country to which most people want to migrate. By no means is that goal limited only to asylum seekers.
If you think there is a crisis at our southern border now, just think about what would happen if one of these overt or covert “open borderists” became president.
Moreover, it is important to note that “yes” would not have been a perfect answer to Diaz-Baltar’s question, either. A more complete answer would be: “A PHI with no other offenses nonetheless has violated the law — whether criminally by entering illegally, or civilly by remaining illegally. In either case, the law calls for that person to be deported and yes, I would follow that law and I agree it is a good law.”
“That said — there are extenuating circumstances also provided by the law, such as a sincere and well-founded fear of persecution if returning to one’s home country, or uninhabitable conditions in such country, among others. On a case-by-case basis, these might temporarily defer or even permanently cancel deportation.”
Never before have so many candidates with a realistic chance of gaining a major party nomination spoken with such reckless disregard about the sanctity of our United States borders.
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Many who embrace open borderism are correct about one thing: This may be the scariest moment in American history.
It is frightening not because Donald Trump is president. It’s frightening because there is a chance he might not be re-elected.
Then we would no longer have a voice in the White House that delivers these simple but profound words: “If we don’t have borders, we don’t have a country.”
Constantinos E. Scaros has practiced, taught, and written about immigration law. His latest book is “Stop Calling Them ‘Immigrants.'”
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