How should immigration policy change to balance better the need to enforce the law with humanitarian and economic concerns? Journal writers weigh in.
The data show that President Trump has delivered on promises to close the southern border and deport illegal immigrants. Yet his onetime political strength is now a liability. What changed?
Public perception. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is no longer seen as the solution to social disorder, but as its cause. The shift began last summer. Before ICE’s high-profile enforcement operations in Los Angeles, voters backed Mr. Trump’s plans. They wavered when ICE agents drew protests, clashed with activists, and detained U.S. citizens.
Last month’s deadly encounters in Minneapolis reinforced the notion of an agency spawning chaos. By the time Mr. Trump sent White House border czar Tom Homan to the Twin Cities in response, the crisis threatened to wreck his second term. Mr. Homan defused a combustible situation by adjusting the style and substance of immigration enforcement. His approach should be applied nationwide.
Mr. Homan’s calm, frank demeanor won media plaudits. He established a unified chain of command and emphasized working with state and local authorities to apprehend criminal illegal aliens inside jails. This focus on incarcerated illegal immigrants requires fewer officers and limits operational exposure. Everyone is safer as a result. The course correction allowed Mr. Homan to draw down agents and end the standoff.
ICE remains controversial, to put it mildly. But a return to de facto open borders won’t help anyone. To restore confidence, order and the rule of law, Mr. Trump must do three things: Prioritize deportations of criminals and the several million illegal immigrants who entered the country during Joe Biden’s presidency. Avoid tragic headlines. And put Mr. Homan in charge.
— Mr. Continetti is a columnist for WSJ Opinion’s Free Expression.
The president is learning that successfully tackling an issue can reduce its political potency. He has made great headway in resolving the immigration crisis Mr. Biden left him — a crisis that helped Mr. Trump return to office. U.S. Border Patrol encounters with aspiring crossers are now at their lowest level in over 50 years. But that leaves the trickier situation of those who’ve already made it in.
Polls after Minnesota’s enforcement surge show that mistakes and excesses can turn what was Mr. Trump’s best issue into an electoral drag. Yet to accept as a given not only violation of immigration laws but also popular resistance to such laws of the sort seen in Minnesota would be to accept what Lincoln called “the essence of anarchy.”
For now, focusing enforcement on illegal immigrants with criminal records is prudent. This will weaken the dangerous shadow society that illegal immigration creates and put enforcement’s opponents back in the untenable position they held earlier in Mr. Trump’s presidency. Further steps must take place in a political climate that rewards upholding immigration laws, not thwarting them.
— Mr. Butler is deputy editor of Free Expression.
Immigration enforcement could have been a layup for Mr. Trump. Quickly ending Mr. Biden’s unpopular policy of largely open borders was a major victory. Deporting illegal immigrants with a criminal record is reasonable and has wide support.
But the White House has squandered public trust. It celebrates deporting “murderers, pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and terrorists,” while labeling Alex Pretti and Renee Good domestic terrorists — a claim unsupported by evidence. ICE has detained foreign dissidents, U.S. citizens, college students and children. The Cato Institute found in December that the Department of Homeland Security’s “Worst of the Worst” list included only 4% of ICE arrests since January 2025, and more than half of those on the list weren’t charged with violent crimes.
The administration needs to convince Americans that its priority actually is deporting criminals. Raiding Home Depot parking lots and stopping people on the street isn’t persuasive to this end. Neither is restricting visa issuances or detaining legal immigrants.
Reducing ICE’s presence in Minneapolis was a good start to returning ICE to its primary mission. Focusing on criminals and using discretion for edge cases might lower the temperature. “Maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch,” Mr. Trump said recently. “But you still have to be tough.” He’s right. Prudence and upholding the law aren’t mutually exclusive. Now he needs to act like he believes it.
— Mr. Murphy is a Joseph Rago Memorial Fellow at the Journal.
The current conflict over immigration enforcement represents a constitutional rupture. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the authority to establish a “uniform rule of naturalization,” and the Supreme Court has long held that federal authority over immigration is “plenary” — sweeping and essentially exclusive. But the justices have said in various other contexts that Washington can’t “commandeer” state resources to enforce federal law, which leaves the door open for “sanctuary” policies that limit state and local officers’ cooperation with federal efforts. Such policies date back at least to the 1980s — they aren’t a reaction to Trump-era excesses.
In addition, the Supreme Court held in Plyler v. Doe (1982) that illegal-alien schoolchildren have a right to a public education, and some states permit illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses. These policies make practical sense — the alternative is more uneducated children and uninsured drivers — but they also tend to undermine respect for the law.
Complicating matters further, Congress has delegated substantial discretion over immigration to the president, and the political parties have become polarized around the issue. That leads to dramatic shifts in policy, as when Mr. Trump succeeded Mr. Biden last year. Ethnic politics militates toward nonenforcement during Democratic administrations — and, during Republican ones, toward open defiance of federal authority in some Democrat-led states. The latter is the greatest danger to the rule of law.
These are deep structural problems that may take generations to resolve. In the short term, a show of federal muscle is necessary to affirm Washington’s sovereign authority under the Constitution. But this is a delicate business, and the administration tempts chaos unless it learns to exercise its power with a lot more finesse.
— Mr. Taranto is the Journal’s editorial features editor.
Solving the problems with illegal immigration in the U.S. starts with fixing legal pathways, especially the asylum process. During the Biden administration, millions of migrants were allowed into the country, with many of them claiming refugee status as a way to buy time and enter the system. The protection that was designed for those fleeing political oppression and persecution — true political refugees — was devalued as a routine claim to take advantage of an overstretched bureaucracy.
Part of any asylum reform has to be setting priorities. Certain groups of people who are at high risk for violence or repression in foreign countries should be at the front of the line. Afghans who served alongside the U.S. military and are targets for the Taliban are one. Uyghurs and other Chinese nationals who have exposed Beijing’s human-rights abuses are another.
One way to improve the process would be to make it easier for asylum seekers to register claims before arriving in the U.S., potentially through processing centers in transit countries. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should also prioritize hiring more asylum officers, who interview seekers about their claims, to get through the case backlog. Reducing the processing delays will provide a disincentive for migrants with less-credible claims to abuse the asylum system and provide a legal process more worthy of our democratic republic.
— Ms. Levy is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
On immigration, after the Biden presidency, a measure of unpopularity is inescapable. The Trump administration can’t do nothing about the millions of migrants who entered the U.S illegally. Neither can it seek to deport illegal aliens without raising public alarm and affording its political enemies opportunities to vilify it as “fascist” and the like. That doesn’t excuse the administration from willfully overstepping the limits of its mandate. But reasonable observers can admit that any sane policy will, to a greater or lesser degree, look ugly.
I have no sage counsel, other than to say this: If illegal migrants are performing lawful, remunerative labor, they are, at that moment, contributing to the welfare of mankind and ought to be left alone. Work is a sacred activity. Nabbing people as they wait for jobs as roofers or drywallers, or raiding hotels and farms as they do useful things and earn money for themselves and their families, offends natural sensibilities. A great many natural-born citizens won’t work. Many more won’t do their best while on the clock. To punish noncitizens for engaging in productive behavior is to persecute the righteous. No good will come of it.
— Mr. Swaim writes the Unruly Republic column for the Journal.
There were some 14 million undocumented aliens in the U.S. as of 2023. That’s more than the entire population of any single American state other than California, Texas, Florida and New York. It isn’t the sort of number of people you can just decide to sling out, saying “Begone!” Even if the White House could dispatch enough immigration agents, it would look like a domestic army fighting on American soil. In other words, distressing. The president would be waging war against undocumented millions and, as the recent ugly incidents involving ICE have shown, against their humane American well-wishers as well as hard-left agitators.
What to do? In broad terms, the following: 1. Target, detain and deport the undesirable elements, defined primarily by criminal status. No mercy. They’re out. 2. Accept all the undocumented young (up to college age) who are here and know no other home, along with their parents. It’s the civilized thing to do, and the U.S. is a civilized nation. 3. Evaluate other undocumented people residing in the U.S. on a discretionary basis, with a presumption in favor of residency rights if they’re employed, have paid taxes, and haven’t abused the welfare system. If you check all three boxes, you likely stay. But tack on an additional requirement that you must learn English. 4. Enforce border controls to the fullest, most exacting extent. The existing number of undocumented people should on no account be allowed to mount.
With those four guiding principles, it’s over to our lawmakers to hammer out the implementation.
— Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at NYU Law School’s Classical Liberal Institute.
The Biden administration waved through millions of undocumented immigrants, many under the guise of seeking asylum. As a result, the backlog of immigration cases hovers around 3.4 million, up from one million in 2019, notwithstanding the Trump team’s efforts to expedite hearings and hire more asylum officers and immigration judges.
While some asylum seekers have legitimate claims stemming from political or religious persecution, most were simply seeking a better life in America. Only about 20% of adjudicated asylum claims were ultimately granted as of last August. While their cases are pending in court, many find jobs and set down roots in communities. At the current rate, it could take decades for their claims to be resolved.
It makes little sense to round up and deport those who haven’t committed crimes and are gainfully employed. The priority should be to stanch the flow of new migrants — which the administration has done — and require future migrants from Central and South America who cross through Mexico to apply for asylum there.
Congress could create a new temporary visa, which would be open to those seeking to come into the U.S. as well as those already here without legal status. It would provide authorization to work and live here subject to certain conditions, including not committing crimes and staying gainfully employed.
Spouses and children who are already here could stay, but they wouldn’t be entitled to federal benefits. Some might scream this amounts to amnesty, but with America’s aging population, we’re going to need many more foreign workers to wash dishes, hang drywall and pick strawberries.
— Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
The immigration debate’s descent into appalling violence proves that “sanctuaries” don’t work. A city, county or state arbitrarily opting out of cooperation with the federal government on law enforcement? It’s as preposterous as — and far more dangerous than — a state rejecting the dollar and accepting only bitcoin, guilders or paper clips as its currency.
The Trump administration should take the win on closing the southern border and pursue its recent pivot to a less draconian approach. No more ham-handed displays of force when catching and deporting illegal aliens. Protesters also should pivot — to legal, peaceful demonstrations. No more interfering with or endangering law enforcement carrying out reasonable activities. Imagine if a drug dealer’s neighbors organized to alert him to impending police raids. Whenever officers approached to apprehend the dealer or break up his production facility, the neighbors would blow whistles, shout insults, block streets and otherwise try to thwart the mission. Would this be tolerated as the exercise of free speech?
A tiered immigration-enforcement system is the answer. The Department of Homeland Security should first pursue murderers, thieves and other convicted criminals, not people whose sole crime has been entering the U.S. illegally. To do so effectively, DHS will require full cooperation from state and local law enforcement — a tall order, to be sure, amid histrionic anti-ICE railing by authorities such as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (“a campaign of organized brutality”) and foul-mouthed bluster by the mayor of Minneapolis, which is in Hennepin County, a sanctuary jurisdiction.
Deporting serious offenders would cause minimal economic disruption. It would leave in place illegal workers doing jobs — in agriculture, hospitality and construction — that Americans won’t. Only after addressing that first tier should DHS move on to those who entered illegally and built productive lives in America. Among them, citizenship shouldn’t be a given. Are they familiar with America’s history and founding principles and are they learning English? To weigh such cases fairly will take wisdom and deliberation — commodities in tragically short supply thus far in the brawl over who stays and who goes.
— Ms. Cronin is an associate editorial features editor at the Journal.
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