If Donald Trump returns to the White House, which would make him the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1893 to serve two non-consecutive terms, his victory will depend on many factors.
A rosy view of the economy under Trump before the pandemic broke out.
The punishing inflation of the Biden years, which plundered the pockets of ordinary Americans every time they went to buy gas or groceries.
The inability of Kamala Harris – who suddenly emerged among the American people once the Democratic establishment decided to get rid of Joe Biden – to fit in with voters or dispel the widespread idea that she was actually a bit of a junk.
But perhaps Trump owes it more to one issue above all others: illegal immigration.
Six in 10 Americans consider immigration “very important” when deciding how they will vote, according to the Pew Research Center. Those most concerned about the issue overwhelmingly consider Trump more likely to address it than Harris.
If Donald Trump returns to the White House, which would make him the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1893 to serve two non-consecutive terms, his victory will depend on many factors.
But perhaps Trump owes it more to one issue above all others: illegal immigration.
Illegal immigration, which liberals sometimes refer to euphemistically as “undocumented migration,” is the most visible failure of the Biden-Harris years.
It is a failure on a staggering scale.
The United States Border Patrol records “encounters” with migrants who enter the country illegally or attempted a legal route but were deemed inadmissible. Since Biden-Harris took office in January 2021, there have been a record 10 million such encounters, the vast majority across the southwest land border with Mexico. During the Trump years there were 2.4 million such encounters.
Trump claims that 21 million illegals have invaded the United States under the Biden-Harris administration, but he has never provided a source for that number. It doesn’t matter. The official figures are quite bad.
Crucially, they do not include those who have entered the country undetected, adding at least another 1.5 million to the 10 million known.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that as of January 2022, 11 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States. That figure is likely an underestimate. The truth is that no one knows the real number. Illegal immigrants don’t go around announcing their address.
The United States, of course, is famous for being a nation of immigrants. It will continue to host a significant number of people from around the world for the foreseeable future. But the national consensus is overwhelmingly in favor revised immigration that is legal, orderly and in quantities that the country can comfortably absorb.
There is widespread anger that the United States has lost control of its borders and needs to control them.
The topic is especially toxic for Harris. Biden put her in charge of reinforcing the southern border in the early days of the administration. It was something of a Hail Mary pass, but she didn’t help herself: when, months into her mission, she was asked why she hadn’t yet visited the southern border, she sarcastically responded that she hadn’t visited Europe either.
The truth is that he accomplished nothing as Biden’s “border czar.” He even denied that he ever had the job, although the record makes it clear that he did. As the 2024 election approached, the administration began issuing executive orders that tightened border controls. The number of people crossing illegally has decreased.
But that simply begs the question of why those measures weren’t taken from the beginning. The reason is revealing.
Biden-Harris presided over a lax immigration regime because they thought it would appeal to the millions of Hispanic and Black voters who make up such a crucial part of the Democratic coalition. This just showed how disconnected they were.
The new arrivals, who have waited patiently to enter the country legally and could now be struggling – in menial, minimum wage jobs – to support their families, are the most angry about a massive influx of illegals, because it’s their jobs. those most at risk.
The mob of wealthy blockers who dominate American broadcasting have nothing to lose. Their jobs are not at stake. But those in low-wage, unskilled jobs are right to be worried, because unscrupulous employers could well replace them with new immigrants at even lower wages.
It’s one of the main reasons Trump is winning more Hispanic and black votes – especially among men – than is normal for a Republican, a change in voting habits that could well make the difference between victory or defeat. of Trump.
A recent NBC/Telemundo poll showed Harris’ support among Hispanics at 54 percent to Trump’s 40 percent. A 14-point lead may seem impressive, but at this point in the 2020 campaign, Biden had a 36-point lead among Hispanics.
Trump doesn’t need a majority of Hispanic votes to win, just enough to make a difference in swing states that are so close that even a change of just a couple thousand votes could determine the outcome. Immigration could be precisely the issue that tips things in Trump’s favor by increasing his support among Hispanics and blacks.
MSNBC, the Democratic Party’s main broadcasting arm, was forced to confront this uncomfortable truth on air last week when numerous black and Hispanic voters in the swing state with the most electoral college votes, Pennsylvania, made it clear that they would vote for Trump. because they wanted a president who would regain control of the country’s borders.
Some complained that “illegal aliens” were taking their jobs. Others wondered aloud about the point of a legal immigration process if millions of people could violate it with impunity. Some even supported Trump’s policy of mass deportation of illegals (although that is unlikely to ever happen).
I suspect the MSNBC hosts are still in shock.
There was a time when the mass influx of illegal immigrants was largely a problem for struggling border states. Until their governors, like Greg Abbott of Texas, came up with the ingenious idea of busing immigrants to cities whose Democratic mayors had virtue signaled that they were “sanctuary” cities that welcomed illegal immigrants.
They soon changed their minds when tens of thousands were abandoned in downtown New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC, and other cities. Soon mayors begged border states not to send more because they were already full. New York’s boast of being a sanctuary cost it about $1.5 billion last year.
Additionally, people far from the border can now see the consequences of uncontrolled illegal migration on their own doorstep.
Texas alone has sent nearly 120,000 immigrants to sanctuary cities across the country, including 45,000 to New York. The political consequences have been immense, turning illegal immigration into a national problem.
Every morning I pass by the iconic Roosevelt Hotel, where I stayed when I first visited the United States in 1976, in downtown Manhattan. It closed during the pandemic and is now used as a clearinghouse and shelter for immigrants. There is now an air of menace as men wander aimlessly in groups, the entire block is now a scene of urban squalor (on Madison Avenue!), and most of the surrounding stores are closed and boarded up.
It’s natural to feel sorry for the families sitting on the sidewalk with their suitcases, with nowhere to go. But there is also an angry backlash against those who allowed the uncontrolled immigration that has created these atrocious conditions. As the campaign enters its final week, Harris is still struggling to find convincing answers.
Every morning I pass by the iconic Roosevelt Hotel, where I stayed when I first visited the United States in 1976, in downtown Manhattan. It closed during the pandemic and is now used as a clearinghouse and shelter for immigrants.
The United States is not alone in having an immigrant problem that is changing the face of politics. It is a trend throughout the democratic world.
It appears to end the political career of Justin Trudeau, who has dominated Canadian politics for so long but whose personal ratings are now in tatters due to his open-door immigration policy. He has suddenly become an advocate of controls, but it is too late to save his skin. The Conservative Party of Canada seems set to win the next election and Trudeau’s Liberal Party doesn’t even want him to run again.
It has already contributed to the destruction of Britain’s Conservative Party, which found itself on the wrong side of a landslide victory in July, in part because, having promised that Brexit would put immigration under control, they proceeded to preside over the biggest increase in immigration ever recorded.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant National Rally has replaced the main center-right party, which now barely exists. In Italy, the anti-immigration Giorgia Meloni is prime minister of the most right-wing government since World War II. In Germany, the center-right Christian Democrats have remained relevant only by joining the solid right on immigration.
Today, there is no other problem with the power to alter established customs in democracies than immigration. And now it could be about to do the same in the country created by immigrants. It still may not be enough to return Trump to power. But without him he probably wouldn’t have any chance of achieving a second win.