Op-ed: How’s Trump Doing on Immigration? Great! (Mostly)

New York Mayor Ed Koch used to ask almost everyone he met, “How’m I doing?”

Trump hasn’t asked me “How’m I doing?” on immigration, but if he did, I’d answer, “Outstanding, Mr. President, but with one hiccup and much left to do.”

The first challenge the President faced was to stop the disaster at the border. And he’s succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. As journalist Byron York asked on X, “How many presidents solve a problem … that was a huge issue in the campaign, and solve it in the first few months of their presidency?”

Arrests at the southern border in May were down 93 percent from the same time last year. During a recent 24-hour period, border czar Tom Homan reported that only 95 illegal aliens were encountered by the Border Patrol along the entire 2,000-mile border – the lowest number ever recorded.

And the reason the numbers have cratered is policy: border jumpers are no longer let go. Why incur the expense and risk of the trip if you’re just going to end up in immigration detention? In May 2024, the Biden-Mayorkas DHS released into the country 62,000 aliens who had no right to enter the United States. And this past May? Zero – zip, nada, bupkes.

The next big challenge is to try to unwind the disaster created by Biden’s anti-borders policies, and more generally, the lax and frivolous way immigration control has been approached for decades. This will take longer, but we’re seeing a great start.

Reducing the illegal population has two tracks: 1) illegal immigrants taken into custody by ICE and sent back to their countries, and 2) self-deportation, where illegal aliens realize the party’s over and go home on their own.

Despite fairy tales to the contrary, Trump is not lagging in deportations. The higher numbers recorded in prior administrations were due to continued mass violation of the border – lots of people crossed, lots were sent back, and that racked up numbers. But removals of illegal aliens from the interior of the country – which is what we’re seeing now since almost no one is coming over the border – are up under Trump, with roughly 70,000 so far. These removals actually reduce the illegal population, rather than just keep it from increasing.

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[Read the rest at The Spectator]