On Immigration: Nixon Goes To China

How Trump could solve the immigration crisis once and for all

It was said of Richard Nixon that only he could open formal relations with Communist China.

Nixon was an ardent anti-communist throughout his political career. He ran a red-baiting campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas in his first race for a California Senate seat, calling her pink down to her underwear.

He made his political bones investigating the Pumpkin Papers, a set of stolen microfiche tapes allegedly passed to Whittaker Chambers from State Department Official Alger Hiss, who at the time headed up the Carnegie Foundation, and was named by Chambers to be a communist.

Nixon became so famous as an anti-communist that Dwight Eisenhower named him as his Vice President and the rest became political history.

Immigration is Donald Trump’s version of Nixon’s anti-communism.

No other issue has defined the current President’s political persona more than the promise that he would close the border and deport millions of illegal immigrants. From the very moment he descended that escalator in Trump Tower, he said: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Trump’s comments inflamed the Left and even Jeb Bush, but it resonated with the Republican base and propelled him to victory in 2016. In his first go-around as President, Trump tried to build a big, beautiful wall, but was stopped by Democrats who refused to fund it. When he tried to divert money from the Pentagon budget, the effort for undermined by Congress and by elements of his own Administration. The Democrats became so radicalized against the Trump effort that they soon adopted extreme open-border and sanctuary city policies, including violent anti-ICE rhetoric.

When Joe Biden became President, he reacted to the radicalization of his own party by agreeing to it. He threw open the borders, neutered ICE and allowed a mass of illegal immigration to overwhelm our cities. Biden’s embrace of the far-left turned off members of his own coalition, even African-Americans who saw that the illegals were getting public benefits that they believed should have gone to them.

And it turned out that many central American countries were not sending their best. They were emptying their prisons, sending drug-dealers and rapists and MS-13 gang members. The crime was so bad that legal immigrants, especially Hispanics, said that they had enough and they supported Trump’s return to the White House. Democrats tried to blame Trump for a failed immigration reform bill that some Senate Republicans unwisely negotiated with Mr. Biden, but it turned out we didn’t need a new law to bring sanity to the border. We just needed a new President.

And when Donald Trump returned to the White House, he conducted a shock and awe campaign that scared potential illegal aliens from even coming to the country. The result has been the most spectacular success in political history. Illegal immigration has basically stopped in six short months. ICE is conducting raids in all kind of places, all with an eye to the left-wing media. How can we best scare the gang-bangers and rapists and drug-dealers so they stay home?

The battle over the weekend in California is a perfect example. Outside of LA, ICE came to a cannabis farm to root out illegal aliens and what they found was human trafficking, drug-dealing (which you would expect at the Pot farm, I guess) and the exploitation of child labor. And of course the Left is taking the side of the drug-dealers and child exploiters.

But even President Trump understands that we can’t have a growing economy without workers and many of the folks who do the hard work in America are not here legally. That is the case in hotels. That is the case on many farms. That is the case in chicken manufacturing plants.

Also, President Trump understands that deporting the so-called “Dreamers” is not humane. There are some elements within the President’s coalition who are more than happy to deport all of these folks, but that’s not the sentiment among the vast middle of the country.

And when it comes to the voters’ views of immigration in this country, things have changed. Because Trump has restored law and order, the voters feel better about the place of immigration in their lives. They don’t want the Cleaning Lady deported. They don’t want the guy who servers them Margaritas at the local Mexican place deported. Yes, they want MS-13 destroyed but that nice guy who mows my lawn is probably not a member of a criminal gang.

So for President Trump, this might be a Nixon goes to China moment. He can do some things himself and some things, he might want Congress to do. But he should take some steps to help the economy by helping keep workers here in America. I don’t know if that is through an expanded visa program or if he wants the Congress do something to provide a pathway to citizenship to Dreamers and other immigrants who have been here for decades.

To grow the economy, we need immigrants. That has always been the case. President Trump should do what he can to make sure that continues. He should seize this Nixon goes to China moment.