Beutler: Unfortunately, I think a lot of that is gonna have to wait for the presidential election and that the goal right now has to be harm reduction; restraining the secret immigration police; promises to use, checking and balancing power to bring Trump closer into compliance with the law and with the idea that all human beings should be treated with dignity.
They can promise that much, but they can’t basically say, Vote for us because we have a grand solution to the immigration problem that will get enacted if we have majorities in the House or Senate, ’cause Trump’s not going to sign that bill. Going into election season, I think that much of what they’ll have to do is just point to these atrocities and say, We’ve tried this way—now it’s time to try another way.
It will probably help—given the effectiveness of Republican propaganda and the real increase in flows across the border during Biden’s term—for ambitious Democrats to say, We’re not going back to that either. We have a new plan, but we have to do something so that we never do this again. We have these moments like Japanese internment, which are supposed to be the moments that chasten us to not commit atrocities again—and we, because of how the public voted in 2024, have slipped back into that, unfortunately. But if this percentage of Americans that you were just quoting remains morally clear about why this is wrong a year from now, two years from now, then I don’t think it’ll be terribly hard for whoever the Democrats nominate for president to win the argument.
