Democrats Need a Programmatic Alternative to Mass Deportation, Not Just “Resistance”
This op-ed was first written in May 2025 and then modified over the month of June as President Trump’s detentions of unauthorized immigrants began to increase in intensity and as the “No Kings” demonstrations of June 14 attracted millions to their day of protest. A shortened version appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on July 12, 2025 under the mostly misleading headline, “On Immigration, Trump and the Democrats both went too far.” The latter headline implied that the op-ed was a piece of detached analysis, when it was really meant as a call to political action for the Democratic party.
The recent focus on President Trump’s provocative and possibly illegal militarization of the immigration issue has obscured the vulnerability of his underlying policy on the subject itself. Democrats would do well to refocus attention on that policy. With the number of new unauthorized arrivals now down to near zero, the moment is ripe for Democrats to advance a broad proposal for bipartisan immigration reform that substantially accepts the Trump-era restrictions on new border crossings and visa violations – which began during the final year of the Biden administration – while urging a path to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants, other than convicted criminals, who are already here.
In brief, Democrats should say yes to border restrictions, no to mass deportations. There are strong reasons to believe that a majority of Americans would support such a middle position.
The more the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency shifts its attention away from alleged gang members and foreign student radicals and begins to detain the likes of nonthreatening workers from car washes or locally-popular proprietors of family-owned businesses – as has happened in the Philadelphia area, where I live – or restaurant workers, as just happened outside of Pittsburgh, the more likely will opposition develop to such inhumane and seemingly incomprehensible practices. The same goes for more nationally publicized raids on garment, construction, and landscape workers in California, Florida, and Massachusetts, which have often resulted in painful separations between family members. These actions, notwithstanding the president’s latest pledge to avoid going after agricultural and hospitality workers, are creating an opening for more sensible immigration proposals to be considered.
Despite Mr. Trump’s repeated assertions that voters delivered him a “mandate” for all his actions on immigration, there are signs that a solid majority of Americans oppose mass deportations on both humanitarian and practical grounds. As one Trump supporter in a rural part of Missouri explained her decision to aid a recently-jailed restaurant coworker, a forty-five-year-old woman who came to the United States from Hong Kong on a tourist visa twenty years ago and now has three American-born children, “I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here [in Kennett, Missouri]. But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs….” The detained woman’s church has organized a prayer vigil for her, and hundreds of local residents have signed petitions to bring her home.
A recent national poll conducted by the centrist organization Third Way found that while 90% of voters agreed that “We should deport any immigrant who is convicted of a violent crime,” fully 75% also stated that “We need to establish a pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who have been living and working here for years, even if they came here illegally.”
Democrats can look to several past precedents for models of a programmatic alternative to the president’s policies. The most promising initiative came in June 2013 when the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill by a 68-32 vote, with 14 Republican senators (including Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham) joining 52 Democrats and 2 Independents in favor. The bill promised strict border security; it reorganized visa preferences for legal immigrants, including temporary workers; and it established a five-year path to citizenship for “Dreamers” (children who arrived illegally in the U.S. under age 16) and a 13-year path to citizenship for those immigrants who arrived illegally as adults. The latter path required applicants to pay a $1000 fine for having broken the law when they first entered the country or overstayed their visa, to pass English-language proficiency and United States history and civics tests, to be free of a criminal record, and to pay an additional $1,000 in processing fees for the verification of their applications. Unfortunately, the effort died when the House rejected the bill.
More recently (2023-24), a bipartisan group of 38 Congressional representatives (30 Democrats and 8 Republicans), including three Pennsylvanians (Democrats Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick) proposed the Dignity Act, which called for strong border security and a streamlined, 60-day asylum process, along with a path toward legalized residency for Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants. To be legalized, these immigrants would have to pass a criminal background check and pay $6,000 in fines and restitution fees.
Given President Trump’s hold over the current GOP, it might seem foolish to aim for bipartisan legislation. But that assessment fails to reckon with what the coming months may bring in terms of chaos and likely clashes between extremists on the right (including within the federal government) and left. We have already seen plenty of evidence of such extremism in Los Angeles. Under these changing circumstances, it is critical that Democrats hold out a civically responsible path toward sensible immigration reform, to which disaffected Republicans, even if small in number at first, might gravitate. Such an approach will pave the way for significant gains in the 2026 midterm elections. Prying just 10% of Trump voters away from the Republicans on this issue would likely bring Congress back under Democratic control.
Democrats are absolutely correct to be vocal in condemning the Trump administration’s violations of due process rights of detained students and other immigrants, along with its other likely infractions of the law. These high-profile cases touch on important legal and moral principles. But these cases are mostly a side show for the general population. Because of the unpopularity of most targeted student radicals and alleged gang members and the resort to vandalism by the most extreme protesters, the president even uses these few examples to build support for the far wider deportations he has now set in motion. Democratic “resistance” cannot substitute for programmatic opposition that will actually cut into the wider base of support for President Trump’s immigration policy.
Democrats also need to acknowledge where they went wrong from 2016 through 2023, when they overlooked the negative consequences of far too many people entering or remaining in the country illegally. Only by making this admission will they regain the trust of American voters. On this basis they can then return to their party’s more longstanding and valuable commitment to a controlled flow of legal immigrants. Democrats must not shy away from explaining why immigration is good for America’s future, both economically and demographically, provided the flow of newcomers can be kept within limits and conducted with sensitivity to occupational competition and settlement patterns. With these principles in mind, Democrats can forcefully proclaim that there is no good reason to deport the very same kinds of people today who have always added so much to our nation’s wealth and character.
