With his decisive victory in last month’s presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump received a clear mandate from the American public to close the border and deport those in the country illegally, but this won’t stop the anti-borders machine from doing everything they can to obstruct the people’s will.
Trump won the 2024 presidential election in large part because of his campaign promises to end the chaos and carnage at the border, and reverse the damage through increased deportations. Despite the president-elect’s resounding victory, anti-borders groups and politicians are already organizing resistance to his agenda. This resistance has been noticeably less loud and belligerent than it was after Trump’s first presidential victory in 2016, when big city mayors rushed to re-affirm their cities’ sanctuary status, and activists hit the streets for major protests. Still, anti-borders forces are not going to go down without a fight and are already forming battle plans against the incoming Trump Administration.
Elected officials in blue states and cities have escalated their vows to obstruct the president-elect’s deportation plan. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has promised to do “everything I can to protect undocumented immigrants” in his state, while California Gov. Gavin Newsom convened the legislature for a special session two days after Trump’s victory in order to begin the Golden State’s resistance to the new administration’s policies.
Perhaps the most unhinged rhetoric of any elected official so far has come from Denver Mayor Michael Johnston, who was ranked as the nation’s third worst sanctuary city mayor, according to an analysis conducted earlier this year by the Immigration Reform Law Institute. In recent public comments, Johnston compared resistance to enforcement of federal immigration laws to the Tiananmen Square protests in China, and even threatened a showdown between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials.
“More than us having DPD [Denver Police Department] stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there,” Johnston said. “It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right?” You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them.”
While Johnston may be bloviating for political reasons, his comments are indicative of just how far anti-borders politicians are prepared to go in order to obstruct the Trump Administration’s efforts to restore the rule of law in America’s immigration system. It’s not just anti-borders politicians who will attempt to thwart the people’s mandate on immigration, but non-governmental organizations, and media institutions as well.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) spent the months leading up to the election developing a “roadmap” to thwart Trump’s immigration policies in his second term. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the ACLU was at the forefront of the many legal challenges to Trump’s immigration policies during his first term, most notably attacking the first Trump Administration’s travel ban on countries known to be hot-beds of terrorism. Every immigration policy the Trump Administration is expected to enact, even relatively non-controversial ones such as the reinstatement of the Remain-in-Mexico program and the resumption of border wall construction, will almost certainly be challenged in court by pro-illegal immigration legal groups. As we did throughout his first term, our organization, the Immigration Reform Law Institute stands ready to help defend the Trump Administration’s policies from the inevitable lawfare that will come its way.
Beyond the resistance the incoming administration is certain to face from political and legal circles, we can expect anti-borders allies in the corporate media to wage a massive public relations offensive to try and demonize any enforcement efforts. Throughout the president-elect’s first term in office, the media exploited images of distressed women and children who crossed the border in order to manufacture public support for anti-borders policies. The media has long dishonestly referred to illegal aliens as “undocumented immigrants” or “undocumented workers” in order to soften the American people’s views on illegal immigration.
Throughout the Biden Administration’s time in office, the media has consistently misrepresented the facts in order to shield the current White House from political blowback over its dereliction of duty at the border. It didn’t work as the American people saw through the lies and delivered Trump a decisive mandate for change. This doesn’t mean the media won’t try the same tactics again, and their attempts to exploit the American people’s compassion to empower immigration lawlessness may prove effective at times as it did during Trump’s first term.
Despite the coming resistance, those who advocate for stronger border security measures have never been better positioned to succeed than we are right now. The president-elect will take office in January with public opinion firmly on his side, surrounded by patriots who can be counted on to put law-and-order at the forefront of every decision in this policy area. The anti-borders movement will throw the kitchen sink at the new administration, but ultimately, the incoming White House has the power, the public support, and the political will to fulfill its promises and end the lawlessness that has plagued our immigration system for far too long.
William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.