MAGA Red Wave in '26 and Immigration

 

Here we are, just rounding the first 1/8 turn of the second Trump administration. Things are looking good so far, better than expected.

International affairs are going better than anyone thought they would, with serious thought being given to awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump. What's more, his use of tariffs and focus on getting America back to a favorable balance of trade looks like it might rev up our economy without landing us in a recession, or excessively driving up inflation.

The MAHA agenda, with Robert Kennedy Jr. at the HHS helm seems to be making steady progress. Since the whole agenda there is necessarily driven at the pace of good science, any big changes will probably come later.

Meaningful reforms are already coming in the military, as Secretary of Defense Hegseth makes good on his promises to return it to being a lethal, effective fighting force.. Likewise, the recently passed Big Beautiful Bill, along with the rescission package are a strong beginning. With those votes in the rear view mirror, the congress might actually get to many more of the recommendations made by DOGE to rein in governmental waste, fraud, and abuse.

Even on the perennially unsolvable issue of illegal immigration, this administration's fierce initial approach has resulted in reducing the flow of illegal migrants across our border to a trickle. That is a solid beginning. This is, however, the one issue that we must focus on, because it could make or break the entire MAGA agenda. Illegal immigration will prove to be either the Achilles heel of the MAGA movement or its' greatest achievement, and it will all come down to whether we will just remain hard headed about it, or convert to a stance of hard headed compassion.

The 2026 midterms are coming at us like a freight train, just a couple more turns down the road. A year from now that election will loom like a dark cloud over the national mind. The conventional wisdom is that the party in power usually loses seats in the midterm, and we must not let that happen. If the Democrats gain just a few seats in the House, and maintain at least the filibuster option in the Senate, these first two years might eventually be seen as the high water mark of the MAGA movement.

If the Democrats gain control of the House, as seems likely, that will scuttle almost the entire agenda. Impeachment will fill the air, and it won't be aimed solely at the President. Certainly, Big Pharma can be counted on to bring the impeachment gun to bear on Kennedy. Even if others are not impeached, those like Tom Homan will be forced to spend more time in Washington, answering to committees, than in doing their jobs.

On the other hand, Illegal immigration could prove to be the Republican's breakthrough issue of the 26 midterms. If we could get the hard headed among us to accept a modified stance, we could not only manage to barely hold our own, we might turn 26 into a red wave landslide. There is a real chance we could get to a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, while increasing our majority in the House. We might then, for the first time in a long time, have one party national government. Then, with no excuses for failure, the nation can decide if we have done a good enough job to continue in power after Trump. Then, and only then, we might be be on the verge of making America great again.

To get to the heart of the issue, what we have to do is modify our hard headed, absolutely NO AMNESTY stance with some realistic compassion. This plan necessarily contains some fine nuance (it can't be a repeat of the 1986 debacle), which will be explained in a bit, but first let's look at how unrealistic, and fictional, the NO AMNESTY stance is.

As a conservative guess, there are probably at least 30 million illegal migrants here today. They mostly have close attachments, via children (citizens who will remain citizens even if birthright citizenship is ended. No Ex Post Facto laws allowed, remember?), in-laws, and friends. So, at a minimum we are talking about a deportation process that will have traumatic effect on 50 or more million people, many of whom voted for Trump in 24.

Chances are they will switch their votes in 26 if things keep going like they are, and that will hand at least the House to the Democrats. That could possibly render the entire MAGA movement a soon forgotten footnote in the history of the decline of the American republic. Trump can't run again, so we have only this one shot. We best not blow it.

Look at how things have actually been going. Yes, it appears that a million or so illegal immigrants have been detained and or deported, and once again, the border has been closed. That is a good start.

But most of the deportees have been the despicable criminals and gang members nobody wanted in the first place, along with those self deportees who were probably intending to leave soon anyway. In other words, they were the low hanging fruit. Even with all that going for the deportation process, the administration still had to resort to multiple deployments of the National Guard to assist ICE, and the almost unheard of deployment of American combat forces on American soil.

To get from one million to 30 million, we will have to double that effort, and then double it again, and then double it again, and then double it again, and then double it yet again. Even now, many of the immigrant's home countries refuse to repatriate them, so we shunt them to third countries. That will work only in the short term and in small numbers. In large numbers, dumping unemployed foreigners will result in criminal gangs running amok in those countries, who will then also refuse them.

It is hard to see how we can continue, let alone accelerate, down this path without resorting to martial law. Especially because of the resistance in sanctuary cities and states. That might require dozens, if not hundreds of National Guard and regular military deployments, making America resemble a police state.

Disturbingly, some of the brutal immigration enforcement looks like the worst form of scapegoating. You know the drill. The people are deeply frustrated about never seeing any elites arrested and convicted, no matter how great their crimes. That kind of anger can be and historically has been transferred, by sly leaders, to some other group, some scapegoat. Then, suffering is inflicted on the scapegoats while the truly guilty go forgotten. Evil leaders have worked that game many times in the past.

Don't try to argue the current American people are too smart for that. It is to laugh. What's worst, this scapegoating looks like, and might actually be, a continuation of the racist heritage we almost all say we want to leave in the past.

If we continue down this path, we will probably become a police state, or fall into some form of civil war, or most probably both: low level civil war and authoritarianism. America will become an armed camp. Our deportation efforts will likely become an avoidable slow burning humanitarian disaster, not solve the problem of illegal immigration and resemble genocide.

All of that will likely follow if we stick to the hard headed, absolutely NO AMNESTY approach. Or rather, our false version of that approach because let's be real here, that NO AMNESTY thing is a fiction to begin with. There is no intention of applying that hard headed logic to all the illegal employers. If NO AMNESTY were applied to illegal employers today, almost all the meat packing, construction and agri-business concerns would quickly be put out of business. Not only would they lose their workers, but they would be fined into bankruptcy, that is if we were serious about NO AMNESTY to law breakers.

Many will shout, “Whoa up and hold on there sport. A strict application of the law to deprive billionaires of some of their millions of dollars is a bridge too far, a tragedy too great to consider.” They will say this while asserting that ruining the lives of millions of weak and defenseless workers is perfectly alright. This is scapegoating in action.

So that NO AMNESTY thing will, in the fine tradition of American euphemism and equivocation, fall apart in the wink and nod, backroom dealings of the good old boy network. We all suspect that is how it will end, after we witness a time of highly publicized brutal enforcement. When immigration enforcement starts hitting the bottom line of some big campaign donors, the vigor of law enforcement will peter out, and things will go back to how they used to be. The problem of illegal immigration will remain unsolved. That is the way it has gone before, and that is how things will probably go this time.

That is what happened in 1986, and that is why amnesty did not work then. Amnesty to illegal immigrants, with the border remaining porous, was just an open invitation to more illegal immigration, and that is what we got. Instead, we must first close the border, which we have done, and make sure it stays closed, which will require an ending of ALL illegal employment. It might also include expanding the wall where appropriate, but that is a relatively small side matter.

Enacting and vigorously enforcing strong laws against illegal employment will be the key factor in keeping the border closed. We have simply to turn off the jobs magnet attracting the workers.

Enforcement of immigration laws will, contrary to those defending illegal employment, be an easy fix. Simply attach hefty fines to every instance of illegal employment, and make half the fine money payable, as a bounty, to those who report it. That approach would make enforcement very effective, and profoundly cost effective.

In fact, that way of doing it would be so effective that it would actually threaten the economic well being of many big corporations. Then the real world benefits of this policy would come to the fore. Rather than allowing themselves to go broke, the big corporate illegal employers would be forced to make their arguments in transparent public debate, and not just in smoke filled back rooms. When the big business folks have to make their arguments public, we will probably soon discover that in some fields, such as agriculture and meat processing, we really do need some foreign workers

With the real issues around illegal immigration finally up for transparent public discussion, we could then move forward to find agreement on real solutions to the problem of illegal immigration. Consider the following possible agenda.

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Any such solution will have to be based on keeping the border tightly closed. The first step has to be that everyone who comes in to this country comes in through the front door, in compliance with our laws, whatever we decide those laws will be. And that closure must be maintained for as long as the border exists.

The next stage in the plan is to establish some date certain, in the near future, at which time all illegal employees, and their employers, are required to identify all illegal workers. At that time each worker will be assigned a provisional green card, with bio-metric data attached and downloaded to a data base.. After that date, any worker without such a card, and file in the data base, is subject to immediate deportation and the employer is subject to a fine, if not criminal prosecution.

Concurrent with that, each of the workers is entered into and subjected to a vetting process, the provisions of which will have already been established and made transparent to the public. These protocols will be designed to determine who deserves to gain permanent green card status.

These protocols will be based on things like time in country, legal record, work history, character references from friends and employers, record of family use or abuse of government services, and things like that. That way, a person who has been here twenty years, worked hard, paid their bills and kept their nose clean will be relatively assured, even before entering into the process, of gaining a permanent card. That way, much opposition to the plan will be muted.

On the other hand, those who engaged in criminality, or who lived on the edge of the law, or were illegitimately brought in during Biden's open border fiasco, or who came here to game our system and take advantage of our compassion, will be filtered out.

While that vetting process is being carried out, all employees, legal or illegal, will, for the first time, have equal legal status. That means minimum wage, safety, and worker benefits laws will be in force. That alone will make it to where native born Americans will once again be able to compete for jobs in those fields. As the vetting process continues, many of the foreign born illegal workers will be gone, and even more native born workers will take their place.

Once again it must be emphasized that a closed border will have to be a permanent fact for this plan to work. From this point forward there will be no new illegal workers coming in. That will be the big difference compared to 1986. Then, over the course of just a few years, with our economy expanding as expected, the formerly illegal workers will be absorbed into an open, free and fair market. The problem of illegal immigration will largely be solved. Then we can have full employment, with a dignified, legally protected and decent life for all workers.

That is the plan to solve it, but before we can get there, we must first recognize and deal with the true bad guys in this scenario. There are clearly some very powerful and entrenched special interests that want the illegal immigration situation to stay exactly where it is. (One wonders if some of them aren't among those pressing so strongly for the NO AMNESTY fiction, so as to prevent any real solutions from being presented.).

The two major bad actors here are the commercial interests who desire an ongoing supply of low cost and legally marginalized workers, and the gangs and drug cartels south of the border who want easy access to our nation for their nefarious activities, such as drug and human trafficking. Those groups are very influential and will work hard to prevent any solution to the illegal immigration problem, a problem which makes them filthy rich. So we had better be fully prepared for their intense opposition when we do agree on a solution.

The pivotal issue to consider in defeating them is the rule of law. This factor is naturally our best tool because the rule of law unites us: it empowers the people to be certain we are in the right. This is THE issue that corrupt politicians (by definition) and corporate greedmeisters (by inclination) want to ignore.

As an example, think about how ignoring the rule of law effects workers in just one kind of job; janitorial work. It used to be that janitors were paid by the hour as employees, with benefits, overtime, vacations, insurance and such. These days that work is mostly subcontracted out,(largely to illegals) so the worker has no benefits and is expected to pay their own taxes. It’s still very low paid work, averaging little more than ten to fifteen dollars an hour, and the worker, as stated, is expected to pay the taxes out of that. The situation is similar in other trades, such as construction and landscaping.

Most of the illegal workers simply don’t pay their taxes, which maximizes their take home pay, allowing them to pay for their own benefits. And there is a tendency to have the government subsidize their pay by relying on emergency rooms for medical care. The only way for an American to compete is to take a job that after taxes brings home less than seven to ten dollars an hour, or to take the risk of not paying the taxes.

If the IRS comes after the illegal for back taxes, they can go underground, get a new phony ID, take a temporary deportation, or maybe just take their savings and depart for home. On the other hand, if the IRS comes after the American worker, they’re in a lot of trouble, with almost no place to hide. So the situation is that if the American is going to compete with the illegal, they tend to move to a marginalized legal status, effectively working under the table, just like the illegal. That’s how it is working today, how it has always worked when the law is being ignored, and how it will always work. Lawlessness always begets more lawlessness.

Now consider how this microcosm plays out when repeated millions of times over many years. (As a side note, it is clear that the illegal community is composed of more than just Mexican nationals, but the situation between our two nations is so unique and we are so closely tied together that the discussion will be simplified to make the point.)

Basically, if the rule of law continues to be ignored, (if we allow lawlessness to continue it will only get worse) the status of Mexican and migrant workers, both in this nation and in Mexico, will stay the same or slowly get worse, and the status of American workers (wages, protections, security, etc) will, over the course of years, be brought down to that level. This has been happening for decades now, and is a major factor in the widening disparity between rich and poor in this nation.

On the other hand, if we insist on the rule of law, requiring our government to do the will of the people and forcing businesses to obey the law, the status of the American workers (wages, benefits...) will stay the same as today, or tend to slowly improve, and the status of the Mexican and migrant workers, in this nation and in Mexico, will slowly be brought up to that level. Thus, many of the economic issues facing the masses will improve if we reject illegality and instead embrace the rule of law.

This might seem anti business to some, but it really isn’t. It must be acknowledged that the forces of commerce can be a great benefit to society, but there is a tendency of business to be guided by runaway greed, exploiting the weak and corrupting governments. It’s not that business is immoral, rather it is amoral. Like a mindless, amoral beast, it will take as much as it is allowed to take, and just like a beast, if we stand up and say no, it will obey us and stand down.

If we stand up and tell the forces of commerce that they can no longer ignore the law to exploit desperate Mexicans and weaken the status of low skilled Americans, they will turn tail like Bud Light after the boycott. They will behave much like a dog caught trying to steal a steak off the grill at a cookout. They will look up, offer a falsely friendly smile, wag their tails, and change their plans.

They will probably think something like, “Darn, I was making a killing off that setup. Now I can't make so much money off the illegal Mexican workers. Since they are all in Mexico, why don’t I figure out how to make some money, maybe not as much, but some, off them in Mexico. While I’m at it maybe I’ll invest some time and effort into cleaning up the situation in Mexico so I can regularize and maximize that stream of profit.”

In that way, solving the illegal immigration problem by compassionately returning to the rule of law will benefit all working people, in this and other countries, and only minimally reduce the wealth of the already wealthy.

If we conservatives can do this, if we can temper our absolute NO AMNESTY determination with some hard headed compassion; a compassion that will truly and peacefully return us to the rule of law, then we could very well generate a true red wave in November of 26. If by September of 26 it looks like the issue of illegal immigration, can, under Republican governance, actually be solved without causing a humanitarian disaster in the process, we will likely prevail mightily and the MAGA agenda will continue on to greatness.

In the election of 2024, it was clear that the American people turned with revulsion away from the Democrat agenda of anti American, anti Christian DEI, LGBTQ and basically communist economic ideology. If we Republicans allow NO AMNESTY absolutism to be the sole driver of our thinking on immigration, many of those same voters will tend to turn back to the Democrats. After four years of being out of power, and hence out of mind, the latest re-packaging of commie lies from the left might be made to sound good. To the undecided masses it could look like a fresh and attractive alternative to the militarism, racism, fear and loathing that will seem to be on offer from the Republicans.

If we continue on our present agenda of hard headed militaristic mass deportation, we will find that the American people, long term, don't have the stomach for it. Then the problem will go unsolved, (like always) and the Republicans will have to scramble to hold on to any power in 26, Which will probably result in a President AOC, or something like that, in 28. All our present gains could be quickly wiped out.

Reforms of the military will be reversed. The Supreme Court might well get packed. Abortion would be re-legalized nationally, MAHA will die, and Big Pharma, and Big Food and Agra will be re enthroned. Worst of all, the national movement toward moral revival will be viciously attacked as DEI is again foisted on us with renewed determination.

What's more, we will deserve that fate; of our so called Christian moral revival fizzling. That is if we can't find a way to fulfill our desire for a return to the rule of law without brutalizing the weakest among us. Along the same lines, we Americans have also traditionally scapegoated the weak, turning a blind eye to the depredations of the rich and powerful.

If we fall, once again, for this traditional American double sided moral compromise, we truly will deserve to fall. If, on the other hand, we can find a way to apply our Christian compassion, in a hard headed way, to the problem of illegal immigration, we will demonstrate that we deserve a chance to govern even after Donald Trump exits the scene, to go all the way in making America great again.

Our fate in 2026, the fate of the MAGA movement, indeed the fate of our once glorious republic depends on our ability to think outside the box. We must find a way to apply our Christian sensibilities to the problem of illegal immigration without succumbing to either brutal repression or passive surrender to runaway globalism. This has been a presentation of one way we can do that. Can we join together to pray for God's wisdom, courage, and faith as we move forward to improve on and carry out this project?