Donald Trump looks at objects used to smuggle narcotics at the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility. (Reuters: Joshua Roberts)

He will almost certainly let his restrictionist fans down.

Donald Trump needs to put some points on the board, and fast. Health-care reform is dying. Every time the White House announces a new Infrastructure Week, Trump gets bored by mid-morning on the first day and goes to Twitter to churn the political-media cesspit.

And so there is now a scramble. Jared Kushner has flown to the Middle East to stand there and take credit in case an improbable peace breaks out. There are new efforts on tax reform. And in the background, Trump aides and other executive-branch employees are talking themselves into an immigration deal, a deal that no one else knows about. At his Arizona rally, he once again promised to build the wall.


But the obstacles the Trump administration faces on immigration are serious ones. At almost every turn, Trump’s actions have stiffened opposition to sensible immigration reform. Part of this is just the nature of partisanship. As Republicans became more strongly associated with immigration restriction, Democrats’ passions started to run in the opposite direction. But a great deal of this is Trump’s fault in a direct way.

Trump made immigration his signature issue. He told Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull that he was “the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people into the country.” And part of the way Trump proved he was “the world’s greatest” restrictionist to the Ann Coulters and other populists was by — again in his own words — “gladly accept[ing] the mantle of anger.”

But while gaining Coulter et al., he justified the fears of others who’d always suspected that anyone who really wants to police the borders must be racist or hate Hispanics. Trump accused a federal judge of lacking impartiality on account of his Hispanic heritage alone. He went after the family of a dead American soldier merely on account of their Islamic faith.



Then there was the temporary travel ban. As a policy, it wasn’t all that crazy of an idea. It was far short of the once-promised “Muslim ban.” The vast majority of the world’s Muslims would be unaffected, and the policy came with a swift end date. Furthermore, visas are restricted all the time during periods of war or disruption.

But this executive order was carried out with cruel disregard for people traveling into the United States. And because it was overseen by Steve Bannon, you can be pretty sure that the scenes of chaos, panic, and protest were the intended effect. For a populist of Bannon’s type, chaos, panic, and protest are proof that you’re doing something worthwhile. Bannon thinks that every televised scene of chaos is the 1968 Democratic convention, and that the majority of Americans are rooting for the cops to beat some hippie brains in.

In fact, public opinion overall is running away from Trump on immigration. It looks more and more like Trump sacrificed the issue to his own political benefit. Pew has polled support for a border wall for almost a decade. It held steady in the upper 40s — until the Trump campaign began and it fell by almost ten points. Where opposition to Trump is strongest, on the left, the position on immigration is rapidly converging near support for open borders.

How many times will everyone fall for it?


It is almost certain that Trump will fall far short of the expectations of his restrictionist fans now. He told you he wasn’t serious. He practically mocked his supporters and admitted that the wall was just to get their juices flowing: “If it gets a little boring . . . I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’” You can’t say that you weren’t told.


When Trump announced that he was going to keep the bipartisan policy of endless half-war in Afghanistan on life support, the serious people said once again that Trump was becoming presidential. Maybe growing into the office. And once again, shortly thereafter he held a crazy rally and engaged in stream-of-consciousness attacks on the media. And the populists said, “Our Trump is back. He’s going to build the wall.”

How many times will everyone fall for it?

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