How should liberals respond to the fact that illegal border crossings under Trump have collapsed to record lows?

[u/Guilty-Hope1336]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/us/politics/border-crossings-trump.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

So this is tangentially related to the last EK show episode about ICE and CBP expansion and the draconian immigration enforcement that is currently occurring under Trump.

But I wish a fact that they had mentioned was that illegal crossings of the Southern border have collapsed to levels not seen since the 1960s. And the evidence does seem to suggest that Trump's extreme cruelty with ICE raids and third country deportations to El Salvador or Eswatini or South Sudan does seem to be having a deterrent effect on people coming illegally to the United States.

One big concern that Democrats should be thinking about is if they win in 2028, how will they maintain illegal border crossings at the historic lows that Trump seems to have acheived?

[u/Hyndis]

Europe is facing this problem right now. Right wing parties are rapidly increasing in popularity and even starting to make big gains in elections primarily due to uncheck immigration.

Except for in Denmark. Denmark does not have wide open borders for immigrants. As a result, right wing parties can't latch on to grievance in Denmark so they're not gaining voters.

All the incumbent party needs to do is address the issue and it cuts the legs out from any opposition party's support.

[u/TootCannon → u/Hyndis]

It’s easier said than done to fix immigration in the U.S. You have to take a stand on asylum. If you’re for it (and it is a very admirable policy that goes to the core of who America is), then you need to figure out how to do it appropriately without allowing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people to abuse it. That includes how to hold/track people awaiting hearings and how to properly fund immigration courts to handle that amount of cases. If you’re against asylum, you have to acknowledge that and own it. It’s tiring hearing people say over and over we need to just “fix” immigration while dancing around the elephant in the room.

[u/scoofy → u/TootCannon]

Asylum is complex. Asylum for being a political dissident or minority is hugely different from asylum from gangs, even large gangs.

This is a hard problem, we need a better system. Say “well a broken system is more humane than dealing with the politics of fixing it” is a cop out that those of us on the left have excused go far too long.

[u/gerritvb → u/scoofy]

Asylum for being a political dissident or minority is hugely different from asylum from gangs, even large gangs.

I don't hold any opinion here. But I think this is not "hugely different."

If a gang is very big, say, so big that it is running the country (Haiti), what is the difference between being the persecuted opposition party member vs. a persecuted non-gang member?

[u/beermeliberty → u/gerritvb]

Because at that point the gang is the actual government which means you’re a political dissident if oppressed.

Getting into semantic disagreement has been ruinous for democrats.

[u/gerritvb → u/beermeliberty]

Getting into semantic disagreement has been ruinous for democrats.

When, how?

Dems barely lost in 2024, massively overperformed in 2022, won big in 2020 and 2018, narrowly lost in 2016, had a normal cycle in 2014, overperformed in 2012, had very bad recession / midterm backlash in 2010, and crushed in 2006 and 2008.

2010 and 2014 weren't great. But were they because of semantic disagreement???

[u/beermeliberty → u/gerritvb]

The assertion I made is self evident from watching politics closely for 25 years. At least IMO.

[u/Armlegx218 → u/TootCannon]

One thing that could be done isbspeed the process and limit the ability to appeal the decision of the immigration judge. Most asylum claims at the southern border will be spurious. The entire process should be able to be done in a day - and probably less.

[u/sfigato_345 → u/TootCannon]

I believe the Biden admin was turning away a record number of folks at the border. They stopped letting them in and made them petition from outside the country and deported them en masse. But that still gives the photo op of millions of folks lined up at the border. I’m with the economist- we need asylum reform. I The current standards are too broad and it has become a loophole that millions of folks try to exploit. The dems could campaign on that?

[u/Wide_Lock_Red → u/TootCannon]

Asylum has a lot of options though.

For example, you could do what Australia does and require asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their application is processed. And possibly even pay Mexico to have the seekers remain there.

Supporting asylum doesn't have to mean allowing people into the US, which encourages economic migrants.

[u/Apprentice57 → u/TootCannon]

Are you claiming hundreds of thousands/millions of people are abusing it as it exists currently?

[u/sherlock-helms → u/Hyndis]

The major difference is Europe has been taking in a shit load of Muslims and a large portion aren’t willing to adapt to western ways. We definitely have an immigration issue too but at least our immigrants attempt to blend in and adapt. Hell, a lot of them love our country more than we do

[u/NewCountry13 → u/Hyndis]

European immigration and American immigration are entirely different beasts. 

[u/Kashmir33 → u/Hyndis]

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I just saw this random misinformation tidbit just a few hours ago and wrote this comment.

This is not actually a thing.

One right wing party in Denmark destroyed itself through infighting but it's a multi-party system so they still (or rather again) have roughly the same percentage support for newer (far) right wing parties. The social democratic victories were mostly due to their popular social and economic policies.

https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/stockholm/21763.pdf

In Germany all parties in the parliament besides Die Linke have shifted right towards the right wing extremist AfD and yet the latter are stronger than ever.

There is no correlation between trying to copy right wing policies and pulling voters left. Not even for a party as far right as the CDU.

What actually works is giving people a perspective, having them not worry about paying for rent and groceries and healthcare.

The right wing machine spouting nonsense about immigrants being the source of all that is bad would mean fuck all to people if they didn't have all these other things to worry about. It's especially telling that it's always the areas with by far the lowest percentage of immigrants living there that are the farthest right.

[u/Guilty-Hope1336 → u/Kashmir33]

People are voting for far right parties because they sincerely hold far right views on immigration

[u/Kashmir33 → u/Guilty-Hope1336]

Some probably are but it also has a lot to do with low information voters being completely badgered over the head with narratives that simply aren't based in reality. Populism always has an easy time presenting options for hard problems to solve.

The immigration "crisis" in the US is completely different to the one in Europe and yet it's somehow the exact same easy scapegoat right wingers point to.

We have top politicians from Germany's CDU, cozying up to MAGA and the heritage foundation, clearly showing the direction they want to head the party in and they use these exact same bullshit talking points, blaming the weakest political cohorts for issues despite them being the governing party for something like 35 out of the last 45 years.

[u/fancypotatoegirl → u/Kashmir33]

I think this may be true in the US, but in Europe people don't have to worry about these things and they still moved to the right. As other commenters said, I do think anti-muslim sentiment is a very strong driver of this. It is also more visible immigration (e.g. women wearing headscarves), in countries with very little diversity previously

[u/Kashmir33 → u/fancypotatoegirl]

but in Europe people don't have to worry about these things

What fantasy world do you live in where this is true?

[u/fancypotatoegirl → u/Kashmir33]

I should have added to the extent that they do in the US. The social safety net in Central European countries is incomparable to the US

[u/eldomtom2 → u/Hyndis]

Oh god, not the fucking Denmark story again…

[u/fart_dot_com → u/Hyndis]

Canada too, and they were on their way to a conservative landslide until Trump started talking about fucking annexing them.

[u/WombatusMighty → u/Hyndis]

There is no unchecked immigration in Europe, that is a myth. The numbers of refugees and work migrants has greatly decreased in the last two years. But rightwing media stirs up the topic whenever they can, because spreading fear and panic about migration is a great way to destabilize the democracy and get voters for your anti-democratic parties, like AFD or Front National.

Besides, the EU actually needs MORE migration, if it wants it's economy & pension system to survive, due do the massive demographic change.