Trump’s border-and-order agenda is working

Five years ago, I visited the border town of McAllen, Texas and saw the chaos.

A caravan of more migrants than I could count was crossing the McAllen-Hidalgo footbridge into the U.S. They had walked hundreds of miles up Mexico’s cartel-controlled routes. All had been exploited, some abused, and most coached on what to say to accept President Joe Biden’s open invitation to invade.

I talked to the border officers that Biden was betraying. They knew criminals and lethal drugs were hidden among the caravans. They knew Biden’s lawless policy was putting American lives — including their own besieged neighbors — at risk.

I recently returned to McAllen. It might as well have been another world.

This time, the scene was peaceful and orderly. The community was relaxed. Border Patrol agents were proud to be back doing what they swore to do: protect our homeland.

The lesson? Leadership matters. Faithful execution of federal law matters. All Americans know now that the Biden migration crisis didn’t just end; President Trump ended it.

But securing the border was always just one part of Trump’s plan. Interior enforcement — arrests, deportations, and raids on unscrupulous businesses flouting immigration law — was always critical not just to clean up Biden’s mess, but to move towards a lawful and orderly immigration system — especially in far-left jurisdictions where leaders and activists felt entitled to resist federal law enforcement.

The setting may have been different, but what the country saw last month in Minnesota is essentially what we saw on the border under President Biden: leftist extremists endangering Americans and immigrants by subverting the rule of law.

The anti-ICE insurgents were not spontaneous protesters simply exercising their First Amendment rights. They deployed spotters to track ICE movements and followed ICE vehicles. They doxxed and assaulted officers. They blocked traffic. They aided and abetted criminal aliens’ escape, and they coordinated it all using secret chat groups. Those “protests” were in fact a well-funded, well-oiled network, eager to escalate violent confrontations and put lives in danger to achieve their political ends.

Conveniently for several Minnesota politicians, the conflict also escalated right after news broke about a multi-billion-dollar scam orchestrated by Somali immigrants to defraud social services in the state. Illegal immigrants aren’t the only people in Minnesota hoping for sanctuary from federal law enforcement.

But there’s no such thing. Federal law must apply everywhere in this country. And under Trump, for the first time in years, it does — on the border and around the country. Violent crime rates plummeted in Trump’s first year back in the Oval Office.

In Washington, D.C. – where Trump deployed the National Guard to get the Biden crime wave under control — the murder rate fell to its lowest level since 1900! And of course, in the vast majority of U.S. jurisdictions, local police are cooperating with federal immigration officers — and enforcement is working.

After just one year, Trump’s “Border and Order” agenda is working. Now comes the hardest part: staying the course for another three.

He has the authority. He has the support of the American people. And he has the team in place, led by Border Czar Tom Homan. It’s good news that Minnesota officials are reportedly now cooperating and civilizing their rhetoric. But cooperation is a prerequisite to public order, not a goal. The goal must be to remove every foreign national here illegally, period.

Withdrawals of extra personnel enabled by local cooperation — as we saw in Minnesota recently — are signs of success. Give credit to Homan and Trump for turning adversaries into allies, lowering the temperature while pressing forward with the work. But drawdowns cannot mean backing down.

If the administration backs off now in the face of organized obstruction, anti-ICE activists across the country would conclude that the mischief, violence, and tragedies in Minnesota succeeded. Others would replicate the tactics used there. Manufactured left-wing chaos would metastasize around the country, undermining everything Trump has achieved so far.

Trump’s tenacity is the only reason the border is secure today. He ignored the hysterical criticism of the media and the Left and made the hard decisions the American people elected him to make. America is safer for it.

Now, with even more at stake, the same resolve is required inside our cities.

Securing the border, deporting illegal aliens, arresting criminals, and deploying extra resources when necessary are not separate battles. They are one and the same fight for the rule of law and civic order.

Right now, Trump is winning that fight. Please, Mr. President: stay the course — all the way to the end.

Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., is president of the Heritage Foundation.

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