The Dangers of Trump’s Immigration Spectacle
There is a tragic irony in Trump supporters saying that they only believe their eyes while blindly accepting what Trump and partisan sources tell them. Colombia is a perfect example.
The narrative became that Colombia refused to receive flights of deported Colombian migrants. Big tough Trump wouldn’t let this stand and threatened Colombia with tariffs and other measures to force it to take the flights. Awed by his power, Colombia backed down and will now accept migrant flights.
That is the White House spin that is hiding how poorly Trump is dealing with immigration and deportations.
Colombia doesn’t have an issue accepting deported migrants. Last year alone, it received 124 repatriation flights. Colombia is a major ally and regional leader for US security programs. Its only request was that migrants being deported be treated with dignity and respect and not flown on military aircraft. Brazil has also complained about migrants being handcuffed during their flights.
All of America should challenge using military aircraft because they cost as much as 10x a regular DHS and Customs Enforcement flight. Deporting just 80 migrants with a C-130E can cost $816,000 or ~$10,000 per migrant. MAGA wants to deport 10 million migrants. That would be $100 billion using the estimated cost of the C-130E, and that’s before factoring in the agents, processing, and detention centers required to round up and hold that many people.
Trump created the problem, inflamed the situation, and then claimed victory. He understands that the final results and the costs don’t matter–only the spectacle. That is what resonates with his voters. They want to see decked-out ICE agents raiding a building and marching handcuffed migrants out to a waiting van. They want troops at the border and planes taking flight to return those migrants to their home countries.
This is the result of partisan networks and pundits telling their viewers that the border was being ignored, we were being invaded, and Biden was doing nothing about it. Now, they see coverage of immigration enforcement and think the situation has fundamentally changed. Not true.
When Trump took office, there were over 2,200 active-duty personnel and thousands of National Guard at the border because of Biden. However, Trump only sent an additional 1,500 troops.
Biden deported more migrants than Trump, and 2024 saw more migrants deported than any year of Trump’s first term.
Southern border crossings were over 33% lower when Biden left office than when Trump left office.
The key difference is that the media hardly reported on the rapidly improving border over the past year or any of Biden’s actions to get us there. Dealing with immigration isn’t about televising deportations or threatening tariffs against every nation, risking an economic war that would hurt working-class Americans the most. It is about addressing root causes.
Biden reduced harsh sanctions on some countries, such as Venezuela, which reduced hardship and migration. Harris worked on coordinating billions of corporate investments in Central American nations, increasing opportunity and prosperity for those citizens. Biden also worked with Mexico to get them to improve their immigration enforcement, which reduced the number of migrants reaching the US border, something Trump failed to accomplish when demanding Mexico pay for a wall and enacting the Remain in Mexico policy.
In contrast, Trump has spent his time making immigration enforcement a circus while shutting down major avenues of legal immigration. America relies on immigrants to fill jobs and to keep our population from shrinking. Making it harder for people to legally immigrate while putting a focus on removing all undocumented migrants is a terrible approach to a manageable problem.
MAGA and Trump believe that bullying, threatening, and strongarming other nations is how we increase US influence, power, and wealth. That bullying has Denmark and Panama calling out Trump on the world stage and not being shy about it. Canada is prepared to enact retaliatory tariffs if Trump follows his 25% tariff plan. Mexico is prepared to do the same and has already improved trade agreements with Europe to expand their non-American markets.
America is quickly becoming a pariah on the world stage, and our adversaries will use that to strengthen their positions. A US tariff war will help China expand as an economic power, and US aggression for territory will strengthen Russia. Our allies don’t trust Trump to stand with them, weakening our ability to be a global leader. Operational control of military logistics and defense in several parts of the world has been moved from US to NATO control.
Unaware of this, American citizens are amazed by Trump’s performative spectacle and inadvertently cheer on our nation’s decline. This is an intentional distraction from the fact that prices are rising, not falling, and the administration is doing nothing to improve the lives of working—and middle-class Americans.
