On Illegal Migrants, Democrats Are Choosing The Wrong Ground To Fight On
Why not pick someone actually sympathetic?
It’s such an odd choice. The political battle over the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, where he is imprisoned based on a belief that he is a member of MS-13, has taken over the conversation in Washington for weeks. Several Democratic members of the House and Senate have already announced plans to follow Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland on trips to El Salvador – where he met with Garcia.
Whether they’ll follow through, given President Nayib Bukele’s trolling, is another matter.
Political advisor James Carville had suggested that the deportations should be the “top agenda” for the party. But who actually benefits from this debate? Is this really the ground where Democrats want to make their stand against Donald Trump?
The legal side of the argument is a muddled question at the moment, as Jonathan Turley details, because of a dispute about what “facilitate” means in this instance – a question that will likely end up back at the Supreme Court. But the political question seems clearer: by leaning into a case with a bad fact pattern about an unsympathetic figure, Democrats are giving Republicans a wide opening to make the case their party has learned nothing from a 2024 election cycle where they lost in part thanks to the Biden administration’s open border policies and accusations of being soft on crime.
As Politico reports, it’s not just Democrats who are headed to El Salvador – Republicans are touting it themselves:
House Republicans took their own trip down to El Salvador this week to tour the prison, known as CECOT, where Abrego Garcia is being held. Several posted photos on social media that included prisoners in the background.
“It is unconscionable that Democrats in Congress are urging the release of more foreign criminals back into our country,” Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith wrote in a post on X about the trip, which he led.
The reason for this is obvious when you look at polling. Ryan Girdusky, whose National Populist Newsletter tracks many trends related to immigration levels, recently participated in a poll conducted by Cygnal which found every political demographic favoring lower immigration levels, including a plurality of Democrats. And that’s for people who are coming here legally, as opposed to illegal migrants like Garcia, where a recent NPR/Ipsos poll found “a plurality of respondents say they support Trump’s call for mass deportation of all immigrants living in the US without legal status.”
In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election in November, some smart Democratic voices in media and consulting acknowledged that border issues and soft-on-crime policies were things that needed to change in order to become a majority party again – along with getting away from the craziest claims of the trans and DEI agendas. Lo and behold, not even six months later, Democrats are still dug in on all these areas. And with the hottest name in Democratic politics right now being Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her surging political tour, it looks like none of these lessons are going to survive. The progressive left is still in charge, and they’re still stuck on crazy.
More from The Wall Street Journal and Politico.
WH Wants Harvard’s Foreign Funding Records
The Trump administration is pressing Harvard University to turn over records on the money it receives from foreign sources going back a decade, the latest in a growing pressure campaign against the nation’s most prominent university.
American universities get billions in grants, contracts or gifts from foreign sources, which they must report semiannually to the government. In a Thursday letter to Harvard President Alan Garber, the U.S. Department of Education’s office of the General Counsel wrote that Harvard made “incomplete and inaccurate” disclosures between 2014 and 2019.
“Today’s records request is the Trump administration’s first step to ensure Harvard is not being manipulated by, or doing the bidding of, foreign entities,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. The letter to Harvard presented no evidence that was occurring.
Federal law requires universities to report donations from foreign sources of more than $250,000.
In a written statement, Harvard said it has filed such reports for decades “as part of its ongoing compliance with the law. As is required, Harvard’s reports include information on gifts and contracts from foreign sources exceeding $250K annually. This includes contracts to provide executive education, other training, and academic publications.”
In 2020, the first Trump administration also opened an investigation into Harvard, as part of a review that it says found U.S. universities broadly failed to report at least $6.5 billion in foreign funding. The Biden administration notified Harvard in 2024 that the investigation was closed.
The Resistance Embraces Radical Killers
Luigi Mangione has yet another day in court. A fresh collection of glamorous perp walk photos will emerge. Sexy orange-jumpsuit clad come-hither glances are forthcoming. This will surely appeal to his many fans – his stans – who’ve been dying to get a fresh look at their alleged murderous dreamboat.
Luigi’s re-emergence comes at the end of an extraordinary week where the American left embraced a rogue’s gallery of villains so ridiculous that they almost seem fictional. You have Mangione, accused of shooting a healthcare CEO in cold blood; Mahmoud Khalil, who faces deportation for his role in Columbia’s radical protests; and the latest entry into the sinister sweepstakes, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Democrats tied themselves in knots this week “saying his name” and demanding Garcia’s release from a Salvadoran prison. In the sickest of burns, the Justice Department released evidence showing police officer assessment in 2019 that Garcia was, in fact, affiliated with MS-13. They also produced an old restraining order against him because he’d allegedly hit his wife. Compelling process arguments surrounding Garcia’s detention aside, this is a collection of figures so dastardly you’d almost expect Daredevil to burst through the window to hand-fight them. Instead, Democrats, shrinking their withering minority position by another 20 percent, have drawn a squiggly line in the sand.
We’ve been down this path of questionable standard-bearers before. In 2020, the resistance demanded we worship Dr. Fauci and burned down city blocks on behalf of George Floyd. But at least Floyd died in conflict with the police. He had a claim to martyrdom (and Dr. Fauci was on the cover of In Style). The current group, for all the drama surrounding their imprisonments, are still very much alive, their morality still very much in question. And yet we bumble forward, trying to make heroes out of molehills.
The week that has felt like a year started with media personality Taylor Lorenz popping onto CNN to say about Luigi, “You’re going to see women especially that feel like, ‘Oh my God,’ right? Here’s this man who’s revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who is young, who’s smart. He’s a person that seems like this morally good man, which is hard to find.” That’s definitely going to be one of the year’s most insane quotes. Lorenz has repeatedly tried to walk it back, saying that she didn’t mean herself personally. Regardless, it was gushing. She and the show’s host laughed about it like they were gossiping about the Real Housewives with Andy Cohen. Luigi, the icon. Luigi, the folk hero.
David Hogg’s Anti-Incumbent Campaign
Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg's plan to spend $20 million to primary older Democratic incumbents in Congress has sparked intense anger from some lawmakers.
House Democrats told Axios that, while Hogg is not targeting battleground-district members, they believe he will divert attention and resources away from their races and the fight to retake the House.
"What a disappointment from leadership. I can think of a million better things to do with twenty million dollars right now," swing-district Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) told Axios.
"Fighting Democrats might get likes online, but it's not what restores majorities," she added.
Another vulnerable House Democrat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer candid thoughts about a top party official, called the plan "very counterproductive and counterintuitive" and said "it would sure be nice to have some of that financial support."
Hogg told the New York Times that his outside group, Leaders We Deserve, will spend $20 million to elect younger primary challengers to older incumbents in safely Democratic districts.
The 25-year-old gun control activist described a "culture of seniority politics" that has made the Democratic Party less effective.
He also attempted to front-run some of the criticism he said he expected to face, predicting a "a smear campaign against me" that would aim to "destroy my reputation and try to force me to stop doing this."
Feature
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Quote
“It would be a strange but not an inconceivable world; heroism and poetry at the bottom, cold scientific intellect above it, and overtopping all, some dark superstition which scientific intellect, helpless against the revenge of the emotional depths it had ignored, had neither will nor power to remove.”
— C.S. Lewis