What Trump's immigration crackdown will look like

By Patricia Lopez / Bloomberg Opinion

As Inauguration Day nears, it’s clear that President-elect Trump believes he has a mandate to enact the largest deportation in U.S. history. What happens next could forever alter what it means to be an American.

Immigration under President Biden surged to levels unmatched in more than a century; an estimated net increase of 8 million migrants during his four years in office, with a majority crossing illegally, according to a Goldman Sachs report.

Biden was determined to reverse the harsh Trump 1.0 policies that limited legal and illegal immigration. But Biden never framed this important issue for average Americans. There never was a “Biden doctrine” to help the nation understand why he believed more immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers could prove a net benefit; or sufficient federal aid to help cities and states deal with the consequences. Finally, after Trump killed a bipartisan immigration reform bill, Biden unilaterally re-imposed tighter limits on the southern border; but it was too late to save his candidacy, or that of Kamala Harris.

Now the U.S. finds itself with the highest foreign-born population in its history — over 15 percent — and a border better described as porous than secure. And the electorate has proven susceptible to Trump’s divisive, demonizing rhetoric.

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