President Donald Trump speaks at White House in Washington, DC, on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. Jim LoScalzo / Pool via CNP / SplashNews.com See more of our coverage in your search results.
Add The New York Post on Google “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” warns María Elvira Salazar, a three-term Florida congresswoman: She’s plainly right.
The indiscriminate mass-sweep tactics pushed by the likes of ex-Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem, notes Rep. Salazar, managed only to alienate swing voters and harm industries dependent on foreign labor.
President Donald Trump won 46% of the Hispanic vote in 2024 because nearly all law-abiding Americans and immigrants support arresting and deporting the “worst” criminals — murderers, rapists and gangbangers — who have no right to be here.
But many Latinos and other moderates now feel betrayed; it’s time for Trump to show them he’s genuinely with them.
Yes, resistance Democrats — blue state and local officials such as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — bear huge blame for hindering federal immigration enforcement: Preventing local police from working with ICE only makes the agency’s work more disruptive; refusing to manage anti-ICE crowds that confront the feds is a betrayal of these leaders’ duty to preserve public order.
And the likes of state Attorney General Tish James continue to show progressives’ lunacy by insisting on new rights to welfare for immigrants.
That said, Noem’s successor, Markwayne Mullin, and White House Border Czar Tom Homan have been far more successful with a less-confrontational approach, even as some Trump advisers push for more fireworks.
Trump actually reined in the enforcement excess himself over a year ago, only to have Noem create a needless spectacle in Minneapolis that’s left an ugly, lasting impression that could cost the GOP multiple House seats this November.
He has also called for pragmatic policies to allow border-jumpers who’ve not broken other laws and have solid work records to stay, albeit with no path to citizenship; his buddy New York gov candidate Bruce Blakeman has seconded the motion.
The prez could make a big difference by embracing the Dignity Act as the basis for immigration reform he’d like to see passed in the next two years.
Introduced by Salazar, Veronica Escobar (R-Texas) and New York’s own Rep. Mike Lawler, this sensible package locks in border security, eases the expulsion of criminal illegal immigrants, creates something like the Trump-Blakeman “come in from the dark” approach and restores sanity to visa and asylum systems — all without the mass amnesty that the left demands.
This is the balanced road forward that polls consistently show commands broad public support — if the sensible electeds in both parties can face down the extremists of left and right.
We know: Moderate Democrats rarely find the spine to stand up to their crazies, and all too many Dems like Lawler’s challenger Cait Conley pretend to be moderates even as they toe the far-left line on these issues.
So actually passing the Dignity Act into law will be a huge struggle.
But the prez pointing to it as where he wants to lead the nation could reset the entire immigration debate, separating truly moderate Dems from the fakers and showing swing voters which party genuinely wants a lasting solution.
Trump addressed a huge source of voter fury by decisively ending the mass border-hopping the instant he returned to office, only to let Noem & Co. help the left and its media patsies create an new anxiety that’s boosting Democrats.
The president can now help his own party, the sane share of the opposition and the nation as a whole by standing up for the commonsense consensus on immigration.
