New MAGA infighting illuminates a striking phenomenon -- and a problem for Trump
President Donald Trump’s got a new problem. It seems hard to believe, but some of his own base thinks his administration hasn’t sufficiently cracked down hard enough on illegal immigration.
News emerged last week that the White House wanted to soften the president’s reputation on immigration enforcement by reportedly discouraging the party from talking about “mass deportations” and suggesting a rhetorical focus on removing violent criminals. Immediately, a group of pro-Trump immigration hawks began a lobbying effort to deter Trump from even pursuing his mostly cosmetic attempt to moderate on the issue. Inconveniently for the president, this group calls itself the “Mass Deportation Coalition.”
The infighting illuminates a striking phenomenon. For once, it is not the Democrats who appear to be torn up about immigration as a wedge issue that could weaken their coalition. Instead, it is the GOP for whom immigration is becoming a point of internal tension, and posing a dilemma to its leader. While there’s no reason to think Trump will ever become truly moderate on the issue, he will be vexed by questions of how to approach what was once one of his strongest policy issues ahead as the midterms near. And it also suggests there’s an opening for Democrats to go on offense.
According to Politico, the Mass Deportation Coalition includes “Mark Morgan, the former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection under Trump; Erik Prince, a Trump ally and former Blackwater CEO; as well as a number of conservative think-tanks and lobbying groups close to the Trump administration including the Heritage Foundation, Federation for American Immigration Reform, American Moment, and the Claremont Institute.”
The group’s position is that Trump has been too selective in whom it targets for arrest, and that it should target a much larger population of undocumented immigrants to achieve his campaign promises. (Mind you, even in Trump’s “softer touch” month in February, more than 40% of the people Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested in February had no criminal record, and he was still arresting people at four times the rate than President Joe Biden did in his last year in office.)
https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-immigration-mass-deportation-coalition-polls
Go ahead and fight. All the better for us!