How Trump can win back swing voters on immigration

“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.

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