The data seem to show that at the end of Biden's term, ICE enforcement actions were very low. But for some reason, the stats page doesn't show Trump's previous term. https://www.ice.gov/statistics
Looking at the most recent DHS yearbook (apples and oranges, but the best I can find so far) at https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/yearbook and scaling to match the curve at the ICE stats page, it looks like illegal immigration was way down at the end of Biden's term.
So maybe the influx was already slowed dramatically. I don't think it's possible to stop people from wanting to go to the US, except by making it worse that the places people are leaving. I don't think that's a worthy goal.
The question we have to ask ourselves is why was ICE not empowered to conduct enforcement ? Why were border crossings up over Biden’s term and then when Trump is elected and comes into office they drop dramatically ?
I'm in favor of that too, but I think this insistence on it being step 1 is actually just a resistance to solving the real problem. (Which is that employers are happy to pay below market wages to illegally employ immigrants who are here unlawfully.)
We should go after it all to include implementing E-Verify for all. Republicans are also in favor of the guest worker program to legally meet the demand. But we have to stop the flow
I agree that we should do those things. But what I've seen for the past couple decades that I've been voting is that Republican politicians pretend to want to do those things, but refuse to do them "until we've stopped the flow" or "but the border has to be step 1".
This is a classic political tactic to be able to say you want to do something, but never actually have to do it. Politicians use this tactic when they don't actually want to do the thing for some reason. In this case, it's because it's really unpopular with business owners, who like to employ illegal immigrants.
It's perfectly reasonable to say "we need to crack down on employers in conjunction with aggressive border and deportation enforcement". But I'm very skeptical of anyone saying "stopping the flow is step 1". I've heard that story before!
