President Trump’s immigration policies have been a failure. His goal of sealing the border has come to naught, and a mass of asylum seekers has overwhelmed the system. Trump has sought to blame others, including the Democrats, for the problem. Democrats cry foul, but they too struggle for an effective answer. …
For the president, immigration is a proxy for many issues — national security, domestic security, cultural change, nationalism, even nostalgia. The president’s rhetoric inflames the left as much as it energizes his loyalists, which is exactly his purpose. …
Yet, for all the way he has manipulated the issue, immigration is also a policy conundrum, one that whoever is president in 2021 will face. CONT.
Dan Balz, Washington Post