OPINION:
Democrats are opening their eyes to the problems their party pols created on the border and acknowledging they’ve shifted too far to the left and that when it comes to illegal immigration, they must rethink policy and redo plans and actually control crossings.
But they’re only doing this because they realize, too late — post-Donald Trump’s presidential win and massive and successful crackdown at the border — that they lost power in the political world due in large part to their fecklessness at the border. Fecklessness, and lies.
How many times were the American people told by then-President Biden’s Cabinet that the border was secure, the border was safe, the border was both safe and secure? The numbers didn’t lie then. And they still don’t lie now.
“Under President Biden’s watch, there have been over 8 million migrant encounters nationwide, 6.7 million of which have been at the Southwest border. Worse yet. Over 1.7 million known gotaways — illegal immigrants who have evaded Border Patrol — are now living in the interior of the United States … without having undergone any vetting by immigration officials,” the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability reported in January of 2024.
From that — to this.
“In June, Customs and Border Protection had the lowest number of nationwide encounters in CBP history at 25,243. This is 12 percent lower than the previous record set by President Trump in February 2025. That is 89 percent lower than the monthly average for years 2021-2024,” the Department of Homeland Security reported this month.
And now Democrats want to say: oops. We’ve made a mistake; we’re very sorry; we failed to control the border and now we see the error of our ways.
And now a New York Times report asks, via its headline, “Can Democrats Find Their Way on Immigration?”
And now the party’s leading policy organization, the Center for American Progress, wants to bring forward a new concept called — wait for it, wait for it — border control. It’s presented as “A New Immigration System To Safeguard America’s Security, Expand Economic Growth, and Make Us Stronger,” American Progress writes on its website.
Smart bet’s that Dems are full of it.
Here’s what they’re saying: “We got let astray by the 2016 and 2020 elections and we just never moved back. We looked feckless, we weren’t decisive, we weren’t listening to voters, and the voters decided that we weren’t in the right when it comes to what was happening with the border,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, to The New York Times.
And this, from Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, also to The Times: “When you have the most Latino district in the country outside of Puerto Rico vote for Trump, that should be a wake-up call for the Democratic Party. This is a Democratic district that’s been blue for over a century.”
And this, from Neera Tanden, chief executive for the Center for American Progress, again in The Times: “I’m happy to argue with Stephen Miller or anyone else about why they are wrong. But the way we’re going to be able to do that is to also honestly assess that the border has been too insecure, that it allowed too many people to come through and that we need to fix that.”
Puh-leeze.
Spare the sad and sorry.
Democrats are not to be trusted.
Against the backdrop of all these opened Democrat eyes is the chugging along of all the party’s communist infiltrators. If Democrats truly want to win back the trust of the American voter — along with Americans’ votes — they need to first boot from the party Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. They need to distance themselves from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. They need to disavow Zohran Mamdani and even campaign against his Big Apple mayoral run.
They need to stop behaving like Marxists, supporting Marxist behaviors and emboldening Marxist behaviors in the streets.
More “police lives matter.” Less Black Lives Matter. More America flags. Fewer Palestinian banners. Get the idea? Ask Israel. Ask Los Angeles. Ask any parent trying to raise their kids with godly values.
As it is, Democrats are now doing with their johnny-come-lately border control views what they always do when they lose politically; when polls predict they’re going to lose more politically; when they’re desperately trying to rebound from significant political losses: that is, they’re pretending to see the light — and hoping voters will forget they light they’re now seeing is the same one they ignored, dismissed and denied existed for years.
Truly, Democrats are true-blue opportunists. In the face of Trump’s many policy wins, most notably, at the border, they’re feigning humility and pretending to have learned lessons. But as usual, their actions — their ongoing embrace of far leftists in their party — speak louder and much more honestly. than their words.
They don’t deserve to lead in the political world until they can honestly return to a place of pro-America policy, say, 50 years or so. Let the political purging begin.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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