Immigration Enforcement: Trump isn’t Backing Off

American Thinker 

In response to the Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti killings, and President Trump’s announced changes in dealing with chaos in Minneapolis, corporate media crowed, claiming he was taking a U-turn. Plenty of conservative social media influencers blasted him. But Trump has done no such thing. Some prominent conservatives are overreacting. Corporate media -- vultures all -- are always anxious to tear a strip off Trump.

Trump's outreach to Minnesota governor Tim Walz marked a change in policy, corporate media and some conservatives claim. It’s a capitulation. Nope. Trump's de-escalation in Minneapolis isn't about scuttling his goal of getting criminal illegals off the streets and ending deportations. It's about finding different ways of doing it. Trump's many years of experience as a New York City developer and as president has taught him how to navigate sticky situations. He's learned that the way to achieving a goal is rarely by a straight line. It's a zig-zag course with plenty of setbacks and, usually, small steps forward until breakthroughs are accomplished.

How often in Trump's business and political careers has he quit? Infrequently, and certainly not when it comes to pursuing big prizes. For Trump, delay isn’t defeat. It’s an opportunity to learn and adjust.

Controlling the borders and winnowing out "undocumented" immigrants has been a core aim of Trump's since he first announced for the presidency. He isn't going to abandon that aim because of flak or roadblocks or wobbly establishment Republicans like Louisiana U.S. senator Bill Cassidy. He isn’t going to let quick judgments by conservative social media players pull him off his game.

Nor is Trump going to be deterred by the inevitable ups and downs in polling. It’s January, after all. The midterm elections are months off. Trump’s midrange goal is to improve optics and keep on plugging.

Nor will Trump permit lightweights like Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey to derail him. Trump’s use of sledgehammer rhetoric masks a thoughtful and deft mind. For him, obstacles are cues to change approaches to get what he wants.

W. James Antle III at the Washington Examiner provides proof that Trump is far from fickle. When it comes to winning, there’s no cut and run in him.

The Washington Examiner, January 27:

For the last decade, immigration has defined Trump’s political career. He used the issue to distinguish himself from Republican primary opponents, including Jeb Bush, whose brother advocated amnesty for most illegal immigrants as president, and Marco Rubio, who, as a senator from Florida, was part of the “Gang of Eight” behind the last major bipartisan amnesty push in 2013.

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Rubio recalibrated and is now Trump’s secretary of state. Bush is out of electoral politics, and his family, which included two Republican presidents, has lost influence within the GOP.

Trump’s most prominent 2016 campaign promise was his pledge to build a wall along the southern border at Mexico’s expense. It became a catchphrase at his rallies. “You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe, thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’ and they go nuts,” Trump told the New York Times editorial board.

Immigration was once again among the reasons Trump returned to the White House. Former President Joe Biden lost control of the border and allowed record levels of illegal immigration during his term, but Trump vowed to secure it again.

Moreover, the apparent massive fleecing of Minnesota state welfare programs -- involving loads of Uncle Sam’s money -- perpetrated by Somali immigrants in Minneapolis fuels, not detracts, from Trump's intention of sending criminals packing, whether they’re documented or entered the country illegally. The Somali fraud is reported to be in the many billions of dollars. Democrat leaders -- including Walz, who’s been forced from his reelection bid -- are implicated, even if it was just turning a blind eye to the gargantuan theft. Doing that alone would be a crime -- a crime committed to, in effect, grease the palms of an important voting bloc for Minnesota Democrats.

But Democrat crimes may be greater. Trump's Department of Justice is investigating. Walz and others may be in a much bigger world of hurt.

How do we know that Trump is only switching tactics and not bailing?

One name: Tom Homan. Homan is a longtime border and immigration enforcement vet. He was so effective in his work that President Barack Obama awarded him with the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service. Because they need new voters, Democrats have done an about-face on border security and illegal immigration, but not Homan. He’s long allied with Trump.

Homan was just dispatched by the president to oversee efforts in Minnesota. Homan -- unlike Kristi Noem and others in the administration -- has pushed for a surgical or "peeling back the onion" approach to tackling immigration enforcement. Go after the worst of the worst criminal immigrants first. Enlist -- or in the case of Minnesota, maneuver -- state and local officials into cooperating with ICE and Border Patrol efforts. Homan's approach takes patience. It’s chess master stuff, but it lowers the heat while stripping layer after layer to accomplish the mission.

Note, too, that Trump is publicly calling for Walz and Frey to turn over criminal illegal aliens now in state and local custody. That simple ask puts Walz, Frey, and Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison in a tough spot politically. Why not hand over criminal illegals who have committed felonies? Why keep bad hombres in Minnesota lockups? Process them on the federal level then boot them out. Voters won’t object to kicking out murderers, rapists, child traffickers, and thieves. Trump is working at shifting the political ground back to himself. If Walz, Frey, and Ellison resist, Trump has a wedge issue readymade for the midterm elections.

Further clues that Trump isn't tucking tail and running. Amid speculation that he planned to fire Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and demote Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, no such things happened. Noem still has her job. Bovino was reassigned. Noem wins a vote of confidence from Trump, at least for the time being. Trump’s backing has quieted Noem critics -- for the moment. And his reassignment of Bovino simply moves him to another theater of operations. That's hardly a firing.

Initial reactions to Trump's new gambits in Minneapolis were wrong. Because Trump isn't invoking the Insurrection Act doesn't mean he intends to let go of the corruption in the Somali community -- corruption that, perhaps, was aided and abetted by the state's Democrats. It means that he's willing to alter his angle of attack and modify tactics to achieve his ends.

That's the mark of an exceptional leader, one with a strong, agile mind, who doesn't stubbornly keep trying to push through dead ends, but backs out and finds new routes to success. Trump isn't perfect, but that's the point. No one is. Yet anyone who’s really smart, possesses a gift for what he does, and loads of experience never permits himself to get stuck. Trump never backed off or got trapped through two impeachments, a rigged 2020 election, and ongoing persecution by Biden’s henchmen and Democrats in New York and Georgia.

Don't bet against Donald Trump achieving ultimate victory. He’s dedicated to not only cleaning up the immigration mess created by Biden’s handlers, but resetting immigration policies and enforcement approaches for future times.

You're watching a master at work. Keep watching. We all can learn something.