Last November one of the handful of Trump voters I know reached out with a question. He said, “There is a ‘political’ thing that I’m certain we disagree on and I’m trying to wrap my mind around it.”
Over the last year or so I’ve been trying to engage conservatives in conversation, in person whenever possible, to try to understand why they support the things they do. I’ve gotten an interesting array of answers and I hope I’ve been able to share some valuable perspectives from the other side.
One surprisingly common theme has been that despite the fact that they voted for Donald Trump, a lot of them don’t actually like him (hence the “Doofus” below). Their disdain for Democrats is just that much stronger. The reasons for this are numerous and interesting but that’s a story for another time.
I’m sharing my response because I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about why people on the left are so upset right now. Explaining why you’re angry is often the last thing you want to do when you’re angry. But when someone genuinely asks I think it’s important to be able to tell them.
If this essay resonates with you, please share it with a conservative you know. Have them email me (sierra@gritcitymag.com) and tell me why they feel differently or if I got something wrong. Or if you’re up for having a conversation about it, maybe you two can get something useful out of it. I hope so. My response below has been edited and updated.
“My question is just to understand the argument of democrats regarding illegal immigration. I have read a bunch online but the bottom line I cannot get past is that illegal immigration is… well… illegal. And it has been for a long time. Way before Doofus was in office. So what’s the issue with deporting people who come into the US illegally or outstay their allowed time? I couldn’t just move on into another random country and just be there. The majority of them would deport me. So, why is using the legal process (I have friends who have successfully) like a slight recommendation but no big deal if you don’t?”
I want to say up front that regardless of my tone, I really appreciate your question and I respect you for taking the time to ask it openly.
I think most Democrats (the actual politicians, not just voters) don’t really have any solid opinions with solutions or reasons. They’re just trying to pander to their base to get votes and stay in power. So a lot of the talking points tend to be shallow and based on whatever trending arguments they see on social media. Different people will give you different answers but I’ll break down my main points here:
1- The whole thing is just rotten to the core.
Our immigration system is inefficient and difficult to navigate because the people behind it are primarily motivated by racism and xenophobia. They can’t legally say, “No Black and brown people allowed” so they purposely make it difficult to discourage people from trying or force them to cross illegally if they have no other options.
I think this is especially backed up by people routinely being arrested at immigration hearings. Why would anyone go to court to check in and maintain their precarious but technically legal status (e.g. DACA recipients, asylum seekers, etc.) if they run the risk of getting arrested and deported? And when they don’t check in, then they’re breaking a law and the use of force and deportation is now justified. The erosion of human rights and due process becomes much easier when you turn human beings into “illegals.”
Now consider the fact that at least 98 asylum processing judges were dismissed or fired in 2025 in cities all around the country with large immigrant populations, further stressing the already overburdened immigration system and making it even more difficult to “do it the right way.” All the while, the Justice Department set up a website dedicated to hiring “deportation judges” (not immigration judges) to “help write the next chapter of America” and “make decisions with generational consequences.”
If you have the means to wait safely in your country of origin, hire a lawyer, file the paperwork, pay the fees, and wait months or years to hear back, then sure, that’s a great option. But if you’re fleeing violence and oppression, hiking through the jungles of Central America, and paying off predatory smugglers just to get through Mexico, you’re probably not going to be in a position to wait in line and do it the legal way. I sometimes think about how bad my life would have to be to pack up my family, leave everything I know behind, and literally walk to another country. If we ignore the desperation these people must be feeling, we disrespect one of the fundamental aspects of what America is supposed to be.
There are a lot of people who would rather see this country as an exclusively white Christian nation and any amount of non-white immigrants is a problem to be solved. When Trump says “they’re poisoning the blood of our country” he can excuse it by saying he’s only talking about criminals, but white supremacists hear that and feel confident that he’s on their side.
2- Yo no crucé la frontera, la frontera me cruzó.
If you look at the history of human civilization, the idea of a nation with defined borders is kind of a new idea. The dissolution of these borders is probably a wild idea to most people in the 21st century but it’s important to understand how much of a fabrication the whole thing is. Obviously there have been many clearly defined cultures and civilizations with wars and divisions and all that, but they were much more fluid than most people believe, even in Europe.
I just read a book called An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi and this case is made really well there. Kingdoms, empires, cities, all with unique ethnic groups with diverse languages, religions, and customs rose and fell and fought for basically all of human history—all without maps or clearly defined borders.
The nation was defined by the culture of the people in it, not by the exact square mileage it occupied on a representative piece of paper. It wasn’t until European colonization that hard borders were set and that caused a whole lot of problems, some of which continue to this day. Redrawing a border is relatively easy. Redefining a culture is much more difficult.
In 1848 the end of the Mexican-American war effectively split Mexico in half. All the Mexicans living in what would become California, Nevada, Utah, most of Colorado, and parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming suddenly found themselves within the borders of the United States. You may have heard the phrase, “I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me.” It’s often used as a catchy slogan but it makes a lot of sense. Once you establish a national border, it’s a natural next step to define and differentiate the people on either side. When you draw a clear picture of us, there’s always a them.
And while we’re reexamining the concept of borders, I think some people will always be rankled by the idea of the United States picking and choosing who gets to live here. First, because this nation was built on violent conquest and genocide. It wasn’t just an unoccupied patch of land that a bunch of lucky pilgrims happened to stumble upon. The treaties that were signed and broken, the massacres, the diseases spread, all of it is still festering beneath our modern-day politics and there will always be tension between those who want to do something about it and those who want to downplay it.
Second, in more modern times, there have always been “undesirables” when it comes to immigration, it just depends on the whims of whoever’s in power at that moment. It’s not hard to find articles in newspapers that talk about “hordes of low class Europeans” infesting our cities like rats. At different points in the 19th and 20th Centuries it was Russians, Poles, Italians, or Irish (among others) who bore the brunt of it. Once they made it under the umbrella of whiteness, all that prejudice faded. The hatred shifted elsewhere and everyone ignored the painful irony of immigrants shaming other immigrants just because they showed up late to the game. The New Colossus (the poem by Emma Lazarus installed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty) stands in the starkest contrast to how we’ve always treated immigration in this country.
3- It’s all perfectly legal
I hold the previous points in varying degrees of importance and (controversial stance here) I adapt my opinions as I learn new things [gasp]. My main gripe with what’s happening right now with ICE raids and all of the rhetoric surrounding immigration is that people too easily rest on laws just being laws and give no more thought to it. Just because it’s a law, that doesn’t make it OK. Now stick with me because I know that sounds ridiculous.
When Adolf Hitler came to power, he and the Nazi party wrote laws to justify some of the worst human suffering the world has ever seen. Saddam Husein made laws that allowed for the kidnapping and torture of his political rivals and disenting citizens. The United States (and the colonies before it) made laws that upheld the legitimacy of slavery and all of its accompanying horrors for 246 years. It was all perfectly legal and the people who fought against it were, officially, criminals. They were derided for being extremist, radical, and unpatriotic—all the same criticisms you hear today.
Now, of course I’m picking the most extreme cases here but this idea of unjust laws is pervasive throughout history. Even if you just focus on our country, there are plenty of less extreme examples that only look worse with age—segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, women not being allowed to vote or own property, criminalizing homosexuality, forced sterilization of inmates and the mentally ill, etc.
A lot of those laws only ended a generation ago and (kind of going back to the first point) when I hear people say “Make America great again” that’s what it sounds like to me. Politicians and pundits will swear up and down that it’s not about racism or oppression but that’s the America that some people want back. So, to be blunt, the argument of “Well it’s the law.” frankly isn’t good enough for me.
Just to be clear, this is not just a Trump thing or even a Republican/conservative thing. Obama oversaw the deportation of more than three million people over his eight years in office and I think that’s a point of nuance that often gets left out of the conversation. Trump (and the leaders he appointed) are much more brash about it and have built their whole brand around it because they know that’s what their base wants to see. If the left is going to build their brand around calling out the bigotry of the right, they may as well play the part.
An obvious question here would be “OK, then what do you propose we do about it?” and I would say if we can devote 75 BILLION dollars to ICE over the next four years, we sure as shit could fix our immigration system. We could appoint more judges and streamline the system for asylum seekers. We could build a clear pathway to citizenship for those who crossed the border illegally but are trying to build productive lives here. We could open up more visas for foreign workers and probably a bunch of other options I’m not thinking of because I’m not an expert in any of this. But I don’t think that will happen because, personally, I don’t think this is really about enforcing laws. I think it’s a reaction to the “Great Replacement Theory” that’s been steadily growing in popularity and the more violent and audacious ICE is with their raids, the more secure their core of voters will feel.
You can take any of the excuses that the administration gives for going after illegal immigrants (drugs, violence, theft, etc.) and I guarantee you there are more effective, less violent, and less costly ways of solving those problems in our country than sending a bunch of undertrained hooligans in masks to terrorize our neighborhoods. But at the end of the day, you’d still wind up with more Black and brown people in our country and a certain portion of the right will always hold that as their main priority.
