COMMENTARY Despite the admirably humane work immigrant advocates do, they also need to remember the political pragmatism that drives the issue — and which drove voters to Trump.
I watched Colombia’s forever-fumbling leftist president, Gustavo Petro, spectacularly fumble his deportees showdown with President Trump over the weekend.
And I couldn’t help but think of how Trump has so often benefited from liberal overreach on immigration matters.
In case you missed last Sunday’s debacle, Petro tried to block U.S. military planes from bringing deported Colombians, rounded up under Trump’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants, back to Colombia. Petro issued a jumble of anti-imperialist rhetoric, but it gained scant traction because Trump, whether you agree with his extremist anti-immigration agenda or not, had a sovereign legal right, technically anyway, to boot the Colombians back to Bogotá.
Trump threatened steep tariffs on Colombian goods, so Petro backed off — and in the process ham-handedly emboldened if not strengthened Trump’s nativist crusade.
Trump has received similar assists in the U.S., though. In fact, it’s an apt coincidence that Petro's blunder occurred a year to the week after many immigrant-advocate organizations here committed a misstep of their own that likely helped Trump win votes for his second presidential victory in November.
READ MORE: Blasting Biden's immigration bargain is short-sighted advocacy
It was late January, 2024, and then President Biden was negotiating with Republicans in Congress to get reform of America’s wrecked immigration system back on track.
One of the core points was the wrecked asylum system, which had become the focus of the migrant crisis on the U.S.’s overwhelmed southern border — where “invasion” optics, real or imagined, were turning more and more of the electorate toward Trump’s camp.
Biden was willing to re-tighten the asylum process — which even traditionally liberal media like the New York Times were pointing out was now a dysfunctional get-in-free turnstile for millions of migrants each year — and work to restore its efficacy.
In 2024, too many immigrant advocates forgot to show they too can deal in the common sense of border enforcement, not just the ideals of border entitlement.
His stance was a way to reassure voters that he and the Democrats were committed to managing the border after three years of being accused, fairly or not, of installing a green light there.
Trump wanted to derail the Biden-GOP talks — and did — because he didn’t want to see the immigration mess fixed before his campaign could exploit it in the fall.
And who ended up giving him a hand? Ironically, many of the same immigration advocacy groups whose constituency — migrants — stood to suffer the most from Trump and his xenophobic MAGA show taking back the White House.
In a flurry of statements and releases, they blasted Biden for “dealing with Republicans to dismantle our asylum system” and “selling out immigrants to fund war efforts,” since freeing up congressional funding for Ukraine was part of the bargaining.
Circular firing squad
It frankly felt more like a circular firing squad, with a blindfolded Biden standing in the middle with a Marlboro between his lips and Trump perched above shouting, “Fire!”

I’m certainly not criticizing the important and admirable work immigration advocacy organizations do for migrants. And I certainly do applaud their call for humane treatment of desperate people fleeing poverty and brutality in places like Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Honduras — and their condemnation of inhumane schemes like the migrant family separation we saw in Trump’s first presidency.
But that’s just the point. This isn’t only about compassion; it’s also about politics.
It’s about persuading voters that the humane side of the immigration aisle deals in the common sense of border enforcement as well as border entitlement.
It’s about not pushing voters into the arms of an immigrant demonizer like Trump.
Too many immigrant advocates forgot that in 2024 — especially in that last week of January, when conveying a modicum of immigration pragmatism to voters might have helped convey fewer votes to Trump in the first week of November.
So here we are in the last week of January, 2025, watching Trump carry out the demonization with mass arrests and deportations of even non-criminal undocumented migrants coast to coast.
Watching his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem falsely assert that Venezuelans residing here under lawful Temporary Protected Status “violate our laws” as she revokes their TPS designation.
Watching the Florida legislature pass a bill that would force teachers to turn in undocumented kindergartners.
And watching Colombia’s head of state hand Trump a geopolitical triumph.
All of which prompts me to ask immigration advocates: The last week of January, 2024, looks comparatively good now, doesn’t it?