During the runup to his 2016 presidential election victory, former President Donald Trump made illegal immigration and border security one of the primary aspects of his campaign’s platform. He would frequently encourage chants of “Build the Wall” at his rallies, and he wasn’t shy about calling out the problems America was facing due to the border crisis.
Put simply: Donald Trump was the face of the “Tighten Immigration” movement. That is… until now.
Though Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey has also been vocal in addressing the out-of-control influx of immigrants over our southern border, and even though Ducey has taken similar steps to curtail the flood, it is Texas Governor Greg Abbott who has been the most prominent in the debate and who has received much of the media attention as a result.
After his pleas for federal relief from the burden the migrants placed on his state continually fell on deaf ears, Abbott has been sending scores of busloads full of illegal immigrants northward to blue cities since April. Initially, Democratic mayors such as Eric Adams of New York and Muriel Bowser in Washington D.C. had lectured Ducey and Abbot to be tolerant and compassionate to the immigrants. But now that both cities are finding the immigrants landing on their own doorstep, they are attacking the two governors.
The face of the counter-immigration movement is no longer Donald Trump, it is Greg Abbott. And not only is Abbott winning the debate against Adams and Bowser, but he also appears to be having a major impact on public opinion on the matter across the country.
According to Forbes:
“Support for immigration has hit a two-year low, according to a new Gallup poll released Monday, as a political battle heats up over Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s strategy to send migrants from the Mexican border to Washington D.C. and New York City.
27% of respondents said immigration should be expanded, marking a downward shift from a peak of 34% that supported increasing immigration in 2020 and breaking a 65-year steady rise in support for immigration, according to the poll of 1,013 people conducted between July 5 and July 26.
38% said immigration numbers should decrease, up from 28% in 2020, while 31% believe it should be kept at the present level.”
As Rush Limbaugh might say, “For those of you in Rio Linda, let’s summarize that math.” In only two years. The opinions regarding immigration have virtually reversed. The poll shows that support for expanding immigration has declined by 7%, whereas support for decreasing immigration has increased by 10%. That’s a whopping 17% shift in public opinion in only two years. The drop in support for immigration has declined almost as sharply as President Joe Biden’s approval rating.
So, what is the cause? Why has there been such a dramatic turnaround? Abbott’s maneuver with the immigrant buses has resulted in two notable results. First, his busing of the illegal immigrants to the northeast has heightened awareness of the problem with the overall electorate by illustrating that it’s not just a Texas and Arizona problem. It’s a problem for the whole country and one that affects all of us.
Jordan Case writes at The Blue State Conservative.
