Donald Trump has a problem heading toward his reelection campaign: immigration. He is being pressured on this issue from two sides. From the right, his signature campaign promise to build a wall between the United States and Mexico amounts to his largest broken promise. If his presidency ended today, Trump’s legacy on immigration would be a massive increase in illegal entrants and a humanitarian crisis on the border itself. The mostly symbolic series of executive orders on immigration, through which Trump has tried to satisfy restrictionists, have failed to reduce illegal immigration or change the composition of immigration in the way reformers desire. In fact, while many restrictionists and reformers want higher-skilled immigration, Trump has overseen a dramatic decline in student visas. At the same time Trump’s measures have enraged immigration proponents, swelled their ranks, and potentially radicalized Democrats on the issue.
That brings us to the other half of Donald Trump’s immigration problem. The entire atmosphere around the issue of immigration has changed in four years.
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