Republicans Went All-In on Bad Immigration Policy

Now’s a good time politically to abandon what were bad ideas anyway

Democrats won control of the House and Senate last night. Although many causes will be identified for the “stunning blue tsunami,” no one should miss the fact that Republicans spent most of the last two years going all-in on the most extreme anti-immigrant agenda in American history. We can now confidently say that—whatever people think of those policies—the strategy failed to prevent their electoral defeat.

Among many other policies, Republicans and the Trump administration:

• Pre-funded ICE for the entirety of Trump’s term, avoiding oversight or any potential limits on mass deportation;

• Appropriated nearly $250 billion for immigration enforcement—more than all other federal law enforcement combined and a decade of funds in two years;

• Cut legal immigration in half, including for spouses and minor children of US citizens—with legal immigration cuts far exceeding cuts to illegal immigration;

• Diverted 25,000 law enforcement officers from human and sex trafficking, terrorism, and violent crime investigations into civil immigration enforcement;

• Turned every agency of the executive branch into arms of its immigration agenda—from the DOJ and IRS to the Department of Transportation and US Postal Service;

• Deprioritized criminals in deportation efforts and increased arrests of people without criminal history, including spouses of US citizens;

• Pursued immigration enforcement efforts with an unprecedented degree of violence, which involved shooting dozens of people;

• Violated the Constitution in numerous ways, including by arresting noncitizens for their speech and invading private homes of US citizens without warrants;

• Engaged in open and explicit demographic and racial profiling of Hispanic Americans on US streets—which is occurring at both the federal and state levels.

The actual implementation of these policies matters far more than the vague rhetoric about “mass deportation” or “securing the border.” People can contextualize those rhetorical goals in ways that make them palatable, but the reality has shocked even the president’s supporters. President Trump’s approval rating on immigration has plummeted in large part because so many Americans reject his enforcement efforts in the interior.

Of course, the economy mattered more for most voters, but we shouldn’t ignore the opportunity cost of spending so much time, energy, and resources on an issue that didn’t help improve the economy or win any voters. Congressional Republicans chose fewer spending reforms and higher taxes to give $168 billion to immigration enforcement in the One Big Beautiful Bill—spending that only increased the deficits since then. That choice was a massive mistake.

Heavily Hispanic areas swung dramatically back toward Democrats, especially in Texas. Exit polls show Hispanic Americans went from +5 percentage points for Republicans in 2024 to +27 percentage points for Democrats in 2026. Pew Research Center polling showed Trump’s approval among Hispanic Trump voters fell from 93 percent in February 2025 to 57 percent last month. Hispanic voters said that they thought immigration enforcement efforts—which would include profiling—had gone too far by a ratio of nearly 2:1.

Congressional Republicans should support bipartisan efforts to stop racial and demographic profiling in the name of immigration enforcement. The most effective way to enforce any limits on immigration actions that violate the Constitution or federal law is to create a private right of action that would allow individuals to sue federal agents—a remedy that already exists for constitutional violations by state and local officers.

Members of Congress should defend the Constitution regardless, but this election should give more members a reason to believe that defending the Constitution can be both good politics and the right thing to do.