HUGH HEWITT: Why Trump’s first-term playbook may work again on immigration reform

Is there an emerging path to “Dreamers” To finally get legal status? Can this group, which includes more than 3 million illegal immigrants, be “settled” in the near future?

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who I interviewed on my radio show on Wednesday, didn’t sound overly optimistic about passing the final FY 2026 appropriations bill — the law that funds the Department of Homeland Security — but he also didn’t rule out including “regulating” for “Dreamers,” provided the bill itself includes a knockout of funding for “Dreamers.”Sanctuary cities and countries.”

president Donald TrumpThune noted that he has long been open to regularizing the status of the Dreamers. If Democrats in Congress want to actually achieve something with their latest funding push, they should demand legal status for Dreamers while being prepared to put pressure on sanctuary cities.

On Tuesday, she defended such a deal On this platform – The “Nixon-China” settlement that President Trump can succeed in, and no other Republican would dare attempt, let alone succeed in implementing.

Stephen Colbert cheers Alex Padilla’s bill that would make illegal immigrants citizens

The President showed the way with the First Step Criminal Justice Reform Act during his first term. Now he can take the helm again – this time to secure long-awaited “regularization” for the Dreamers – reflecting a view shared by the vast majority of Americans: Illegal immigrants brought here as minors should not be deported to their countries of origin, if those countries can be identified.

On Wednesday, I proposed such a bill to the Majority Leader, and his polite rejection reflects the scars every Republican lawmaker carries over two decades of past immigration battles.

A hardline group of absolute deportation advocates opposes regularization of Dreamers, and their size often obscures how small their numbers really are. This kind of strong rejection of logical solutions should be rejected by the president and Republicans in Congress.

Trump’s anti-immigration campaign raises long-standing bipartisan calls for reform of asylum claims and immigrant protections

The coalition that returned the president to the Oval Office was built on common sense about borders. First, shut it down — like the president did. Second, financing and finishing the wall, which is underway. Third, detain and deport the most dangerous among the country’s tens of millions of illegal immigrants, a challenge that the president has made nearly insoluble. Joe BidenFour years of failure on the border, but there’s one in the works now.

The “First Step on Immigration Act” would continue the commitments the president made during his campaign, and should not try to be a “blanket solution” to the illegal immigration mess left by the Biden administration.

Such “comprehensive” legislative schemes rarely pass through Congress, because the political right or the political left — or both — rise up to overturn them, often for good reasons.

Top Republicans rebuke ideas of arresting DHS agents with plan to siphon money from problem cities

On the one hand, these efforts over the past 20 years have promised a “path to citizenship,” which should never be available to anyone who breaks the law to get here. Millions are waiting patiently in line to enter the United States legally, and those who cross that line cannot be allowed to stay while also gaining the right to vote or access benefits reserved for Americans who have paid decades of taxes in programs like Medicare and Social Security.

There are “first steps” toward rationalizing immigration enforcement, just as President Trump’s first step in his second term was to close the border and Congress’s first step was to fully fund… Construction of the border wall. Check and check.

Next steps should include granting “blue cards” to Dreamers — and any other narrow category of illegal immigrants around whom there is consensus — but only if such grants are coupled with serious penalties for any city, county, or state that refuses to cooperate with ICE.

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The United States must be consistent in its message: We are a hospitable and compassionate country, and we will accommodate Dreamers. But we are also a nation of laws, and no federal funding should flow to areas where law enforcement agencies refuse to flow Cooperation with ice Identify and deport illegal aliens who are arrested and detained.

Common sense about empathy, combined with common sense about compliance with federal law, is the sweet spot for the next stage of problem solving Illegal immigration crisis.

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Democrats have given President Trump the high ground in this debate. They thought they could make it The final battle of appropriations About ice. Instead, the president and Republicans in Congress should focus on Dreamers and sanctuary cities.

Good politics can also be great politics. Consult almost any Referendum on immigration. The First Step on Immigration Law, built on “80-20” positions—those that eight out of 10 Americans agree with—is a great place to start.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News Channel contributor and hostThe Hugh Hewitt ShowHe is heard weekday afternoons from 3pm-6pm ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and lunches on the West Coast in more than 400 affiliates across the country, and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel News Roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. He is an Ohio native and alumnus Harvard College and at the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a professor of law at Chapman University’s Fowler Law School since 1996 where he teaches constitutional law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on every major national television news network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major U.S. newspaper, authored dozens of books and moderated a number of Republican candidate debates, most recently in November 2023 GOP presidential debate in Miami and four GOP presidential debates in the 2015-2016 cycle Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics, and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over 40 years of broadcasting today.

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