Trump Broke the U.S. Border Policy. Now He Owns It.
His administration never had a viable plan. The result? A savage and careening crisis.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Photographer: John Moore/Getty Images
On Jan. 11, 2018, Thomas Homan, then the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, appeared on “Fox & Friends” to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts on border security. The television program, a daily breakfast buffet of propaganda, featured a discussion of the political hypocrisy and policy failures of Democrats, the criminal dangers of sanctuary cities and the sad futility of legalizing undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.
Yet after a full year of Donald Trump’s presidency, there was also good news to report. “Under this president, we had a 45-year low in illegal immigration on the border this year,” Homan told his Fox hosts.