Francis Wilkinson, Columnist

Trump Is Making Americans More Immigrant-Friendly

Polls show that support is increasing for the people he attacks.

December 19, 2018 at 1:30 PM UTC

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

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Photographer: Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump may ultimately be a unifying force on one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics: immigration.

That’s not Trump’s intent, of course. Having launched his presidential campaign in 2015 with a demagogic assault on immigrants, Trump has been a reliable fount of calumny ever since. His policies, from brutalizing children at the border — a 7-year-old girl died in U.S. custody last week — to terminating Temporary Protected Status for refugees, appear designed to convince his MAGAnauts that he can, and somehow will, forestall the further browning of America.