Nations do not collapse overnight. They erode when leaders start deciding which laws are optional. It shows the American people that if immigration law only applies when it’s politically convenient, then it isn’t law—it’s theater.
Maria Salazar, a Republican congresswoman from Florida recently said, “Don’t touch the nannies or the gardeners… Those people are helping us eat better, cheaper homes, cheaper vegetables and better foods.” That statement may have been intended as practical or compassionate, but in reality, it reflects the same failed thinking that helped create the illegal immigration crisis Americans overwhelmingly rejected in 2024.
The mandate voters delivered was not “deport some.” It was not “secure the border, but protect the cheap labor pipeline.” It was a demand for order, sovereignty, and the restoration of American law as the final authority inside American borders.
Selective enforcement is not enforcement. It is a loophole.
Loopholes are exactly what drive illegal immigration. If the message to the world is that certain industries will always be shielded from enforcement—industries such as landscaping, agriculture and domestic labor—then the incentive structure remains intact. The smuggling networks remain intact. And the cycle of mass illegal immigration continues.
For years, the political left has framed illegal immigration as primarily a humanitarian issue. But if humanitarian outcomes truly mattered, we would be talking honestly about the exploitation embedded in the illegal labor market itself.
The lure of American jobs is one of the primary tools used by transnational criminal organizations. Migrants are often charged massive smuggling fees simply to reach U.S. soil. Once here, many are forced into labor trafficking designed to extract repayment through coercion, threats, and violence. Farm labor, in particular, has repeatedly been identified as a sector vulnerable to labor trafficking schemes tied to cartel networks and smuggling organizations.
Cheap labor is not compassionate. It is often the downstream product of human exploitation.
And beyond the economic and humanitarian arguments, there is a fundamental public safety reality: employment sector does not equal moral character, legal compliance, or risk level.
The 2018 case of Ever Martinez Reyes illustrates this point. Reyes, living in the United States illegally and working for a landscaping company on Long Island, was later charged with rape. He shouldn’t have been here. He had previously entered illegally, was deported, and then re-entered again. He had no prior arrests and no gang affiliation, facts often used to argue someone is “low risk.”
But immigration law is not built around predicting individual criminal outcomes. It is built around maintaining national sovereignty and reducing preventable risk to American communities. The United States already struggles with domestic crime challenges that demand serious policy attention. Adding millions of additional, unvetted individuals into the labor market and communities is not a responsible public safety strategy.
The most humane and most rational policy is consistent enforcement: Deport those here illegally and remove the incentives that drive illegal entry in the first place.
Americans are already seeing what that looks like in practice. Amid heightened tensions surrounding immigration enforcement in Minnesota, Border Czar Tom Homan has been emphasizing that immigration law applies universally. While targeted enforcement remains the operational priority, anyone illegally present in the United States is subject to detention and removal under current U.S. law.
And for those here illegally who fear when and if their time will come, there is an alternative. The Department of Homeland Security is actively incentivizing self-deportations, including financial assistance up to $2,600.
America cannot sustain an economy built on illegal labor while claiming to enforce immigration law. And the Republican Party cannot claim to stand for security while carving out politically convenient exceptions.
The American people did not vote for partial enforcement. They voted for restored sovereignty, restored law, and restored accountability. If we abandon that mandate now, we will not only fail to solve the crisis, we will guarantee its continuation.