Democrats grabbed both chambers of Congress, and their open-borders wish list is already printed.
Some Republicans think the cure for a midterm beating is handing them the one thing voters refused.
But JD Vance saw the scheme coming and fired a warning shot before anyone made the first pitch.
Trump Opens a Door and Keeps the Veto Stamp
President Trump sat down with Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum during Fox News’ election night coverage. Baier asked whether Democrats, after years of what Trump calls Trump Derangement Syndrome, would actually send him bills he could sign.
Trump didn’t slam the door.
“I’m a person that likes getting things done, and there are things that we can work with. We can’t work on everything,” he said.
Then he named a topic. “But I can work with them on a lot of things. I mean, we can work with them on immigration. I think. Immigration is a big deal. I’ve always felt we should be able to work on immigration.”
You could almost hear the K Street lobbyists reaching for their phones.
But Trump also reminded everybody who holds the last word. Democrats will be “in control but not in control,” as he put it, because the veto stamp still sits on his desk.
“They can send over 50 different great bills that they’re all excited about, and I send them back with a nice stamp veto and, you know, there’s not a thing they can do about that,” Trump said.
The White House moved quickly to settle the obvious question. An administration official told the Daily Caller, “The Administration will never allow for mass amnesty.” A source familiar with internal discussions went further and said: “amnesty is not on the table.”
Vance Called the Gaslighting Before It Arrived
Vice President JD Vance didn’t wait for the lobbyists to start dialing.
In his post-election assessment on X, Vance predicted establishment politicians would spend the coming months telling Republicans that amnesty is the answer to their losses. He called that pitch what it is: gaslighting.
He left room for one kind of change. “I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement,” Vance wrote, pointing to a harder focus on businesses that hire illegal labor.
And then he drew the line with no asterisk attached.
Vance’s read on the losses points somewhere else entirely. “Our voters showed up,” he wrote. According to the pollsters he consulted, the trouble came from 2024 Trump voters who crossed over to Democrats, and the top reason they gave was the war.
The neoconservative hawks who spent years agitating for a fight with Iran finally got one. Republican House members in swing districts paid for it at the ballot box.
The Amnesty Caucus Didn’t Survive November
Here’s the part the amnesty crowd would rather skip.
US Representative Maria Salazar (R-FL), Miami’s pro-open-borders RINO, wrote the Dignity Act. Her bill would let illegal aliens who arrived before 2021 claim a brand-new, renewable seven-year legal status by paying $7,000 in fines and clearing a background check, according to PolitiFact’s breakdown of the legislation. The Department of Homeland Security puts the number of illegal aliens in that window at roughly 10.5 million.
On paper, the bill’s full title boils down to the acronym DIGNIDAD. Salazar swears it isn’t amnesty. When US Representative Brandon Gill (R-TX) called it amnesty anyway, she fired back on X in all capital letters: “READ. THE. BILL. BEFORE. YOU. OPEN. YOUR. MOUTH.”
Gill read it. So did plenty of others.
Even George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, hardly an immigration hawk, told PolitiFact the bill “would create ‘mass amnesty’ in the sense that it gives legal status to large numbers of people, potentially millions, who would otherwise be eligible for deportation.”
US Representative Ralph Norman (R-SC) needed only seven words when Fox News Digital asked him earlier this year. “It’s just amnesty. That’s all that is.”
Now look at who went home. US Representatives David Valadao (R-CA), Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Gabe Evans (R-CO), and Jen Kiggans (R-VA) all put their names on the Dignity Act. All five lost their seats. Valadao, Lawler, and Evans signed on as original cosponsors.
Lawler spent months defending the bill on Fox News, including a testy exchange with Laura Ingraham. When The Federalist pressed the bill’s Republican cosponsors on whether they still backed it, Lawler’s office said he did. Evans said the same.
Salazar, the author, kept her seat. Funny how that works out.
Nobody can prove the Dignity Act alone sank those five. The war did most of the damage in swing districts, and Vance said so in plain English.
But NBC News exit polls found voters still trusted Republicans more on immigration, 44 percent to roughly 40 or 41 percent for Democrats. Immigration was the one issue where the GOP held the edge. Voters who called immigration enforcement crucial broke Republican 58 to 40.
So the Republicans who spent the year sanding down that edge got no reward for it. Voters had little reason to rehire Republicans who sounded like Democrats on the GOP’s best issue.
What Democrats Bring to the Table
Democrats aren’t showing up for a modest trade.
Over the summer, the Democratic National Committee approved two resolutions on enforcement, according to Newsweek. One urged Congress to abolish ICE and phase out the immigration detention system. The other called for choking off Homeland Security funding until the agency stops workplace raids, mass arrests, and enforcement near schools and houses of worship.
That’s the opening bid. And any “bipartisan” bill that comes out of a Democrat House will carry those fingerprints, gift-wrapped in a bow labeled border security.
The establishment Republicans who pushed the Dignity Act already know the routine. Promise the wall money and the E-Verify mandate up front, hand out the legal status on day one, and let the enforcement dollars dry up a few budget fights later.
Democrats would happily sign that deal every day of the week. It gives them millions of future voters and gives Big Business the cheap labor it keeps lobbying for, while American workers watch their wages flatten.
The Last Time Washington Ignored the Warning
Washington has watched this movie before.
In 2014, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor looked untouchable. He outspent a little-known economics professor named Dave Brat by roughly 25 to 1, according to OpenSecrets figures reported at the time.
Brat hammered Cantor as soft on amnesty. Cantor tried to cover himself with mailers bragging that he had blocked amnesty in the House. Voters didn’t buy the costume change.
Brat won 56 percent to 44 percent. The upset froze House immigration talks for the rest of that Congress.
But the consultant class has a short memory, and every losing cycle it rediscovers the same “solution.”
Holding the Line From Here
Trump’s openness to “work on immigration” doesn’t have to mean amnesty, and the White House says it won’t. Plenty of immigration work fits an America First agenda: going after employers who hire illegal labor, as Vance suggested, mandatory E-Verify, cutting chain migration, and scrapping the diversity visa lottery.
A Democrat House will never send most of that to his desk.
One word in the official’s statement deserves a second look, though. “Mass amnesty” leaves a little room for a smaller version, and the Salazar crowd lives in that room.
Vance’s version didn’t include the qualifier.
“But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you,” Vance wrote.
Sources:
Daily Caller, “EXCLUSIVE: Trump ‘Will Never Allow For Mass Amnesty’ After Floating Working With Dems On Immigration”
PolitiFact, “Would Florida US Rep Maria Salazar’s ‘Dignity Act’ grant mass amnesty to immigrants?”
Fox News, “GOP infighting erupts over immigration bill that would shield millions from deportation”
The Federalist, “Path to citizenship? GOP rep leading mass amnesty bill says the quiet part out loud”
The Post Millennial, “GOP warns Dignity Act is mass amnesty bill for MILLIONS of illegal immigrants”
Fox News, “Cantor upset in Virginia GOP primary by Tea Party-backed challenger”
Daily Signal, “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor Loses to Primary Challenger”