Yet if you listen to many Democrats today, you'd think the party has always been firmly opposed to strong border enforcement. It's such a dramatic reversal that I sometimes wonder whether they remember their own positions before Trump entered the scene.
And that raises a few questions.
Where do Democrats actually stand on border security now? What's driving this shift toward resisting policies aimed not only at securing the border but also at addressing the millions of illegal immigrants already here?
It wasn't that long ago that former President Barack Obama was labeled the "Deporter-in-Chief." Bill Clinton oversaw the construction of the first 400-miles of border wall. Even Hillary Clinton repeatedly emphasized the importance of a secure border and supported immigration reforms that included enforcement.
Go back further, and the picture becomes even more interesting. During Ronald Reagan's presidency, Democrats criticized his administration for being too lax on immigration, accusing Republicans of prioritizing cheap labor over the well-being of American workers and communities.
Let me be clear about my own position, because I think it helps to illustrate part of my point, and perhaps explains some of my confusion. I have always believed in secure borders. That matters because it shows my stance wasn't shaped by party or political trends on my own side.
I took the side of the Democrats on this issue because their position more closely aligned with my own personal beliefs about how the border should be handled as a policy matter.
Trump taking on the border issue as strongly as he did was rather unexpected for me. When he elevated border security and made it a defining Republican issue, my party found itself aligned with me on a position I had long held—even when it meant disagreeing with them in the past. It didn't change my opinion. It simply put a checkmark in a box that wasn't check marked before that.
The same thing happened on other policy fronts as well. Take globalization. I believe it undermined stable, good-paying jobs, and I supported a more protectionist approach even when my own party did not. So, on this front as well, when Trump embraced protectionism, it didn't shift my views. It simply brought Republican policy closer to the stance I had already taken for years.
So, it raises an interesting question. Do our views genuinely shift with whatever "issue of the day" our party decides to elevate, or do most of us hold our beliefs independently of party trends? I tend to think most people fall into the latter category. We form our opinions on our own, and then we choose the party that happens to check the most boxes—not the other way around.
That's why, to me, the real question isn't whether Democrats have changed their position on the border. The question is what caused that change. I mean, even during the Reagan years, most Americans—across party lines—supported the idea of a secure border. It wasn't a deeply polarizing issue on Main Street. There was broad agreement.
At least on this issue, despite what anyone thinks overall about President Donald Trump, of all the issues, this one in particular should be that "common-ground" one that should be the least contested.
Which leads to a more uncomfortable realization. Are those on the left now opposing the policy itself, or are they simply opposing the president associated with it? And why should that shape anyone's personal beliefs? It shouldn't—any more than the Republican party's shifting positions ever dictated mine. My stance is my stance, regardless of where my party happens to land at any given moment.
Think of it this way: if a preacher suddenly abandoned his own teachings and began preaching the opposite of what he once stood for, most people wouldn't change their beliefs to match him. They'd recognize that the preacher—not the principles—had gone off course. In the same sense, a political party shifting its message shouldn't automatically cause anyone to abandon their long-held views. Yet that seems to be exactly what has happened with the Democrat party's recent embrace of looser border policies. The change in rhetoric has led many to follow along, not because their core beliefs shifted, but because their party did.
Which brings me to the real danger here. What happens when people allow their reactions to be driven more by emotion than by common sense?
Some will say, "I don't oppose border security—I just disagree with the methods being used now." But how did we reach a point where such measures would even need to be on the table? What situation created the need for our extreme response in the first place?
It was the shift in policy that brought us here.
For years the United States maintained relatively firm—though imperfect—border policies. The situation was never ideal, but it wasn't spiraling out of control either. When Donald Trump, during his first term, made border security a central issue, he largely intensified efforts that were already well in place before him.
The real turning point came when President Joe Biden entered office and began dismantling not only Trump-era policies, but many of the enforcement mechanisms that Democrats themselves had put in place long before Trump arrived on the scene. That reversal opened the floodgates, and the consequences are what we're now struggling to manage.
In short, we created a crisis, and that demands a stronger response. It requires sharper focus, more decisive action, and solutions bold enough to rebuild the system from the ground up.
We should all feel a measure of confusion here, because if the Biden administration had simply maintained the existing border policies rather than dismantling them, we wouldn't be talking today about ICE sweeps or large-scale enforcement operations. The situation wouldn't have escalated to this point. In fact, border-security could have been one of the few issues capable of uniting both sides during Donald Trump's second term. Because again, a secure border was something Americans broadly agreed on—regardless of party.
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© 2026 Jim Bauer
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