Trump has destroyed principled opposition to amnesty: Column

The principled opponents of illegal immigration disdain the use of of the term "undocumented" as a distressing example of political correctness and reject the the idea that everyone who arrives at our border deserves to be welcomed. This principled opposition acknowledges that the world is full of needy and oppressed people, but also that there is no way we can accommodate them all. That is well within the flexible boundaries of American political debate.

In contrast, the irresponsible opposition subsumed in the arguments put forth on numerous occasions by Donald J. Trump is that there is a substantial criminal element lurking among those living in this country illegally, that the estimated 12 million illegal residents could be deported, and that an impregnable wall on the border of the U.S. and Mexico to keep them out would be more than an extravagant public works project and more effective than the barrier built by Emperor Hadrian to keep the Picts and Scots out of England.

Trump has succeeded in discrediting the opposition to a blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants with his indiscriminate and irresponsible rants, made himself unacceptable to a vast number of voters and, in his likely defeat, will probably drag down with him enough Republican members of Congress that will make it more difficult to temper the immigration policies of a victorious Hillary Clinton, who will almost certainly involve some kind of amnesty. Trump, by his intemperate proposals, is a threat to the structure of checks and balances that would moderate the immigration policies of a Democratic administration, which will likely be overly lenient.

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Because of his excesses, such as his proposed ban on Muslims being admitted to the U.S., he has managed to inflame the national debate over immigration policy to the point where opposition to illegal immigration is often portrayed by those on the left as tantamount to opposing all immigration and therefore anti-immigrant, a stance at odds with modern American pro-immigration mythology. Accordingly, those Americans who believe simply in playing by the rules and not jumping the line ahead of those patiently waiting their turn can find themselves lumped together with people who buy into Trump's overheated narrative of Mexicans as rapists and murderers and all Muslims as terrorists. It has also cut the ground out from under those who would accept legalization short of citizenship.

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It would have been sufficient if Trump had just made the case that illegal immigrants are, by definition, law breakers and not entitled to any special concessions. But why make a self-evident statement when you can inflame the passions of your followers with nasty and unprovable attack lines? Paradoxically, Trump's inflammatory attacks have had the effect of mobilizing Latinos who, not surprisingly, take his aspersions personally. The last thing that any sane candidate would want to do is provide his opponents with an incentive to come out and vote against him, but the Republican nominee is not guided by normal political instincts.

Even as Clinton has been damaged by the FBI report that she acted carelessly and irresponsibly in the handling of classified emails on her personal server, she is far more electable than Trump, who keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into indefensible positions. His intimation that "Second Amendment people" could stop Clinton's move to undermine the Second Amendment through appointing liberal judges was chilling and fueled suspicions about gun owners and violence. His musings on punishing women for abortion undermined anti-abortion Republicans' decades-long efforts to convince women that anti-abortion laws would do no such thing.

But none of Trump's positions is more aberrant than his views on illegal immigration. By contaminating conservatives' principled position with his toxic rhetoric, Donald Trump may have set the stage for a GOP debacle that will be the prelude for a sweeping amnesty, a development unlikely to please his most avid followers.

Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Contributors of USA TODAY.

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