The Blaze: Clear Messaging, Closed Border
Although the Trump Administration has many historic victories to be proud of, the crowning achievement is undoubtedly the securing of our southern border. Not only does this fulfill President Trump’s signature campaign promise, but it also reveals that the message of “law and order” is just as strong as enforcement of the law itself.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been featured — and smeared for appearing in — several ad campaigns that have aired on television and social media across America and around the world, warning illegal aliens to self-deport now or risk permanent deportation.
But the ads aren’t brazen—they're brilliant.
Democrats have tried to criticize these ads as a waste of money, or a form of political advertising. But the truth is that they hate these ads because of how powerful they are. Advertisements like these are a commonsense representation of the responsibility that DHS has to enforce federal immigration laws. Similar ads have been utilized by federal immigration authorities in the past, including the Biden-era Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) “Say No to the Coyote” digital ad campaign in 2022.
The numbers do not lie: We are not only rounding up more immigrants and keeping more immigrants out, but more immigrants are refusing to even try to come here in the first place. That is the effect of the messaging campaign by President Trump and Secretary Noem. Just as Biden sent the message that illegals were welcome to the U.S., Trump is sending the message that they are no longer welcome.
As Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Senior Fellow Todd Bensman once wrote, the power of this messaging was reflected in 2016 when you compared the “Trump effect” to the “Clinton effect.” In November of 2016, there were over 63,000 apprehensions at the southern border; by March of 2017, that number had fallen to just over 12,000. By the end of his first term, he had reduced immigration – legal and illegal – by 92%. The rest of the world pays attention.
We are seeing a repeat of this phenomenon now that President Trump is back in office, after four disastrous years of Joe Biden. Overall border encounters are down 93% since President Trump took office, and crossings through Panama’s Darien Gap – one of the most heavily-trafficked routes for illegal immigration – have plunged by 99%.
Law and order depends, first and foremost, on clarity. It’s one thing to enforce the law, but it’s another thing to make sure everyone knows that you’re enforcing the law. The only way someone can play by the rules is if they know what the rules are, and what the penalties are for breaking those rules.
Why do we write down our laws? Any healthy human society already knows that things like murder, theft, and fraud are wrong. That law is written in our hearts. We write down laws and penalties so that everyone knows exactly what the rules are for living together, and what happens otherwise. Advertising the information is the entire point of putting it down on paper in the first place.
If our laws are to be truly just, they must be both clearly stated and faithfully enforced. This is the entire point of having a written set of laws, so that everyone knows the rules of the game and the penalties for breaking them.
The law will never enforce itself. Consequences have to be imposed — not just threatened or implied. Secretary Noem has frequently told the story about how she was the first governor to send National Guard troops to the border to support Texas’s border enforcement efforts under the Biden Administration. When she met with Border Patrol agents, one of them very plainly told her: “There are no consequences right now. Without consequences, there is no enforcement and there is no law. We need consequences.”
Now, at long last, consequences are back. And the whole world knows it.
We are no longer seeing mobs of illegal aliens rushing the border wearing Biden campaign t-shirts, expecting to receive free, taxpayer-funded handouts that candidate Biden promised them on the campaign trail. Instead, the mainstream media is forced to churn out pearl-clutching sob stories about how illegal aliens are choosing to self-deport, or how businesses that depend on immigrant traffic through the Darien Gap have collapsed due to the erosion of immigration.
The famous chart from Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) proves that President Trump accomplished in just 100 days what it took him four years to do last time. And he’s just getting started. These results are not just a function of enforcement. They are a result of messaging.
When America speaks, the world indeed listens. Now, after four long and chaotic years, this country is once again speaking up for our sovereignty, our citizens, and our way of life.