WE NEED DEMOCRATS WHO AREN'T AFRAID OF TRUMP'S GOOD POLL NUMBERS ON IMMIGRATION

Remember this chilling moment of American fascism?



The Washington Post reports that the stated reason for this arrest was a lie:

Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged.

The finding, contained in a March memo that was described to The Washington Post, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Ozturk’s visa under an authority empowering the top U.S. diplomat to safeguard the foreign policy interests of the United States.

... the State Department found that while Ozturk had protested Tufts’ relationship with Israel, neither DHS nor ICE nor Homeland Security investigations produced any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization, according to U.S. government employees briefed on the State Department’s memo.

But top Democrats don't want to make noise about Ozturk's case, or the case of Mahmoud Khalil and other legal residents who expressed opposition to the Israeli war in Gaza in a peaceful manner.

I get this. It's an article of faith in American politics that the public is pro-Israel. But that's no longer true. Last week, Pew reported this survey result:

... the public’s views of Israel have turned more negative over the past three years. More than half of U.S. adults (53%) now express an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42% in March 2022 – before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip....

Americans’ confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also remains relatively low (32%), according to the new survey.

And Gallup polling reveals a significant decline in support for Israel:

According to Gallup, 76% of Democrats, 53% of independents, and even 41% of Republicans support the creation of an independent Palestinian state. So there's no good reason for Democrats to be fearful on this issue.

Leading Democrats also seem afraid to speak out on behalf of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has been falsely accused of gang activities and renditioned to a torture prison in El Salvador. I understand why: While President Trump's poll numbers on the economy and inflation are terrible, he gets positive ratings on immigration.

There's no question that Americans have moved rightward on immigration, but most of America still doesn't share MAGA views on the subject. In a recent Wall Street Journal poll, 53% of respondents responded favorably to a "Detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants" policy; 45% disapproved. However, the numbers dropped to 33% approval and 63% disapproval for a policy described as "Detain and deport undocumented immigrants even if they have lived in the U.S. for 10 or more years, pay taxes on earnings, and have no criminal record."

We see something very similar in a recent Pew poll:

Many Americans who appear to share MAGA's immigration absolutism are clearly open to the idea that some targeted immigrants are decent people who don't deserve punishment.

In the two cases I've mentioned, Democrats should champion the rule of law, but "rule of law" is an abstraction. Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Rumeysa Ozturk are real people who have been brutalized by an administration that's not broadly popular and is widely perceived as reckless and uninterested in minimizing harm to innocent people. Democrats should take advantage of that skepticism.

Trump's poll numbers are bad, but they could be a lot worse. I think they'd be worse if prominent Democrats had the courage to take a page from the playbook of George W. Bush's chief strategist Karl Rove, who believed in attacking an opponent's strengths. In 2004, Republicans went after John Kerry's military record. Now, Democrats should try to chip away at Trump's good numbers on immigration. In the process, they'd be fighting for the rule of law, and for human decency.