While Donald Trump touts to the skies his "astonishing achievement" of "closing the border", actually, the last years of the Obama administration saw a comparable number of illegal border crossings to what is the case now. In 2015 there were 591,000 undocumented immigrant encounters, while in 2025 there were 440,000 undocumented immigrant encounters, in the US. This is hardly "closing the borders", and it doesn't represent that big a change. This, despite the lack of any police brutality, in 2015, or the immense expense incurred, massive civil rights violations of American citizens and non-citizens alike, which we are all currently experiencing. No American citizens were murdered in 2015 by ICE, while now this is a regular occurrence. No public unrest, no big fanfare, no violence, at all. Everything was fine.

It's not possible to close borders. It is possible to control borders, to some extent. So, what's the problem now, exactly? Why is Donald Trump making such a total mess of things?

I think Trump actually enjoys violence and brutality, and, indeed, many of his supporters do too. So, quite naturally, they will claim how "wonderful" these "techniques" are for controlling immigration.

In reality, immigration patterns vary over time, whatever the government does, in ways we do not fully understand, and for reasons we do not fully understand, and probably never will fully understand. If some pattern of government activity temporarily coincides with an increase or decrease in rates of immigration, naturally many people and politicians will credit or blame the government accordingly. However, immigration is a very complex pattern, and we cannot possibly fully control it, just influence it, to some degree. It's very important to understand this, and not try to overcontrol the process, which inevitably does more harm than good, as is certainly the case now.

Obviously, the Trump approach is doing far more harm than good, and must be terminated immediately, or, in any case, as soon as possible. ICE should probably be disbanded in its current form, its effects are purely destructive. Far better to have a completely open border, than a border and nation subject to the predations of an ICE Gestapo, as we have now.