Conservatives face a “use it or lose it” moment on immigration enforcement and deportations. They’ve never had a stronger case — or more support, even as public opinion flags — for aggressive removals. They have the rationale, the electoral mandate, and now the federal funding. If they fail to act, the left — and even Donald Trump, who’s already flirting with amnesty for non-criminal aliens — will seize the opportunity.

Their argument will go like this: “We tried your way. Mass deportation doesn’t work. Now we need a ‘legal pathway’ for those who haven’t committed serious crimes.” That’s the amnesty trap. To avoid it, conservatives must escalate interior enforcement — fast.

No more excuses. Immigration reform by reconciliation is possible — if the political will exists.

Illegal immigration remains a policy problem, not a funding problem. Throwing money at it won’t solve anything if the rules stay broken. Congress could pour $1 trillion into ICE operations, but if every removal gets litigated case by case, Trump’s second term will end before we even scratch the surface of Biden’s four-year importation binge.

Since February, ICE has averaged just 14,700 removals per month. That’s roughly 176,000 a year — or barely 700,000 over a full term. Even with increased arrests, that pace won’t clear the backlog of criminal aliens, let alone the 7.7 million undetained cases on ICE’s docket, the 8 to 10 million admitted under Biden, or the broader illegal population likely numbering in the tens of millions.

The system can’t even expel one known gang member — Kilmar Abrego Garcia — without months of delay. Instead of removing him, the Justice Department has been forced into court defending itself against claims that it “defied” a judge by taking too long to return him from El Salvador.

And that’s just one case. The Justice Department has also spent untold resources fighting Hamas supporter Mahmoud Khalil, who now walks free — and is suing the government for $22 million. Yes, Khalil held a green card. But that doesn’t give him a right to stay in the United States while openly supporting terrorism in violation of federal law.

Despite Supreme Court rulings aimed at narrowing judicial overreach, federal courts continue to block nearly every facet of immigration enforcement. Two weeks ago, a district judge in California effectively shut down most ICE operations in Los Angeles. The Ninth Circuit declined to reverse the order.

That leaves no doubt: Even with the Supreme Court on record and billions in new appropriations to support removals, the system remains broken. If the Trump administration keeps obeying these court orders, something must change — and fast.

Here’s the danger: If deportations continue at a glacial pace and Democrats reclaim the House in 2027, Trump may throw in the towel. He’ll say, “Even I couldn’t make it work,” and cut a deal for amnesty, justifying it as the only realistic path forward. In effect, he’ll codify the de facto amnesty already in place.

So what should we do?

Strip jurisdiction in budget reconciliation 2.0

With Senate leaders floating another reconciliation bill, Trump should make judicial reform the centerpiece. The content, the campaign, the messaging — all of it must focus on dismantling judicial roadblocks to immigration enforcement.

Republicans won’t unify around cutting meaningful spending beyond the deal struck in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. So Trump should spend every ounce of his remaining political capital on something transformational: ending judicial sabotage of deportations.

He should demand that all removal orders for noncitizens — or at least non-green card holders — become final, with no Article III court review. That change alone would defund millions of court cases and carry a direct budgetary effect. In the same bill, Congress should block federal courts from reviewing state-based immigration laws, leaving the final word to state judiciaries.

Trump must not let Senate leadership hide behind procedural excuses like the Byrd Rule. We’ve already seen how easily they override it when they want to. During the last reconciliation debate, Trump and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) ignored the parliamentarian to push through their tax strategy.

To extend the 2017 tax cuts without scoring them as new spending, the GOP simply redefined “current policy” as “current law.” When Sen. Bernie Moreno (D-Ohio) presided over the chamber, he ruled the provision in order — without even consulting the parliamentarian, who would have almost certainly objected.

Trump should demand that same treatment now. No more excuses. Immigration reform by reconciliation is possible — if the political will exists.

Call in the Guard

Trump should also deploy the National Guard to support ICE and the Department of Homeland Security directly. Use them to build temporary detention facilities, assist in arrests, and provide operational security. If Antifa resumes its terror campaign, arrests will stall before they even reach the courtroom.

The Justice Department and FBI need to move aggressively to disrupt and prosecute the groups organizing these attacks. If left unchecked, they will shield the illegal population from enforcement and grind federal operations to a halt.

Joko Yulianto via iStock/Getty Images

Establish a Homeland Security Reserve Corps

Former ICE official Dan Cadman has proposed forming a Homeland Security Reserve Corps composed of retired or former immigration enforcement officers. Trump should adopt the idea at once.

Rather than relying solely on new, untested agents — each bringing long-term benefit obligations — this reserve force would provide a cost-effective and experienced backup. Trained personnel could be rapidly deployed when enforcement surges, without the lag time of recruitment or training.

As Cadman put it, the reserve would cost less “to initiate and maintain ... than will be spent trying to fill out the ranks with newly minted but untested officers.” State and local law enforcement also offer a deep bench of willing partners.

Send them back by ship

Once legal and street-level interference is neutralized, the next hurdle becomes logistics. Deportations by commercial air remain expensive and inefficient.

Trump should leverage maritime resources — ships over planes. Water transport moves more people at less cost, and the federal government already controls the tools. The Navy, Coast Guard, FEMA, and the Department of Transportation all have assets that can scale removals quickly. There’s no reason not to use them.

Target identity theft

Illegal aliens don’t just trespass borders — they break laws to stay employed. Identity fraud, document forgery, and fake Social Security numbers keep the jobs magnet humming.

Rather than flirt with amnesty, Trump should target this criminal network directly. He should order the Social Security Administration to resume sending no-match letters to employers when an employee’s name doesn’t align with the Social Security number on file.

These letters would compel businesses to terminate ineligible workers and refer them to ICE. The effect would be swift and far-reaching.

The truth? Both parties have long ignored this problem because major donors want cheap labor. But if document fraud laws were enforced consistently, the jobs magnet would shut off — and self-deportation would surge.

If Trump continues lauding these workers as “impossible to replace,” he risks creating moral and political inertia. That narrative will lower enforcement morale and momentum, fueling the next bipartisan push for amnesty.

One thing is certain: Trump won’t get another shot at this mandate. If he fails to deliver on his promise, the amnesty lobby will claim permanent victory — and entrench it. The consequences won’t be temporary. They’ll shape immigration policy for a generation. We should all consider — and fear — what comes afterward.

Pushing back against the big Medicaid lie

Democrats were virtually salivating as they unanimously voted against Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act ahead of the Independence Day holiday, which certainly should give pause to Republicans as they prepare for the midterms and the 2028 elections beyond.

What gives the Democrats hope that they can campaign effectively against Trump’s mega-bill? Is it the fact that Republicans were able to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts? Are they planning to campaign against the “no tax on tips” provision that even Kamala Harris supported? Will they claim that funding border security and mass deportation of illegal aliens is somehow bad for the country?

Remember, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the codification of the agenda that President Trump ran on in 2024. It’s not tricky. It’s not nefarious.

No, no, and no. Democrats are not idiots. They know that they have the short straw on all of those 80-20 issues. So they are going back to the same issue they have demagogued since 2008 — health care. By tugging on the heartstrings of the American public, they know they can use fear to win votes.

Demagoguing Medicaid ... again

During debate in both the House and Senate, Democrats relied on questionable forward-looking interpretations of the impact of the mega-bill on Medicaid to claim that nearly 12 million low-income people would lose health coverage if the bill passed, as it ultimately did.

The left-leaning Congressional Budget Office supplied some of that data, and by the time the vote was finalized on July 3, various other groups were adding fuel to the fire. KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, added the 12 million people who would allegedly lose Medicaid to the five million who KFF claimed would lose coverage in the Affordable Care Act marketplace, concluding that at least 17 million would be at risk. Then, there was the claim that Trump’s budget would deny food stamps to hungry children and pregnant women.

But not so fast. Despite the bleak picture painted by Democrats and weak-kneed RINOs that Trump wanted poor people to just die and be done with it, there were reasonable explanations for all the budget changes that had nothing to do with genocide.

Reductions in Obamacare premium subsidies are just an acknowledgment that the COVID crisis is over, and those boosted premiums are no longer necessary. Likewise, food stamps are still going to be provided to the disabled, families with young children, and the impoverished elderly, even if Democrats want to pretend otherwise.

And pretend they will, so if Republicans want to prevail in future elections, they had better fully understand the truth about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, because otherwise, they will be painted as heartless elitists who want their fellow Americans to die by the millions.

Telling the truth

Fortunately, the road map is already clear on how to respond to the demagoguery of the Democrats, and it was modeled by two members of the Trump administration on the Sunday morning talk shows over the long holiday weekend.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, faced down their hostile questioners on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’ “Face the Nation” respectively.

Bessent, who by all accounts is the most competent member of Trump’s Cabinet, immediately pushed back on Dana Bash’s supposition that the bill would cut benefit programs like Medicaid:

Only in D.C. is a 20% hike over 10 years a cut. Medicaid funding will go up 20% over the next 10 years. The people who Medicaid was designed for — the pregnant women, the disabled, and families with children under 14 — will be refocused. The able-bodied Americans are not vulnerable Americans, so a work requirement or a community service requirement, that’s very popular with the public.

Bessent then struck a blow against the argument that millions of Americans will lose their Medicaid coverage because they didn’t remember to reapply for benefits under the new rules.

“It is a group of Democrats who unfortunately seem to think that poor people are stupid,” he said. “I don’t think poor people are stupid. I think they have agency, and I think to have them register twice a year for these benefits is not a burden. But these people who want to infantilize the poor and those who need these Medicaid benefits are alarmist.”

Photo by Tom Brenner For the Washington Post via Getty Images

Over on “Face the Nation,” Hassett was interviewed by Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for CBS. She dutifully recited the claim that 12 million people would lose their Medicaid coverage, but Hassett struck back hard:

Let’s unbundle that a little bit. What we are actually doing is asking for a work requirement, but the work requirement is that you need to be looking for work or even doing volunteer work, and you don’t need to do it until your kids are 14 or older, so the idea that that’s going to cause a massive hemorrhaging in availability of insurance doesn’t make a lot of sense. And if you look at the CBO numbers, if you look at the numbers they say are going to lose insurance, about five million of those are people who have other insurance. ... If they lose one, they’re still insured.

Hassett also explained that the best way to get insurance is to get a job, and so if the Trump economy stimulates growth, it will help people to happily leave Medicaid after they gain employment.

On another question, about whether the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is harmful because it grows the national debt by between $3 trillion and $5 trillion over the next 10 years, Hassett responded by reminding the reporter that the Congressional Budget Office is underestimating growth in the economy compared to what happened in the first Trump term pre-COVID. Based on that historical record, Hassett expects the debt to actually shrink by $1.5 trillion in the next decade.

What Hassett didn’t say, but which should be on the lips of every Republican defending their votes for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is that over the 10 years from 2014 to 2024, the federal debt increased by more than $17.5 trillion. Admittedly, Trump’s first term played a role in that thanks to COVID, but only Trump and Republicans are making any effort today to shrink the debt. If left up to Democrats, every social program in the budget would see increased funding, deficit be damned.

Fight fear with facts

To summarize, here are the talking points that every Republican candidate for Congress must master if they hope to beat back Democrat distortions:

Republicans voted to increase Medicaid spending over the next 10 years by 20%.
Republicans voted to preserve Medicaid for the needy by making sure that everyone using the program’s valuable resources is truly needy — and eligible.
Republicans voted to create an economy where more people can get jobs that provide high-quality health insurance. Emphasize this: Jobs are good.
Republicans treat Medicaid recipients with dignity, asking them to follow simple rules to qualify for the benefit, rather than treating them as helpless wards of the state.
Republicans are bending the curve downward on the national debt. Even if the CBO is right that the debt will increase by $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years, that increase is only 20% of what it was over the previous 10 years. And the Trump tax cuts are expected to stimulate the economy, so the national debt should actually decrease.

Those will do for a start. Remember, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is the codification of the agenda that President Trump ran on in 2024. It’s not tricky. It’s not nefarious. And if it is unpopular, that’s only because Democrats have been lying about it.

Now, it’s up to Republicans to fight back against the big Medicaid lie, or else pay the price for their silence.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

The parliamentarian isn’t more powerful than the people

First we were told that unelected federal judges could dictate all policy, law, and appropriations. Now the excuse for inaction is the Senate parliamentarian.

Left-wing protesters chant “no kings,” but nearly every major Trump-era domestic policy was blocked by a court. Nearly 200 actions on immigration, personnel, spending, and transgender issues were halted or overturned by the judiciary. Today, the good provisions in an otherwise lackluster reconciliation bill are being gutted — not by Congress, not by voters, but by a Senate staffer.

Republicans now hide behind the parliamentarian to justify a bill that hikes the deficit, preserves green energy handouts, and leaves the welfare state untouched.

If Republicans refuse to overrule the courts, the parliamentarian, or anyone else standing in the way, what’s the plan? What’s the point of winning elections if Democrats, judges, and bureaucrats still call the shots? Do they really expect to get 60 Senate votes?

Over the past week, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that a long list of provisions violate the Byrd Rule and can’t be included in the reconciliation bill. Among them:

Financial Cuts:

Require states with high food stamp overpayments to share in the cost (reduced from $128 billion to just $41 billion).
Cut $6.4 billion from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Cut $1.4 billion in Federal Reserve staff wages.
Cut $293 million from the Office of Financial Research.
Eliminate the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ($771 million).
Cut Pentagon funding if the department misses spending deadlines.
Ban food stamps for illegal aliens.

Policy Measures:

Repeal green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Overturn EPA tailpipe emission rules.
Vacate certain court injunctions when plaintiffs don’t post bond.
Bar funding for sanctuary cities.
Allow states to arrest illegal aliens.
Require congressional approval of major federal regulations (modified REINS Act).

Republicans now hide behind MacDonough to justify a bill that hikes the deficit, preserves green energy handouts, and leaves the welfare state untouched.

The Byrd Rule has become an excuse to flush the conservative priorities and pass a mess. And let’s not kid ourselves — the parliamentarian had no objection to provisions that punish states for regulating AI. Under the Senate version of the bill, states can still regulate AI and data centers, but if they do, they lose access to BEAD broadband funding.

The good stuff in this bill may have been bait — added just to lure conservatives into voting yes, knowing full well the parliamentarian would knock it out. That’s why conservatives must pressure President Trump to do what Senate Republicans won’t: overrule MacDonough.

Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

Let’s get something straight: The Senate parliamentarian does not make the rules. The presiding officer does — and the majority party controls the chair. The office of parliamentarian didn’t even exist until 1935. The parliamentarian sits below the presiding officer on the rostrum, not above him. Her advice is just that — advice.

The Congressional Research Service puts it plainly: "As a staff official, neither parliamentarian is empowered to make decisions that are binding on the House or Senate. The parliamentarians and their deputies/assistants only offer advice that the presiding Representative or Senator may accept or reject."

JD Vance, as president of the Senate, can overrule MacDonough at any time. Here’s how: When Democrats raise a point of order against a GOP-backed provision, MacDonough may say it violates the Byrd Rule and must be stripped. But the presiding officer — Vance or his designee — can simply say no. That provision stays in the bill. The Senate then proceeds under the reconciliation process and passes the whole thing with a simple majority.

Trump can make this happen. He can threaten to send Vance to the chair if Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) refuses to play ball. Thune can demand MacDonough’s firing — just as Trent Lott did in 2001 when the parliamentarian ruled against Republican priorities.

Trump is right to be frustrated. On Tuesday, he demanded that Congress cancel the July 4 recess and finish the job. But he also needs to make it clear that he won’t accept a watered-down deal. He must draw red lines around immigration and the Green New Deal. The American people didn’t elect Elizabeth MacDonough. They elected Trump.

And no unelected staffer has the right to overturn the will of 77 million voters.

Split the Big Beautiful Bill Act, seal the border … and give Trump a real win

The GOP doesn’t resemble a big tent any more — it looks more like a boundless landfill. No shared vision or coherent guiding principles bind the party’s disparate factions beyond not having a “D” next to their names. That’s why it’s impossible to pass a reasonable budget bill that cuts spending without including massive subsidies for high-tax blue states.

The rift between the Freedom Caucus, the K Street crowd, RINOs, and the Trump White House remains unbridgeable. So what’s the realistic path forward on budget reconciliation?

With real leadership, Trump could sign the most consequential part of his 2024 mandate into law — before the smoke clears in LA.

Focus on the one issue that unites the base: immigration enforcement.

Riots in Los Angeles this week have made the case for an immigration-only reconciliation bill even stronger. The public sees the connection. The urgency is obvious. And President Trump, understandably frustrated by the calendar — it’s June and he hasn’t signed a single major legislative win — wants action now.

But cramming unrelated tax and health care provisions into one big, bloated bill guarantees disaster. Good members will face a bad vote. So why not act decisively?

Split the immigration provisions from the rest. Make them tougher. Pass the bill right away, while the chaos in L.A. is still at the front of everyone’s mind. Save the fiscal brawls for later.

The math of an immigration-focused bill

The current draft of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill, includes about $185 billion in new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and new and improved border infrastructure. It also tacks on another $150 billion in defense spending — a top White House priority.

Even strong provisions need offsets. But in a party this fractured, cutting spending isn’t just difficult — it’s practically taboo.

Still, by limiting the bill to the Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon spending and scrapping the tax components, Republicans would only need to offset $335 billion over 10 years.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

That’s well within the realm of possibility. They could hit that number using the consensus cuts and immigration reforms already in the bill. No gimmicks. No sleight of hand. Just political will and a sense of timing.

The current bill would generate about $77 billion in new revenue from immigration-related fees and taxes on remittances. It saves hundreds of billions more over the next decade by cutting off illegal aliens from Medicaid, Obamacare, and food stamps.

Republicans should go farther and ban illegal aliens from claiming the child tax credit — a move that could save another $50 billion.

Instead of loading the first reconciliation bill with a jumble of unrelated and divisive provisions, Republicans should focus on consensus items: national security, enforcement of sovereignty, and policies that put Americans first.

If the Republicans were more ambitious, they would use this bill to repeal the Green New Deal. Funding illegal immigration and the Green New Deal were the Biden administration’s two most transformative and unpopular policies. Target both. Pass the bill right away. Deliver a win that matches the mandate voters gave Trump — and give the president a badly needed legislative victory.

Enforcement money isn’t enough

Throwing $180 billion more at enforcement won’t solve the immigration crisis. Spend a trillion on deportations, and it still won’t matter if courts continue to block action.

Even in Trump’s rare Supreme Court wins on immigration, the justices insisted every illegal alien must receive due process — despite deportation being a civil process, not a punishment.

No president can litigate his way out of an invasion. Even with favorable rulings, Trump won’t deport enough illegal immigrants before the next Democrat takes office. That’s the hard truth.

Now is the moment to fix it.

Americans are watching a violent, coordinated invasion unfold in real time. The bill should formally declare an invasion — and include an amendment by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) to strip judicial review from deportation cases involving noncitizens and, ideally, legal permanent residents.

Under that reform, the administration’s removal decisions would stand. No federal judge could second-guess them. No more delays, appeals, or lawfare.

Roy’s amendment would transform the first reconciliation bill into a singular focus on Trump’s most unifying, necessary, and popular campaign promise. It would hand him a quick, clean victory while the nation remains fixated on the border invasion.

Photo by Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

So why not just split the agenda into two bills and get on with it?

Here come the usual GOP excuses. Let’s knock them down one by one.

Excuse 1: “We only get one bite at the apple.”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller claims Republicans must use reconciliation just once to avoid the Senate filibuster.

But Democrats already broke that precedent in 2021, pushing through two separate reconciliation bills with a green light from the Senate parliamentarian, who noted that reconciliation should be reserved for “extraordinary circumstances.”

But ultimately, this isn’t the parliamentarian’s call. The decision rests with President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). If Biden’s team could do it, so can we.

Excuse 2: “Without this bill, Americans face massive tax hikes.”

This line is pure fearmongering. The 2024 election wasn’t about taxes. MAGA never revolved around tax cuts for their own sake — that was the old GOP. Yet somehow, this bill morphed into another tax-centered mess.

The truth? Most tax provisions in the current draft — from an expanded child tax credit and higher standard deduction to new breaks for seniors, overtime, and tips — enjoy broad bipartisan support.

No Democrat wants to get blamed for letting these expire. Even in a lame-duck session, they wouldn’t allow a public tax hike. The only serious dispute involves the top marginal rate. Trump has already signaled he’s open to a modest increase if it means getting the rest of the agenda passed.

And let’s be honest: The current bill isn’t exactly Reaganesque. It’s loaded with progressive goodies, including an obscene expansion of the SALT deduction.

Even the pro-tax-cut Tax Foundation calls the bill’s economic impact weak and overly complicated. This isn’t a bold, pro-growth package — it’s a muddled compromise.

The irony is that ending taxes on tips — perhaps Trump’s most prized tax provision — already passed the Senate 100-0. Why not pass that and similar provisions in the House and place it on Trump’s desk without wasting budget reconciliation?

Excuse 3: “We can’t include policy provisions in a budget bill.”

Critics claim the Byrd Rule blocks the inclusion of policy reforms — like immigration or judicial changes — in a reconciliation bill. That excuse doesn’t hold up.

The original House-passed bill included a provision that barred states from regulating artificial intelligence. That isn’t budget-related. That is pure policy.

By comparison, a provision removing judicial review from deportation cases would directly cut costs by eliminating thousands of court hearings. That’s a legitimate budgetary angle — and far more defensible than regulating AI through backdoor channels.

The Byrd Rule exists, yes. But the party in power determines what gets through. The president and Senate leadership can overrule the parliamentarian. Democrats did it. So can we.

Fast-forward to this week: The streets of Los Angeles are on fire again. And instead of seizing the moment to deliver on the most urgent national priority, Miller is using anti-ICE violence to ram through a bloated mega-bill — all because it includes ICE funding.

But if solving immigration were the real goal, Republicans would just split the bill already. They’d put the judicial reform language in the first package. And they’d pass it immediately.

With real leadership, Trump could sign the most consequential part of his 2024 mandate into law — before the smoke clears in L.A.

5 things Trump must do to fulfill his mass deportation mandate

Strip jurisdiction in budget reconciliation 2.0

Call in the Guard

Establish a Homeland Security Reserve Corps

Send them back by ship

Target identity theft

Pushing back against the big Medicaid lie

Demagoguing Medicaid ... again

Telling the truth

Fight fear with facts

The parliamentarian isn’t more powerful than the people

Split the Big Beautiful Bill Act, seal the border … and give Trump a real win

The math of an immigration-focused bill

Enforcement money isn’t enough

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Strip jurisdiction in budget reconciliation 2.0

Call in the Guard

Establish a Homeland Security Reserve Corps

Send them back by ship

Target identity theft

Demagoguing Medicaid ... again

Telling the truth

Fight fear with facts

The math of an immigration-focused bill

Enforcement money isn’t enough

We’ll keep you informed with top stories for conservatives who want to become informed decision makers.