REPORT: Sides are being taken in Trump’s quest for 3,000 arrests per day

Early on in this administration, Donald Trump set a goal of 3,000 arrests per day regarding illegal immigration.  

Now, however, there are reports of some internal strife over that goal, with battle lines being drawn behind closed doors.  

The Battle Lines 

Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins are reportedly going at each other over the quest to remove every illegal immigrant who came into this country under Joe Biden’s watch.  

Miller has made his position quite clear... arrest and deport them all. 

Rollins has taken a bit of a softer approach so as not to wreck the farming and hospitality industry, having stated, “Severe disruptions to our food supply would harm Americans. It took us decades to get into this mess and we are prioritizing deportations in a way that will get us out.” 

Trump appears to be leaning towards Rollins on this one, having posted to Truth Social, “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. Changes are coming.” 

Killing Morale 

When the raids were initially launched, they were supposed to be targeting nefarious characters, but now, according to reports, it is all about hitting that daily number.  

One ICE insider stated, “All that matters is numbers, pure numbers. Quantity over quality.” The quotas are reportedly killing morale.  

John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director under President Barack Obama, added, “These quotas are undermining the agency’s ability to focus on the really serious criminal aliens.” 

He continued, “The transnational gang members, the convicted felons, the bad actors make it hard on ICE find them. They don’t just sit there and make it easy, they don’t show up in a Home Depot parking lot, hanging around. They have no choice but to pivot away from that guy because you could sink a hundred hours to get that gang member and you’d get one arrest, but it’s a really good arrest and made a huge impact on public safety.” 

The Compromise 

Those of you who read me on a regular basis know that if I had my preference, every illegal immigrant would be removed and banned from ever entering again, but that is not realistic with our current laws and would take about a decade to accomplish, if not longer. I have thought long and hard about how Republicans can turn this around to get public support as well as satisfy hardline conservatives like me on immigration, so here we go.  

Remove all criminals, no exceptions, and ban them from ever coming back. If they have a criminal record, they must go. Offer self-deportation to all illegals, with the incentive that they will be eligible to apply to enter this country legally with a path to citizenship if they leave on their own right now.  

Finally, for all those who have no criminal record and are working in this country, give them the option to stay, but they get hit with an “illegal entry” tax (an escalating tax of 2% to 5% depending on their income) in every paycheck for the rest of their natural lives. Their employers should also have a small tax in the same range. Additionally, they have no path to citizenship, EVER, in this country. They get no voting rights, nothing. The compromise is that we allow them to remain where they are and continue working without fear of deportation. They would also be put on notice that any violent crime or act that resulted in the death or injury of another person would be cause for immediate deportation. 

If we do that, we can actually flip all of this in our favor, showing we have empathy, while still getting this situation under control. That, to me, is a reasonable solution that would back Democrats into a corner. If they don’t go for it, we can crush them during the election for refusing to come to a reasonable solution that was on the table.