The idea that immigration is a limitless, universal good was soundly rejected.

Immigration was a clear difference maker in the election. We are living under a system of broken promises: promises to set limits; promises to enforce those limits. The votes are in. It's time for Washington to meet those promises. Did your members of Congress get the message?

Immigration dominated voters' minds

Exit polls almost universally indicate immigration was the number two or number one issue for voters. Post election analysis from a pro-Harris public opinion research initiative, Blueprint, put the border crisis in a virtual tie with inflation as the top reason voters did not vote for the Vice President. The sixth highest reason was "Harris would let in too many immigrants."

"The immigration worries, combined, were dominant," said the Semafor newsletter of Blueprint's results. "Thirty-six percent of Latino voters cited them as their chief concern."

"There should be a certain limit."

The New York Times sought clarity about the election and found it.

"Republicans, Democrats and independents interviewed by The Times blamed the Biden administration for failing to acknowledge the chaos at the border and promptly take aggressive steps to address it," reported Miriam Jordan.

"Rodrigo Garcia, 26, grew up in a Mexican American family. On Tuesday, in Milwaukee, he voted for Donald Trump a second time. 'I feel like there should be a certain limit of the people that come into America, instead of just letting everybody come in,' he said."

The message from voters extended beyond "legal good, illegal bad." A majority of Americans want less immigration overall.

"There is no constituency left in this country that favors large-scale immigration," Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute told The Times.

Colorado-08: the story of the election in a nutshell

Colorado's 8th district was created by Colorado's booming growth two years ago (one state's gain is another's loss; yet another way mass immigration distorts democracy). About 40% of the population is Latino, including both of the candidates, each of whom "promised to get tough on illegal border crossings," according to the Colorado Sun.

In the end, the challenger, State Rep. Gabe Evans, prevailed over the sitting Congresswoman, Rep. Yadira Caraveo. Caraveo received national attention for her pivot toward a more hawkish immigration position on the campaign trail, but her record betrayed her.

A policy shift into the political ditch

The Trump/Vance ticket ran in opposition to the Democratic Party's shift on immigration toward, ironically, a position held by many conservative libertarians not too long ago. Sohrab Ahmari interviewed Vice-President elect Vance before he was named to the ticket:

"Notwithstanding Biden's economic nationalism, Vance noted, the administration is 'fundamentally unwilling to make a critique of the free movement of labour. This is where you hear them making arguments about immigration that are straight out of Koch brothers talking points from eight or ten years ago.'"

How important was immigration to the election? According to surveys from the Associated Press, voters favored Trump over Harris on just two of nine different issues. But, as Michael Bahareen writes in the Liberal Patriot, "they ended up being by far the most important ones. Nearly 40 percent of voters identified the economy as the top issue facing the country, and they voted for Trump 24 points (61--37 percent). Another 20 percent said it was immigration, and they broke for him by an even wider margin, 88--11 percent."

As Bahreen notes, the Democratic Party continued to lose both non-white and working-class voters. The professional class benefits from mass immigration, which ensures an abundant supply of cheap labor to provide services and boost investment portfolios. After roughly 50 years of stagnant wages and four years of inflation, the idea that immigration is a limitless, universal good was soundly rejected by the rest of the country.

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