The Bulwark: ‘Open Season’: Local Republicans Rush to Out-Trump Trump on Immigration

We are in a Second Gilded Age.

The signs of it are really everywhere now: the reaction against woke progressivism (just as the country turned against Reconstruction), the rise of immigration restriction (the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882), the reversion to the spoils system (the Pendleton Civil Service Act was passed in 1883), Trump’s tariffs, the renewed interest in the Panama Canal and dominating the Western hemisphere, the rightwing turn of the Supreme Court which has entered a new Lochner era, and so on.

Looking at the South, the Democratic Party is now in a death spiral across the region, and thanks to ice breaking Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs we can see neo-Jim Crow laws are beginning to sprout on abortion, transgenderism and immigration. After the 20th century when triumphant liberals got away with imposing massive top down changes from above in the 1950s and 1960s, we are rapidly returning to the time when different regions of the country had their own social systems.

The Bulwark:

“Now, thanks to Republicans in Mississippi and Missouri, the rules of bounty hunting could be applied to undocumented immigrants. Prospective laws in each state would allow residents to receive $1,000 a pop, to be paid if a tip on someone in the country illegally leads to an arrest. Meanwhile, the Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy Act—yes, the TRUMP Act—became Florida law yesterday; among other things, it provides for any law enforcement officer who assists in the arrest of a person in the state illegally to receive a $1,000 bonus. It turns out you can act as a bounty hunter even while wearing the uniform of the state.

The outsourcing and incentivizing of immigration enforcement extends beyond there. In Oklahoma, the state board of education approved collecting the immigration status of children when parents enroll them. In Tennessee, lawmakers are zeroing in on the cost of educating undocumented children with their own TRUMP Act—in this case, the Tennessee Reduction of Unlawful Migrant Placement, the Washington Post reported.

The ultimate goal in these cases is not just to up the number of detentions but to challenge the landmark 1982 Plyler v. Doe ruling, which holds that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education due to their immigration status.

In Texas, state Republicans are looking to have law enforcement fingerprint children so the Department of Public Safety can maintain a database of kids under 18 suspected to be in the country illegally, which follows a slew of anti-immigrant legislation the state has moved forward since Trump’s win. …”

A few years after Dobbs, abortion access is now restricted in every Southern state except Virginia. Southern state legislatures are on the warpath against transgenderism. Public opinion has shifted and the Supreme Court has already signaled that “trans rights” is poised to take a major L this term.

With Trump back in the White House with a clear mandate, the Supreme Court racing to the Right, Republican trifectas and supermajorities in most Southern states and a radicalized conservative base, Southern state legislatures are going to town on illegal aliens and proposing and passing all sorts of new laws to make it impossible for illegal aliens to live here. Texas and Florida have already been deputized to enforce federal immigration laws. Florida and Tennessee have passed their own TRUMP Acts. Mississippi and Missouri might soon be privatizing immigration enforcement by hiring bounty hunters.

Trump’s whirlwind of executive orders and news has overshadowed the whirlwind of legislation that is playing out at the state level in the South.

Note: Meanwhile, Bondi’s DOJ is suing New York and Illinois over immigration.