This administration is obsessed with deporting immigrants.  

The Department of Homeland Security claims its focus is on undocumented (illegal) immigrants and those who have committed crimes. However, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials appear far less discriminating with who they attempt to apprehend, with alleged quotas being used to drive deportation numbers. It appears that anyone who “looks like” an immigrant is at risk of being questioned and taken into custody. 

Yet without immigrants, our nation would suffer labor shortages across multiple industries. Here are just a few. 

International medical graduates fill a critical national need for physicians, particularly for primary care specialties like internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics. They represent around 20 percent of the physician work force, with many willing to work in rural areas where U.S. medical graduates are less inclined to take positions. Keeping such people out of the country, or making it difficult for them to secure work visas, places headwinds on their arrival, relocation and settlement into the country. With an aging population, the need for skilled medical personnel will only grow, and embracing international medical graduates is critical to maintain our nation’s already strained healthcare system.   

The same holds true in higher education, particularly in STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. Satisfying the needs to educate the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) innovators and technologists, for example, demands a highly skilled academic pipeline that cannot be filled with domestic personnel alone.  

Countries with high-quality STEM undergraduate programs, like those in India, Singapore and China, provide a reliable stream of talent to fill domestic graduate programs that will serve to mitigate future shortages in faculty at all levels. By discouraging international students from enrolling in U.S. schools, the administration is effectively turning away STEM talent that will ultimately dampen economic growth well into the future. Such short-sighted thinking is a prescription for economic stagnation for our nation. 

Even those who come into the country and fill positions and needs that do not demand higher education and training are valuable assets. Many will start their own businesses, have children here and then support their educational advancement, earning higher degrees including masters’ and doctorates. Within one generation, these children can rise to be upper-middle-class citizens, contributing to the nation’s economic health and well-being. 

Those who work at lower-paying jobs also ensure that their children are well educated and obtain higher degrees. They experience the American dream by fast-tracking their offspring well up the societal economic ladder. 

America has always been a nation of immigrants. That does not mean that our borders should be wide open for anyone who wants to live here. To the contrary, a systematic and transparent set of rules and policies that facilitate immigration into the U.S. population is necessary to create a human capital pipeline that strengthens the nation’s economic and societal fabric.  

Those fortunate enough to be born here often take for granted what they have. Those who immigrate here are seeking a better life for themselves and their families. They work hard and play by the rules far more than those born here, simply because they have been given a privilege that not everyone gets to enjoy. 

As a country, whose GDP is one-quarter of the world’s GDP, we are voracious consumers. We lack the personnel and resources to create all such goods and services. Welcoming those who can support such consumption is a simple bar to assess immigration and provide a measure for their return on investment. 

Immigration also serves to counterbalance a total fertility rate that has been persistently below replacement for decades. Immigrants provide a necessary infusion of human capital that cannot be generated internally. Even if the fertility rate instantaneously jumped above replacement levels, it would take a generation or more for its positive effect on human capital development to be realized. 

In a counter-factual world, if our borders were instantaneously shuttered and all immigrants magically vanished, our country would cease to function as we know it. Independent of the 48 million documented immigrants, if the 11 million undocumented immigrants suddenly disappeared, many of the goods and services that we rely upon would become unavailable. This is why the president is willing to permit migrant farm workers to remain in the country and continue working. 

To keep America great demands sensible immigration policies that focus first on what the nation’s needs are, and how they can be filled. Taking a vigilante-like approach to immigration control is not the solution. 

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a computer science professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a data scientist, he uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy. 

These are bad times for Americans in general and Democrats in particular. Will California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) be the presidential candidate who rides to their rescue? Will Make America Gavin Again become an effective antidote to Make America Great Again, or will it simply be a harmless placebo?

Only time will tell. But Newsom is off to an impressive start. 

Struggling working families are overwhelmed by increases in the cost of living and the government resources that would aid Americans during a recession have been decimated by President Trump and his MAGA majorities in the House and the Senate.  

Unfettered by an effective opposition and unbothered by constitutional restraints, Trump has exposed his authoritarian excesses. He has already used military force to take over Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers even showed up near Newsom’s announcement of his initiative to redraw California’s congressional districts. Trump has threatened to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, another city with a Democratic mayor and a large minority population. 

Sadly, Democrats aren’t sufficiently well positioned to stop Trump’s excesses. My party’s popularity registered at its lowest point in the last 35 years in a national poll last month by The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times reported that  Democrats had lost 2.1 million registered voters and the Republicans gained 2.4 million between the last two presidential elections in the 30 states and the District of Columbia which allow party registration.

A fragile Democratic coalition might be able to turn Trump’s reckless handling of the economy into a midterm victory. But it will take a major overhaul, new leadership and a fresh brand to win the White House in 2028.  

Newsom’s fight to create additional congressional districts for his party, along with his aggressive social media campaign, have captured the imagination of party activists as they desperately scan the horizon for a headliner who can take the fight to Trump and his MAGA acolytes.  

Newsom presents an impressive resume, with experience as mayor of San Francisco and as two-term governor of the nation’s largest state. But he will face off in 2028 against other contenders with impressive resumes including a former U.S. senator and vice president from his own state.  

He needed and found a distinctive way to separate himself from the rest of the pack. He has demonstrated that he’s as much a showman and as aggressive as Trump, established himself as the media focal point of the MAGA opposition and as a one-on-one competitor against the unpopular president. The other Democratic contenders must weigh in soon if they hope to compete.

Texas has passed a mid-decade redistricting plan that could cripple House Democrats. This put the ball in Newsom’s court, and he ran with it immediately. Days after the Texas Legislature had approved its plan, California’s Legislature created a new map that will greatly advantage Democrats if voters approve it in November. Other Democratic governors, including another White House hopeful JB Pritzker of Illinois jumped on Newsom’s initiative and indicated they might try to redistrict as well. 

Newsom’s social media campaign demonstrates that he can take a punch and fight back with the best of them in a forum that Trump and MAGA have traditionally owned.  

Will California dreaming become a reality for the governor? The Golden State is the richest delegate prize in the national Democratic contest. It will be a make-or-break moment for Newsom.  

A new poll of California Democrats has Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris out ahead of the pack in their shared home state. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the only other hopefuls who register in double digits. If one of the Californians decisively wins their home state’s primary, that could knock the other two out of the race. If Buttigieg or AOC wins in California, that could knock both natives out of the race.

Even if he wins the redistricting battle at home, Newsom faces problems in his quest for the Democratic nod.  

Many Democrats would prefer a nominee from the Midwestern battleground states, where they make cars, over a candidate from the coast, where they traditionally make movies. Newsom could face governors from America’s industrial heartland, such as Josh Shapiro (D) of Pennsylvania or Gretchen Whitmer (D) of Michigan, in the fight for the Democratic ticket to the White House.

Then there’s ideology. Newsom is a liberal pragmatist, not an aggressive progressive. He takes what he can get rather than reaching for the stars. His caution will endear him to moderate Democrats but, it is a red flag to the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, a strong internal force even with the Vermont senator out of the race. What’s more, Newsom’s state faces a budget shortfall that has already forced the governor to make painful budget cuts that have angered fellow Democrats.

AOC or Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) could undermine Newsom’s standing in his home state by waging a campaign staked on Sanders’s progressive proposals. That’s a hill that many Democrats are willing to die on.

Newsom possesses an aggressive gene that the Democratic DNA desperately needs in its struggle to evolve. Democrats are searching for a leader who will turn their fortunes around. That person must be the party’s next nominee for president.  

Newsom has recently raised his profile in the prelude to the 2028 Democratic nomination fight. It will take a while to determine whether his newfound social media profile is just fluff that will disappear in the fickle electronic winds of the ethernet. But visibility is vital for success in what looks to be a big field of contestants in the competitive race for the Democratic presidential nomination that is already off and running. 

Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.    

In the summer of 1975, we first moved to a lovely old Georgetown home just west of Wisconsin Avenue. For a time, D.C. was the nation’s murder capital. Ironically, the lawyer who defended the Hanafi Muslims who seized the B’nai Brith Building in Washington in 1977, taking 150 hostages, was the judge who later married me and my wife — a telling reminder of the turbulent times then.

Nine years later we purchased a four story townhouse on the other side of Georgetown. And over the last 50 years, I have become increasingly furious about how both political parties have done their worst to prevent the nation’s capital from becoming one of the world’s greatest, loveliest and most desirable places to live.

Washington is none of those things. Why? This is more than outrageous and another sign why the government is failing. And perhaps things would not be so bad if Republicans transferred the $1 billion long-owed to D.C. that could bring the police force to its full strength of around 4,000 from the present 3,100.

In the wealthiest country in the world and in the most powerful city on Earth, Washington should have the best of everything. It does not because the Democratic and Republican parties have been incapable of governing the country and city with any semblance of competence, common sense and fairness.

Washington should have the best medical care, schools, universities and public transportation, as well as the safest and most sophisticated tourism, hospitality, police, research, restaurants and cultural facilities in the world.

Yet it does not.

Also, why does D.C. have the fourth highest murder rate in the country per capita? Why does it rank as the tenth worst city in the U.S. to live, with one of the highest costs of living?

Why, while its spending per student is among the highest in the country, does it rank barely in the top half of grade school education? Why does it lack the prestigious universities of Boston, Los Angeles or New York?

Although the Metropolitan D.C. Police Department does not keep statistics on percentages of white and Black arrest rates, it appears that Black residents account for about 86 percent of arrests in the city. Black people number about 45 percent of the total District population, but they account for about 86 percent of the arrests in the city. 

That violent crime is largely against other Black residents. The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform reports that, from January 2021-December 2022, “95 percent of victims and suspects in homicides and 94 percent of victims and suspects in nonfatal shootings were Black.”

Of course, there is a lot of bad history dating from home rule. Republicans oppose D.C. statehood, as this would obviously add two Democratic seats to the U.S. Senate.

President Trump has declared a state of emergency in the District, citing Section 740 of the Home Rule Act. He has asserted that crime “is out of control,” authorizing federalization of the local police. But the D.C. police cite a drop of more than 30 percent in murders and 35 percent in violent crime year over year. The Department of Justice rejects D.C. figures.

For a country that, by its own president’s admission, is on a roll, the spectacle of sending in masked armed federal ICE agents and National Guard soldiers is absurd. But Trump has retaliated against the Democratic city of Los Angeles without just cause. Reportedly, Chicago is next. After that, can New York be far behind?

Few can reasonably oppose reducing crime, as long as the procedures are lawful. And here are the two most telling reasons why Trump’s actions are dangerous for democracy and for Americans. What happens when the Feds leave the District? None of the causes of crime will have been addressed or mitigated. It does not take Sherlock Holmes to guess what comes next.

And what is so outrageous is the preponderance of data showing the huge percentage of Black residents committing crimes against other Black residents. If we really believe America is the greatest country in the world and in history, why can’t we fix this hideous imbalance? And why can we not make Washington the greatest city in the world and in the country?  

So here is a challenge for Trump: Forget MAGA — instead, just make D.C. Great Again.   

Washington D.C. should be the shiniest city on the most glorious of hills. And if you think a handful of National Guard soldiers and ICE officials can make a difference, I have a better idea.  

Instead of making Gaza the Paris of the Mediterranean, how about making Washington the Mar-a-Lago of the Potomac? If you did that, I am sure Jack Kennedy would not object to renaming the Kennedy Center after your third wife. 

Harlan Ullman, Ph.D., is UPI’s Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council, the chairman of two private companies and the principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. He and former United Kingdom Defense Chief David Richards are the authors of a forthcoming book on preventing strategic catastrophe.