Ann Coulter’s tweets blasting President Trump’s immigration speech Saturday surely heartened many Trump enthusiasts. But they are going to have to get used to a hard truth: it’s either a deal with “amnesty” attached or nothing.
I can already hear the shouting: “But Trump won!” Yes, he did. But he won with the support of many Americans who are perfectly OK with an amnesty-for-the-wall deal. And virtually everyone who opposes Trump want some form of amnesty and don’t want the wall.
The poll data have been abundantly clear about this for years. In 2012, the presidential election exit poll showed that Americans backed giving illegal immigrants a path to legal status over deportation by a margin of 65 percent to 28 percent. That margin got even larger in 2016, with legal status favored over deportation by 70 percent to 25 percent. No policy opposed by two-thirds of Americans, and vociferously opposed by a near majority, is going to become law any time soon.
