When Democrats have no plan, no spine, and no intention of solving a problem they secretly profit from, they simply say that it can’t be done.

For men like President Trump, the idea that something can’t be done is music to his ears.

Democrats claimed the border couldn’t be closed. Trump closed it. We were told by Democrats that we needed to rely on green energy. Trump ignored them, and re-established the United States’ energy independence and dominance.

Democrats ceded our business and government to China. Trump took it back. Democrats told Americans that to condition themselves to crime, and Trump embarrassed them yet again, when he sent in the troops. Name me your Leftist-created problem, and Donald Trump responds the same way: no argument, no panel discussions, just glorious positive-results-driven action.

Trump doesn’t govern from the faculty lounge. He governs from the construction site.

The Left told us the border could not be closed. Trump closed it. Then Trump said Phase II was deportation, and the Left laughed like people who had never considered consequences might someday arrive unannounced. “You can’t possibly deport millions of illegals,” they scoffed, clutching their clipboards and sociology degrees.

Perhaps. But Trump didn’t build his strategy around Leftist expectations, feelings, or theoretical constraints scribbled on whiteboards by people who have never enforced anything more demanding than a dress code.

Once the border was sealed, Phase II began.

And here is where the Left miscalculated in a way so spectacular it deserves its own museum wing. Trump did not attempt the impossible fantasy of door-to-door deportation. He did something far more effective. He enforced the law.

Trump’s team targeted the worst of the worst while simultaneously sweeping up those the Left insists on calling “law-abiding” illegals, a phrase so absurd it deserves quotation marks and a raised eyebrow every time it’s uttered. This was not randomness. It was strategy.

The message came in stereo.

First, America would no longer tolerate the violent criminals, the gang members, the traffickers, and yes, the people released from foreign prisons and mental institutions who had been ushered into the country under Joe Biden like guests arriving late to a poorly supervised house party.

Second, if we catch others in the sweep, you are going home too.

The effect was immediate and profound. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported approximately 600,000 illegal immigrants, most with criminal histories inside the United States. That number alone detonates the Left’s favorite talking point that illegal immigration is mostly composed of gentle lawn enthusiasts who only want to pay taxes and read bedtime stories.

But removing violent criminals was only the opening act. And it was brilliant politics.

Getting murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, and gang members off the streets is not controversial to anyone except activists who make money pretending it is. Crime dropped sharply across the country because when predators are removed, prey survives. This is not ideology. It is math.

And yes, the public loved it.

But the real genius of Trump’s approach was not what Democrats saw. It was what they failed to imagine.

Millions of illegal immigrants began to leave on their own.

Trump knew this would happen, and it wasn’t accidental. As reported in this article, self-deportations surged as enforcement returned to seriousness.

Former immigration judge Andrew Arthur explained the strategy plainly, without euphemisms or therapy language. Convincing illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily was always part of the plan, because ICE simply does not have the manpower to physically remove every individual.

Arthur wrote:

“DHS can’t arrest and deport 15.4 million illegal aliens, but if it simply enforces the law, many aliens will get the message and leave on their own, as hundreds of thousands apparently already have.”

That sentence alone should be engraved on the tombstone of Leftist immigration theory.

The Left believes law enforcement is performative, optional, and morally suspect.

Trump understands that law enforcement is informational. When laws are enforced, behavior changes. When laws are ignored, chaos blooms.

The public relations battle followed naturally, and Trump thrives in this terrain because truth is his home field.

The administration focused relentlessly on the most indefensible cases: gangs, sex traffickers, fentanyl dealers, and terrorists. Each arrest came with names, faces, charges, and consequences. Each deportation was accompanied by rescued children, dismantled trafficking rings, and communities finally allowed to exhale.

The fake news media tried to look away. They failed. Every day brought new crimes committed by illegal immigrants that could not be buried without journalistic malpractice becoming literal accessory status. Rape. Murder. Assault. Fraud. Stories stacked up like overdue library books nobody wanted to check out.

Team Trump leaned in. Official White House social media accounts highlighted arrests and deportations with unapologetic clarity. No abstract language. No euphemisms. Just facts and faces.

Some illegal immigrants who had been foolish enough to brag on social media were caught and deported, their influencer dreams ending with a one-way escort out of the country. One such example was posted directly by the White House:

“Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, a previously deported alien felon convicted of fentanyl trafficking, was arrested by @ICEgov in Philadelphia after illegally reentering the U.S.
She wept when taken into custody (picture attached).”
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1902040347016131006

The Left predictably complained about the tone. They always do when criminals are no longer abstract and victims are no longer useful props.

But it worked.

In August, the Department of Homeland Security announced that over 1 million illegal immigrants had left the country in just seven months, primarily through voluntary departure. These were not ICE raids. These were decisions. People responding to reality.

By mid-December, DHS declined to provide a precise number of users who completed the CBP Home app process but referenced a press release confirming that 1.9 million illegal immigrants self-deported in 2025.

That number has only grown.

By the time the calendar turned, estimates placed total departures at roughly 2.5 million, and climbing. No buses. No cattle cars. No dystopian fantasy. Just enforcement, messaging, and consequences returning to American governance like a long-lost relative who still knows how things are supposed to work.

The Left never accounted for this because Leftism does not understand human behavior. It understands incentives only when they benefit bureaucracies.

Trump understands something much simpler: when you stop lying to people, they adjust.

The new year will bring more of the same, but sharper. Better coordination. More transparency. Enhanced messaging. Fewer apologies. The question now is not whether deportations will continue. It is how many will leave once the lesson fully settles in.

How many illegal immigrants will be gone by the end of 2026?

Try to imagine it. A country returning to sanity. A nation that remembers borders are not vibes. A society where citizens are treated as stakeholders instead of obstacles.

The impact of more than 20 million illegal immigrants was always described as immeasurable by the Left, which is convenient because immeasurable things never require accountability. But once they are gone, the impact will become unmistakable.

Wages rise. Housing pressure eases. Schools stabilize. Emergency rooms breathe. Law enforcement refocuses. Communities reclaim public spaces that had quietly been surrendered.

This is the part Democrats fear most, because success exposes the lie. When Americans feel the full impact of Trump’s border policy, the argument collapses. Not rhetorically but practically.

Trump didn’t just secure the border. He exposed the Left’s greatest vulnerability: their addiction to chaos disguised as compassion.

They said it couldn’t be done. It was done anyway. And America is finally remembering what sovereignty feels like. That, more than anything else, is Trump’s gift of MAGA.