Trump needs to denounce the Dignity Act

Florida Rep. Maria Salazar (R) and her some 20 Republican co-sponsors of a massive amnesty bill have put President Trump in a terribly awkward position. In truth, it is more than just awkwardness; it is political malpractice.

The fanfare around the amnesty bill, the Dignity Act, has begun a process of division and distraction going into a crucial midterm cycle.

Merely floating the idea of amnesty results in more illegal immigration to the US border.

The Dignity Act is dominating conversations surrounding the trajectory of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration and forcing the question of whether the administration supports it.

Last week, CBS News peppered border czar Tom Homan with loaded questions about the supposed need for providing legal status for illegal aliens in the United States. After trying to put the question away, Homan responded, “There’s discussions going on. I’m involved with some and not others, but I’m not going to get ahead of the president on this.”

Discussions of amnesty in the Trump administration? The internet exploded, and it’s largely still exploding. Given the low level of deportations conducted to date, some 340,000 in FY2025 according to recent estimates, many political observers are starting to question whether the mass deportation program will be fulfilled at the scale advertised.

This low number, in addition to the lack of explicit opposition to the Dignity Act from the Trump administration, has led many people to reasonably believe that amnesty discussions are on the table. Republicans pushing amnesty is nothing new, after all. Additionally, the co-sponsors of the Dignity Act largely are all endorsed for re-election by President Trump.

What we are witnessing appears to be strategic ambiguity. Salazar and her allies are hitting the media circuits claiming that somehow the Dignity Act is not amnesty. That claim has rightfully been ridiculed, but they remain insistent that a square peg is a circle.

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Meanwhile, the White House has carefully avoided criticizing the bill by name, instead choosing to rule out amnesty of any type. Take another Homan quote, for example: "I said from day one, I’ll say it again ... President Trump said amnesty is off the table. I support that. I don’t think amnesty should be on the table.”

Having known Homan for years, I know that he genuinely opposes amnesty. But in this environment, supporters of the president’s promised immigration agenda need to hear that the White House considers the Dignity Act to be amnesty. Without that explicit rejection, the ambiguity will be perceived as tolerance.

Of course, it is not the White House’s job to denounce every last bill that pops up in Congress. But the unfortunate truth is that the Dignity Act is out there and has captured enough attention that it is a subject of an intense debate that, if left untended to, will only dampen midterm turnout.

That’s one reason why what Salazar and her ilk have done is so damaging. Shilling for amnesty will be taken seriously unless explicitly denounced, putting the White House in a position it should not be in.

Salazar’s damage gets worse. Take for example what Homan said during his CBS interview that did not receive any meaningful attention: “I would love Congress to do some things. My concern right now is that a lot of the successes we’ve had, unprecedented success, is based on executive orders, which can certainly be turned around by the next president.”

What Homan was referring to are border security laws to prevent a future Democrat administration from doing the exact same thing that Biden did and demanding amnesty in exchange for turning off another invasion.

How do I know? Well, I worked with Homan to help put together H.R. 2, otherwise known as the Secure the Border Act of 2023, during the Biden years. That bill was purely defensive in nature. It closed loopholes that the Biden administration weaponized to let 10 million plus cross the border.

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While it is true that President Trump didn’t need new laws to secure the border, it is also true that President Newsom, Ocasio-Cortez, or Comey won’t need new laws to open it again. We could find ourselves in the exact same negotiating posture as before: trade border security for amnesty, the very same trick that President Reagan fell for in historic fashion.

Any serious person who has worked in the immigration space knows that merely floating the idea of amnesty results in more illegal immigration to the U.S. border. During the Obama years, illegal aliens were flowing across with smiles on their faces and bragging about the “permisos” they had to cross due to Obama. As Biden readied to enter the White House, illegal aliens flooded the border for the same reason.

With news emerging that the U.S. border may not be as completely zipped tight as we hoped, Salazar’s advertising for amnesty can predictably result in more illegal aliens deciding to roll the dice and head north.

For all these reasons and more, the wise thing for both political and national sovereignty reasons is for the Trump administration to respond to Salazar’s push with an explicit and unmistakable denunciation.

A skeptical base needs to see strength on the immigration issue. Clearing up any confusion on this matter would go a long way toward restoring trust and keeping the president’s strongest base of supporters together going into the midterm elections.