The economist Thomas Sowell once noted that there are no absolute solutions in public policy, only trade-offs. This wisdom is central to the American immigration debate, which has too often been clouded by a false dichotomy. During the Biden-Harris administration, the conversation frequently shifted toward a moral binary: compassion was framed as the enemy of border enforcement, and any concern regarding the rule of law was dismissed as xenophobia. For many, including the author, whose parents immigrated legally in the 1960s with a deep reverence for the American system, this framing was never acceptable. My parents understood what our leaders seemed to forget: compassion, the rule of law, and national security are not competing values; they are interdependent pillars of a functional society.
The tragic reality is that while politicians debated the optics of immigration, real families were left to bear the costs of reckless policy choices. In January 2025, my twenty-year-old daughter, Katie, was killed while visiting friends in Illinois. The individual responsible for her death had been deported previously but managed to reenter the country illegally during the surge of the last few years. This, coupled with local policies that undermined cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, created a vacuum of accountability. Katie’s death was an entirely avoidable, foreseeable consequence of a systemic refusal to prioritize public safety alongside immigration policy. To speak out against these failures is not to be “anti-immigrant,” as some critics claim, but to demand the basic protection that every citizen is owed.
The narrative that equates enforcement with cruelty has done a deep disservice to the American public and to immigrants themselves. Polling consistently shows that the American people have not turned against immigration; they have turned against a lack of order. The distinction between legal and illegal migration is fundamental to maintaining a welcoming, functional society. When leaders refuse to acknowledge the risks inherent in open-border policies—or when they label legitimate concerns as intolerance—they do not eliminate the trade-offs. They simply transfer the costs onto the shoulders of innocent families. By failing to uphold the rule of law, policymakers have actually fueled the very distrust that makes a generous legal immigration system politically sustainable.
Legally, immigrants have long contributed to the heartbeat of this nation, serving our military, building businesses, and strengthening our communities. These individuals deserve to be protected by a system that values the integrity of their choice to live by our rules. When the lines between legal and illegal entry are blurred, it undermines the sacrifices made by those who waited, played by the rules, and entered this country with respect for our laws. True compassion does not demand that we abandon the guardrails of a peaceful society; rather, it dictates that we maintain those guardrails to ensure that America can continue to be a beacon of opportunity without sacrificing internal security.
Leadership, at its core, is the willingness to be honest about the consequences of one’s actions. It is not enough to offer rhetoric about empathy while ignoring the tangible, sometimes fatal, outcomes for real people. A mature society should never be forced to choose between the safety of its citizens and its identity as an immigrant nation. The “trade-off” being forced on us is a false one, sustained by an unwillingness to admit that public policy has risks. Ignoring these risks doesn’t make them disappear—it only dictates who is forced to pay the price. In this case, the price was my daughter’s life, and no amount of political spin can rectify that.
If we wish for America to remain the most welcoming nation on Earth, we must restore faith in the system. This requires a return to an orderly, honest, and lawful approach to immigration that respects the dignity of the law. Being “pro-rule of law” is not a stance against immigrants; it is the only way to preserve an immigration system that remains pro-immigrant in the long run. We must reject the distortions of the past, embrace the nuance that Sowell advocated, and demand leaders who have the courage to acknowledge that the protection of the innocent is not a negotiable trade-off, but an essential duty of a government that serves all its people.