The midterm election cycle has confirmed that Democrats are committed to mass immigration and open borders whenever they regain the White House. That, along with non-enforcement and a halt to deportations and interior immigration enforcement, is going to be their de facto standing immigration policy moving forward.

Where the right stands on immigration is much less clear. To its credit, the American right has never been as uniform or politically disciplined as the left, in part because it’s not motivated by revolutionary fervor. But that lack of uniformity has left Republicans less capable of responding to Democrats’ radical immigration agenda — and less certain of what degree of restrictionist policies they will actually support.

The ongoing GOP civil war Donald Trump inaugurated a decade ago to a large extent hinges on this question of immigration. The pre-Trump Republican establishment would very much like to go back to how things were before Trump, when the bipartisan Washington consensus was that immigration should supply big business with cheap labor and Democrats with future voters. That’s one reason they’re so eager to attack and undermine Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump’s likely successor. 

Trump’s America First base will never accept a return to the pre-Trump status quo on immigration. But the right will need more than that base to keep Democrats out of power. While it’s true that the GOP establishment in Washington has no real constituency on immigration except the special interests that benefit from cheap foreign labor, it’s unclear whether Republican voters are ready to support a dramatically restrictionist immigration policy. In a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, former ICE Chief of Staff Jason Killmeyer succinctly captured the strategic state of play, saying we are either going to have mass immigration or mass deportations, depending on which party is in power.