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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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People who are against illegal immigration are against it not because it is against the law, but for some other reason

There is no singular explanation for the dislike of illegal immigration. There are plenty of people who are perfectly fine with legal immigrants and just want them to enter in following the rules. Most immigration restrictionist seem to believe that this is even the mainstream view among them, given the proclivity to focus on illegal immigration in discourse and staying on the down low regarding efforts to restrict legal ones.

The PR you choose to output is reflective of what you believe others want to see of you, and the PR of immigration restriction puts a large emphasis on the illegal part. Therefore they must believe it is an important distinction to the swing voters they are trying to convince.

Who here is lying? Do you have any evidence that Trump has ever said this?

Trump repeatedly uses the phrase "worst of the worst". They even had a website about this exact phrasing, albeit they even admit it was filled with errors. Just go ask any of the chatbots and they can give you tons of examples.

And like many things involving Trump, he changes what he says based off who is talking to and who is trying to appeal to at the time. You can't point to just one place where he says something and assume he's never contradicted it elsewhere.

Trump repeatedly uses the phrase "worst of the worst".

The claim was that Trump has called for "JUST" the removal of the "worst of the worst". Those are your words, I even quoted them. You are not alone in making the claim, but that is your claim. That you change the claim instead of defending it with evidence indicates that you cannot defend it.

They even had a website about this exact phrasing, albeit they even admit it was filled with errors.

You are interpreting words to mean what you want them to mean, not what they actually mean. This website is a good example of what is going on. Here is the Trump admin, direct from the website you linked, emphasis mine:

"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is highlighting the worst of worst criminal aliens arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)."

"Under Secretary Noem's leadership, the hardworking men and women of DHS and ICE are fulfilling President Trump's promise and carrying out mass deportations - starting with the worst of the worst - including the illegal aliens you see here."

They say they are starting with the worst of the worst. They never say they will just deport the worst of the worst. They say they are doing the opposite of just going after the worst of the worst, they are carrying out mass deportations.

The slight of hand here is that you are misconstruing "highlighting the worst of the worst" as "just the worst of the worst." Highlighting does not imply exclusivity. Does a highlighter block out everything on a page not highlighted?

Just go ask any of the chatbots and they can give you tons of examples.

ChatGPT says that you are reading framing from media and not Trump's actual words:

✅ Bottom line:

-Trump has often said criminals would be deported first.

-But he has also repeatedly supported deporting all undocumented immigrants, not just criminals.

-I could not find credible instances where he explicitly promised deportations would be limited exclusively to criminals.

If you want, I can also show a few examples of how this claim (“Trump said he would only deport criminals”) entered political discourse, because that framing mostly came from media summaries and campaign messaging rather than his literal wording. That nuance is actually pretty important in debates about this.