Readers share their views on Trump's immigration policies | Opinion
On a special episode (first released on March 10, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: Forum is a new series from Paste BN's Opinion team, dedicated to showcasing views from across the political spectrum on issues that Americans are starkly divided on. Today you’ll hear from a few folks on the topic of immigration. President Donald Trump campaigned for the White House promising to deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. We asked: do you agree with Trump’s immigration policies and actions?
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Michael McCarter:
Hello, and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Michael McCarter, Vice President and Group Editor of the Opinion sections of Gannett, the parent company of Paste BN.
This is a bonus episode of The Excerpt highlighting a new digital series from Paste BN's opinion team that we're calling Forum. It's a weekly space dedicated to showcasing views from across the political spectrum on issues Americans are starkly divided on. Today, you'll hear from a few folks on the topic of immigration. President Donald Trump campaigned for the White House promising to deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. We asked, "Do you agree with Trump's immigration policies and actions?"
Andre Lewis:
I do agree with his policies.
Michael McCarter:
That's Andre Lewis, who lives in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Andre Lewis:
And I really do wish he would get rid of all the criminals. I'm all for it. I think we have enough of our own homeless that we can't feed. We have enough of our own problems. I don't believe in the whole brouhaha, "Well, if you take them, you're going to take the people that want to do the job. No one else is going to do farming." I don't think that's true. I think that farming gets so many subsidiaries and they get so many breaks. You could be 12 years old and work in a farm lower than minimum wage. If all the people are deported and they had to hire Americans, they would have to raise their wages and farming will not be so subpar. If you pay people properly, people will work on a farm.
And when you've got homeless people on the streets, be it the hotels are at capacity with migrants, there's something wrong there. There's a wrong balance. And I know sometimes it sounds selfish to say, I don't know how he says it, make America great again or whatever, but put America first. There is a truth to that, and that's why that resonated with the people at the voting booth. There's a truth to that. We do want to see ourselves start to get put first. Sorry.
It sounds mean because a lot of these people coming over here really are truly trying to escape lives in which we wouldn't dare want to live in. You know what I mean? It's easy to tell someone else, "Go back to where you came from," and they go back to where they come from. They can just get shot standing in the middle ... for nothing. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it is what it is, and we do have a country to look after first.
I do believe that we should get rid of birthright citizenship if both parents are illegal. I do think that we need to. We're one of very few developed countries that even do it. I do believe that they use that as an anchor, and they get their benefits and they tug on people's hearts and say, "Well, you don't want to separate a family, do you?" Well, you came over here and you made the family.
Dorothy Foster:
I don't support President Trump's policies on mass deportation. No.
Michael McCarter:
That's Dorothy Foster from Clarksville, Georgia.
Dorothy Foster:
All my life, I have been an advocate for immigrants. I was born and raised in Guatemala. My parents were missionaries there with the Presbyterian church and worked with developing the literacy of the Mam tribe in Guatemala. They were the first people to write that language. I grew up living with the people and seeing the poverty and the issues that people in Guatemala have, so I understand, somewhat, why people want a better life and want to better themselves and their education.
I don't even think it's wise to send criminals back to places like Central America because they can't handle them there. We could handle them here in our justice system, and make them accountable, absolutely, but sending them back is what has caused a lot of the gang problems that we have in Central America. Even criminals shouldn't be sent back. They should be accountable right here. Even when we had a terrible civil war there, the Guatemalan ... the poor people never had a way to get here legally, and so they had to come just to save their lives, and those people deserve a way to become legalized. I don't believe that the U.S. should abolish a constitutional right to birthright citizenship. It's worked very well over the years.
Russell Johnson:
I agree with President Trump's immigration policies and actions, yes, I do.
Michael McCarter:
That's Russell Johnson, who lives in Toms River, New Jersey.
Russell Johnson:
I think we have to have controls over who comes into our country. Number one, we need to understand who they are. It is about, for maybe a lack of a better way of saying it, is to make sure that we bring in the best of the best. And that doesn't mean rich people. It doesn't mean only a certain class of people or anything else. It just means the highest quality individuals.
I agree with his prioritization of deportations, meaning starting with the folks that generally probably shouldn't have been here to start with. And I also believe that, by doing that, it also gives the country time to understand the scope and the breadth of who is here, and then talk about how to deal with the millions that are here, that under, most circumstances, had they been vetted, had they been allowed in here through a legal process, we would want here to start with.
I do believe birthright citizenship has been misused and abused and taken to places it was never meant, in any way, shape or form, to have been. Two wrongs don't make a right, so two illegal people here don't get to make an American citizen, right? That's the way I look at it. I think legal immigration is wonderful and we should expand it. We should do everything we can to allow for legal immigration. It's the illegal immigration that certainly needs to stop.
Glenn Fernandez:
I don't think contributing, law-abiding immigrants, or illegal immigrants, should be just out of hand deported
Michael McCarter:
And from Orange, Ohio, that's Glenn Fernandez.
Glenn Fernandez:
I think that the vast majority of immigrants are contributing to our society. They're here to work. They hold jobs. They rent apartments. Getting them deported is going to cost a heck of a lot of money. Yes, I agree that any of them that are criminals, convicted criminals, need to go and go fast, but if they're here and contributing, let's have a pathway to citizenship for them.
I think the topic is very important for a lot of Americans. I think it was Trump's gateway into winning the election in 2016. Honestly, the Democrats mishandled the situation. The southern border did need to be tighter, but he was absolutely able to use that as a wedge to win the election.
Birthright citizenship is clearly part of the 14th Amendment. I don't know how it could be any plainer as what is in there. Yeah, if you're born here, you're an American. It's as simple as that, assuming you're not a diplomat's child or something like that. Personal aside, I'm a first-generation American. My parents immigrated as small children from Portugal and become naturalized citizens, served in the army, my dad, so yeah, immigration's important to me. This is a country that has been based on immigration. It's been an asset to us over the years much more than it has been a detriment. We need to manage it, but not to shut it off.
Michael McCarter:
That's all we have for today, listeners. This is a co-production of the Forum team at Paste BN, where we invite our readers to weigh in, in writing, on a national topic of interest. If your submission is selected for print, we might invite you to add your voice to a future special bonus episode like this one. There's a link to Forum in the show description.
Let us know what you think about this episode by sending an email to podcasts@usaday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Michael McCarter, Vice President of the Gannett Opinion Group. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.