Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) is criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies, arguing that its approach to deportations risks failing to distinguish between people who pose a threat to the country and those who contribute to their communities.
In a Friday Washington Post op-ed, Bacon, who has previously been endorsed by President Donald Trump, argued that the administration has made progress securing the southern border but said its immigration enforcement policies have gone too far in some cases.
Bacon pointed to the case of a woman named Mariana, who he said came to the United States as a child and built a life in Nebraska before facing deportation.
Bacon wrote that Mariana and her mother “presented themselves at a legal port of entry without documents. That is not a crime.”
Though she had been out of school for two years, Mariana enrolled at Omaha Central High School. She graduated in four years and earned an aviation degree with academic honors from the University of Nebraska Omaha. She obtained a private pilot’s license and had begun training to become a commercial pilot while working to support herself.
“That is the textbook American way,” he wrote.
Long before this, Mariana’s mother had returned to Mexico, leaving her with relatives. Mariana was still a minor when an immigration hearing was scheduled for her. According to Mariana’s attorney, the notice of the hearing was returned to the court marked “return to sender,” and the court made no further attempt to reach her. She did not appear, and a removal order was entered against her. By the time Mariana learned about that order in 2022, she was no longer eligible for the relief that might have been available to her as an abused, abandoned, or neglected child.
Mariana’s case, Bacon argued, “urgently raises the question of whether this country still has the moral clarity to differentiate between people who endanger it and people who strengthen it.”
“Like most Americans, I support securing our border,” Bacon wrote, while adding that the Trump administration has “restored real order at the border.”
He said deporting “violent criminals, gang members, cartel members and those who refuse to work” is sound policy, but argued that Mariana did not fit into those categories.
“The White House says it is simply enforcing the laws Congress has passed and does not pick and choose which ones to uphold,” Bacon wrote. “Fair enough.”
Bacon said Congress bears responsibility for the broader immigration system, arguing that both parties have contributed to its failures.
He also criticized the Department of Homeland Security for declining to grant Mariana another stay, despite the department saying people who are in the country legally and are not breaking any laws have nothing to fear and that ICE officers are focused on the “worst of the worst.”
“Congress created this failure, and both parties share the blame,” Bacon wrote. He argued that Democrats, particularly during the Biden administration, treated border enforcement as optional, while Republicans have increasingly viewed legal solutions for immigrants who work and follow the rules as amnesty.
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“Some have grown hostile even to legal immigration,” Bacon wrote.
Bacon is not running for reelection in 2026, making this his final term in Congress. But he joins a chorus of other lawmakers who have broken from Trump on some issues in recent days, though many of those calls have come from embattled candidates running in the midterm elections.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
