Politics: the leadership effect

By Richard North - December 27, 2025

It becomes more and more evident with every passing day – if it wasn’t already abundantly so – that the reason our elites and political leaders fail to get a grip on immigration is because they don’t want to.

Unlike the bulk of the people who have to suffer the consequences of their reckless “open borders” policy, they have come to believe that multiculturalism and the “diversity” that comes with mass immigration is a “good thing”.

This was evident on Christmas Day with the King’s speech when he spoke of being “treasured” by all the great faiths, and of the “great diversity” of our communities, in which “we can find the strength to ensure that right triumphs over wrong”.

That these are common beliefs is supported by the incoming head of the English church, the utterly dreadful Sarah Mullally, who argued in her Christmas sermon that “our national conversations about immigration continue to divide us, when our common humanity should unite us”.

From her viewpoint that, ultimately, allowing mass immigration is God’s work, the answer she sees to resolving the divisions so caused is as simple: we should simply stop talking (or complaining) about it.

At least this is not as far down the line as Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson who, in the manner of Orwell’s Newspeak, wants to deprive us of the language of dissent, thereby making it impossible to complain.

Nevertheless, in respect of the forthcoming Archbishop of Canterbury, who takes up office on 28 January, one would prefer a king more of the likes of Henry II whose words in 1170 set in train events which saw the then incumbent’s tenure abruptly terminated, according to popular culture, on the steps of the cathedral’s altar.

Not quite in the same category – certainly in terms of outcome – is US president Donald Trump, who has not yet called for the despatch of turbulent underlings, but who is demonstrating leadership which has successfully resolved one of the worst illegal immigration crises his country has had to bear.

This success is the subject of a long article in The Times under a title which belies the good news, asking the question: “After a year of ICE raids, has Trump finally secured the southern border?”.

One doesn’t have to go very far for the answer though for, in the next line, the sub-head tells us: “The flow of migrants from the Rio Grande has slowed to a trickle, with people deterred by 2025’s swift and punitive immigration crackdowns”.

The text, in fact, acknowledges that Trump has already declared a victory on the southern border with Mexico and, in terms of detail, the claim is unanswerable. From a quarter of a million people detected trying to enter the US in December 2023, the number of attempted crossings has collapsed to 11,647 in September this year, a fall of more than 95 percent.

The paper then goes on to quote Trump’s end-of-year speech, when he said: “We inherited the worst border anywhere in the world, and we quickly turned it into the strongest border in the history of our country”.

It is also acknowledged that the crackdown began within minutes of Trump being sworn back into office for his second term. Declaring a national emergency in his inaugural address, he effectively made it impossible to claim asylum at the border, reinstating his former “Remain in Mexico” policy and transforming the “CBP One” app formerly used to schedule immigration appointments into a convenient way for migrants to self-deport.

Disregarding legal red tape, the president then designated stretches of the frontier closed military zones and flooded the border with 8,500 troops from battle-hardened units, including the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), whose paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day, and the 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, whose soldiers led the assault on Baghdad in 2003.

To make the prospect of coming to the US less attractive, we are told, Trump simultaneously ordered aggressive raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, instilling fear in Latino communities from Los Angeles to Boston.

Then, paying little heed to the complaints of human-rights campaigners, he stepped up deportation flights to any country willing to accept the return of its citizens — including Russia, Iran and Venezuela. To date, he has placed travel bans and visa restrictions on 35 nations.

Unsurprisingly, the effect has been dramatic. The paper notes that the Rio Grande, on its final meanderings to the sea, is shallow enough in places that it can be forded by an adult. It cites Captain Christopher Kyle Cumberland, 44, commander of US Coast Guard forces on the Rio Grande, who says: “Even as a bad swimmer you can probably cross in less than 60 seconds”.

During the height of the border crisis, 80 percent of those crossing the Rio Grande did not come from Mexico. Many came from southern and central America, trekking thousands of miles from the troubled “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Others fled economic collapse in Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela. Since Trump’s return to the White House, however, these nationalities are no longer found among the trickle of people crossing the border.

The effects are dramatically shown in other newspapers, based on an AP report headed: “Photos show Venezuelan migrants spending Christmas at home after abandoning hope of reaching the US”.

The text of the report tells us that, after months on the move through jungles, seas and borders, Venezuelan migrants Mariela Gómez (pictured), her partner Abraham Castro and her two children, abandoned their attempt to reach the United States.

They have, we are told, returned to spend Christmas back home, part of a growing wave of reverse migration driven by Trump’s crackdown, as US pressure on the government of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro intensifies.

It is The Times, though, that explains why: “Migrants have to pay thousands of dollars to cartels to traverse Mexico – many ending up in indentured servitude to pay off their debts – and the costs are just too high for such a slim chance of being allowed to stay in the US”.

According to the Trump administration, not a single person caught trying to cross the Rio Grande has escaped in the past seven months, and not one of the migrants detained has been allowed to remain in the US.

On the US side of the river, white buoys demarcate a National Defence Area. Anyone breaching this military zone can be arrested for committing a federal crime. Further inland, intermittent stretches of Trump’s border wall are visible over the palm trees. The steel bollards have been painted black to absorb the heat of the subtropical sun, scalding anyone who dares to climb the fence.

Furthermore, polling suggests that Trump’s handling of the southern border is his most popular policy, with a 50 percent approval rating compared with 31 per cent for the economy.

Yet, the United States is not without its critics, not least American-born Pope Leo XIV who argues that the White House’s “intolerance” of undocumented migrants is a betrayal of the Christian values that first inspired European pilgrims to seek a better life in North America.

“We have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have”, the Pontiff says, a man who lives in the walled enclave of the Vatican City, a micro-state with an extremely strict immigration policy.

This focuses on controlled access for its small population (around 800), requiring specific permits for residence and work, and punishes illegal entry severely with fines of up to €25,000, bans (up to 15 years), or prison terms of up to four years.

Rightly, Trump is ignoring the hypocrisy of this man and the “progressive” left, demonstrating what can happen if there is the political will to solve the problems of illegal immigration, and the leadership to make it happen.

The situation, physically and numerically, in the UK is not the same, but there can be no doubt that the reasons why illegal immigrants remain a problem are the absence of the political will and leadership displayed by Trump.