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Published On: Wed, Feb 11th, 2026

Joel Kotkin: Controlling The Border Is A Political Win, But Trump Removing Respectable Families Is “Disaster”

RealClear Media Group Publisher David DesRosiers, on this week’s episode of “Get Real,” a new show on Real America’s Voice (RAV), interviewed “The Coming of Neo-Feudalism” author Joel Kotkin about President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

DAVID DESROSIERS, REALCLEAR MEDIA GROUP PUBLISHER, ‘GET REAL’ HOST: Joel sent us some interesting polls this week. Take a look at this regarding supporting ICE in deportation, supported by voters. 73% say entering the US without legal permission is breaking the law. Americans support deporting those here illegally by a margin of two to one. 54% want ICE enforcing federal immigration laws and removing illegal immigrants. And 58% oppose defunding ICE, including majorities of independents and swing voters. The source of this is Signal. It’s come out in the past three days. I mean, Joel, you know, you sent this. What do you think of this? This seems to be, you know, shows that there’s a consistency in the voter’s mind about immigration and the border. JOEL KOTKIN, AUTHOR, THE COMING OF NEO-FEUDALISM: Well, I think there is certainly in terms of what the ideas are, obviously closing the border was something widely promoted and was, you know, very successful politically. But as usual, you know, Trump overdoes it. You know, I don’t think when you read the other polls, what you find is that a lot of people support this in principle, but if it’s going and removing a respectable family that has never done anything wrong, that their only crime was to come here illegally or overstay their visa, they don’t support that. So what we’re seeing is, although people agree basically with the idea of controlling the border, I think there’s not that much support for going and rooting out, you know, the guys hanging out in front of the Home Depot.

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