What a difference a couple of decades make.

In 1996, Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which raised penalties for entering the U.S. illegally and made it easier to deport illegal immigrants (or illegal aliens, as they are called in U.S. law).

In 2026, Democrats won’t even say the words “illegal alien,” insisting instead on confusing euphemisms like “undocumented non-citizen.”

Linguistic gymnastics aren’t the worst of it, though.

Take the case of Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman. Illegal immigrant Jose Medina was charged with Gorman’s murder in March, and Loyola’s student newspaper was very upset … with itself for referring to Medina in its coverage as an illegal immigrant. The newspaper apologized, saying that such language did not “align with the values of this newspaper.”

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The Loyola paper is hardly alone. Many elected and aspiring candidates for office not only refuse to call a spade a spade, they oppose deporting even dangerous, repeat offenders. Tennessee Democratic candidate for Congress Justin Pearson, for example, could not be tied down on CNN as to whether any illegal immigrant was so bad that he’d want them out of the U.S.

Leftists seem to want no enforcement of immigration law at all. If so, voters need to know, because that is not only a departure from the Democratic position of the past century, it’s a game-changer that will rapidly and radically alter the United States if a majority in Congress subscribes to it.

If Democrats do believe there is at least some level where enforcement needs to happen, they should be clear where it is. So, here’s my question for them: who would you deport?

Would you deport Jose Medina? Like the murderer of Laken Riley in Georgia in 2024, he was an illegal immigrant from Venezuela who was either paroled or released at the border under the Biden administration. Both men might well have criminal records at home, but U.S. authorities had no way of knowing before they were released. Both allegedly committed crimes (theft) while in the U.S., but were released by “progressive” prosecutors who put criminal suspects first and public safety last.

Would they deport Angelina Lopez-Jimenez, who officials say had an outstanding final order of removal dating back to 2019 but never left? She had her due process seven years ago and was ordered by an immigration judge to go home to Guatemala, but like a million others she seems to have ignored it. Does she get a veto on whether our laws get enforced?

When ICE agents tried to arrest her at San Francisco airport, authorities said that she tried to run and resisted them. Somehow, this “drew outrage…from local officials” like state senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat with a keener interest in affirming the “gender identity” of other people’s kids than in enforcing the law.

What about Bairon Hernandez, an illegal immigrant from Honduras who was arrested for allegedly pushing an 83-year-old veteran onto the New York subway? Hernandez had reportedly been deported from the U.S. four times since 2008 and has 15 criminal charges under his belt. He is thought to have been last deported in 2020 but appears to have snuck back in as one of the two million or more “gotaways” that came in while Biden’s Department for Homeland Security was focused on processing millions of inadmissible migrants into the country.

Does Bairon get to keep attempting murder until he gets it right?

How about Lauren Jane Morris, an English woman arrested in Washington state? She is reported to have five convictions for assault. She appears to have arrived in the U.S. around 2004 as a teenager, stayed in the U.S. until she married an American in 2007 and got a spousal visa in 2009. She later seems to have gotten divorced, but she would have been able to get U.S. citizenship long ago. It’s unclear whether she has ever supported herself with a job. Should the U.S. bear the risk of her offending again, as well as the welfare burden if she stays in the country indefinitely if she does not have legal status?

What about Fairfax County, Virginia, high school student Israel Flores Ortiz, an 18-year-old 11th grader from El Salvador charged with nine counts of assault and battery amid allegations of groping girls at school? He was among the millions of young men with unknown backgrounds believed to have entered the U.S. illegally in the Biden years and released into the country.

In theory, Ortiz should be undergoing immigration proceedings to answer for his illegal entry and presence, but the backlogs are so long he could be in the U.S. for years. Meanwhile, he’s free to enroll in public school—where they may have no way of verifying his claimed age because he may have brought no ID with him. Anyway, Virginia allows “English learners” to stay in high school up to age 22.

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One illegal migrant we know Democrats never want deported is “Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a hero to “abolitionists” who want no enforcement ever. He was stopped by Tennessee State Troopers in 2022 driving a van full of suspected illegal migrants from Mexico to Maryland. An immigration judge found there was sufficient evidence to suggest he was affiliated with the MS-13 gang. But U.S. district judge Paula Xinis seems to have taken him on as her pet project.

The Biden administration had little interest in prosecuting any illegal aliens. But now that the Trump administration is enforcing the law, Judge Xinis dubs this a “vindictive” prosecution. Her latest order is that the federal government can’t arrest and detain Garcia pending the outcome of his trial in Nashville.

The list of crimes committed by illegal migrants with no right to be in the U.S. is long and growing. In May, Rony Yahir Alvarenga Rivera, who came illegally to the U.S. in 2016, aged 12, from El Salvador, is accused of stabbing his female roommate to death and then, a few hours later, of doing the same to a 42-year-old woman at the New York restaurant they worked in together. The month before, Misael Lopez Gomez was charged with killing his own three-month-old daughter. He either snuck into the U.S. or was released at the border under then-president Biden’s lax policy.

The endless toll of preventable crime is bad news—for both public safety and the rule of law. So, Democrats, is there anyone you’d deport?