NY Republican says it is not reasonable to remove all illegals from country

By Jerry McConway, 
updated on February 9, 2026

Donald Trump was elected to reverse the damage that Joe Biden did regarding immigration in this country.

The GOP made immigration front and center in the 2024 election cycle, and the American people spoke.

Now, however, we are seeing some Republicans get a little nervous because of the negative media attention after the Renee Good and Alex Pretti shootings, with a New York Republican appearing to completely bail.

How can he do it?

After Trump was elected, the question of how he would remove more than 10 million illegals was asked.

Trump made his plan very clear from the outset.

He was going to grow immigration agencies and flood the streets of this country with agents who were going to track down every illegal, apprehend them, and send them back across the border.

The plan was to arrest the worst of the worst first, then start to expand out from there.

You’ve been warned

When Trump named Tom Homan as his border czar, I was both elated and disappointed, as I would have loved to have seen him appointed to run the entire DHS.

Regardless, Homan hit the ground running, calling out sanctuary cities as soon as the administration took over.

For instance, in referring to Boston’s leftist mayor, he stated, "She needs to put her U.S. citizen taxpayer constituency ahead of illegal aliens who rape children.”

He continued, "I'm not coming for her, she shouldn't be afraid of me. Who should be afraid of me are those in the country illegally. They need to be looking over their shoulder, because we’re coming."

Not realistic

Rep. Mike Lawlwer (R-NY) is a GOP House member in a blue state, so I get why he sometimes walks the moderate line, but the GOP position on immigration is to remove all illegals, period.

Yet, during a recent interview, he stated, “Look, this is an issue that I’ve been focused on for years. You know, for 40 years, we have not solved our immigration crisis. The American people were rightly outraged by what happened under the Biden administration, where you had over 10.5 million migrants cross our border, most of them illegally.”

He later added, “We have over 25 million people in this country who are undocumented. You’re not rounding them all up and kicking them out. It’s not realistic.”

Well, it would be if we could get everyone on the same page and pressure the courts to take on the sanctuary city issue. To me, there is no middle ground here for the party. We have to be united, or this agenda issue will fail. America spoke on this, so stop playing scared and get with the program!

About Jerry McConway

Jerry McConway is the Senior Editorial Director at American Digest Media, as well as the featured columnist on Real Talk Digest. He has been covering politics for more than a decade. His no-nonsense writing style makes him enemy number one in DC. His mission is to tell the truth to readers, good or bad, something the mainstream media has failed to do for decades. What sets Jerry apart from his competition is reader loyalty. They don't always agree with him, but they know he tells them the truth. Love him or hate him, you can't ignore him.

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