As Americans prepare for the 2026 midterms, it feels like a pertinent moment to look back at where our nation stood just two years prior, during the 2024 Presidential election. With Democrats in control, the border was wide open, child mutilation was permitted under the guise of gender-affirming care, and members of Congress were calling to defund the police. Trump, serving as the figurehead of the conservative movement, was unjustly prosecuted, arrested, and shot at.
Now, just two years later, many conservatives seem to have forgotten how dire our situation was. Worse, many are ignoring what’s at stake during this year’s midterms. While the Trump administration has been able to stave off the progression of radical leftist policies, the Democrat establishment is eager to revive their agenda.
Perhaps no one knows this better than Julio Rosas, an independent field reporter who’s been covering the border crisis since 2019 and is the author of “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful: The 2020 Riots and the Gaslighting of America.”
He’s seen how illegal border crossings have ebbed and flowed from the first Trump administration, then to the Biden administration, and now under Trump 2.0. Now, as the Democrats appear to be in a position to retake control of Congress, Rosas has seen an uptick in illegal caravans on the southern border.
“At the beginning of the year, these caravans were only happening once a month or once every other month,” Rosas told New Guard Press. “But since September, as the election has been drawing nearer, there have been four caravans that left in a one-month period, which is a significant change.”
When Rosas approached the migrants on the border and asked them if they were crossing the border now due to the Democratic party’s momentum and promises, they unsurprisingly answered ‘yes.’
In June, the migrants Rosas interacted with were reportedly friendlier and looking to settle in northern Mexico. However, Rosas has noticed a change in the people he’s encountered, saying that they’ve become more standoffish and less willing to be interviewed on camera, because they don’t want to be filmed before crossing illegally into the US.
“The reason why they think they have a better chance of getting into the US is because they believe the backlash against [immigration enforcement] is enough to shift things in their favor politically,” said Rosas. “Things aren’t going to change overnight, but they’re betting on Democrats making progress, even going into 2028.”
The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration, deporting nearly a million illegal immigrants and sealing the border that the Biden administration left open, though many illegals are still playing the waiting game. While Americans live and die by the 24-hour news cycle, thousands of illegal aliens are content to wait through a couple election cycles for Democrats to regain power.
“When these migrants are seeing Democrats promising to abolish ICE, get rid of DHS, and end any meaningful enforcement in the interior of immigration laws, that gives them hope,” Rosas said. “They see that through TikTok, they see that through Instagram.”
Rosas acknowledged that ramping up deportation and enforcement efforts is a lot like cold-starting a machine: It takes time.
“The illegal immigrant population in the United States is not only big, it’s entrenched. It’s entrenched in society because Washington kicked the can down the road for so many years. And so I believe, in spite of everything, the Trump administration has done a good job of moving things in the right direction. And unfortunately, because the problem is so big and it’s been allowed to fester for so long, it’s going to take a long time to undo it,” he said.
Rosas has personally observed how inhumane the border is, both for Americans and those crossing illegally. He pointed out that a majority of Americans still see immigration as one of the most critical issues facing the nation. Additionally, he said it hurts the illegals, whom Democrat politicians are pretending to protect:
“No one talks about how the number of deaths at the US-Mexico border from migrants reached the highest levels during the the Biden-Harris border crisis … They don’t want to talk about a substantial increase in child trafficking, sex trafficking that happened during the Biden-Harris administration. It’s so cherry picked. The Democrats want to make it seem like having a closed border is inhumane. It’s not. It actually saves lives.”
Rosas’ experiences covering the border have given him a new perspective on the largest question looming over the country: What does it mean to be an American?
He claims that there are characteristics and traits which make someone distinctly American. “You have to actually believe in the basic principles of the founding. We have a lot of people that come here illegally, and they don’t believe in that. They don’t believe in the basic tenets of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, and that is a very big problem.”
Through his reporting, Rosas has discovered that Americans have a responsibility to have a stake in their country. The nation can’t be ceded to illegal aliens who don’t share our values or beliefs. If the Left is allowed to regain control, they will immediately begin importing millions of illegal aliens back into the country in order to dilute the American identity.
As conservatives, it’s our duty to protect and preserve our nation, and it’s our duty to vote like our country depends on it. Because it does.
