Donald Trump has delivered on his promise to end Joe Biden’s open border crisis, having largely succeeded in shutting down illegal immigration across our southern border and implementing a zero release policy.

But the optics of the administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities over the last three months have been, at best, mixed. And the Demo response, spewing hateful rhetoric to villainize ICE agents, has been deadly for those agents.

Yes, we concur that illegal immigration is, well, illegal, and that those who have entered our country illegally are criminals. But the “roundups,” while ostensibly framed as focusing on violent illegal immigrants, who Trump calls “the worst of the worst,” have not been that. Fact is, pursuing and arresting violent offenders has broad support, but random sweeps of landscape, roofing, and day-labor crews, not so much.

Part of the strategy Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has implemented, the sweeping operations around urban centers, is to send a clear message to those contemplating coming here illegally, and that is working. Additionally, more than two million illegal aliens have exited the country thus far, and almost 1.6 million of those have self-deported.

The Trump administration has encouraged self-deportation, and Customs and Border Protection now offers illegal aliens a $1,000 stipend and a free flight to their home country. That stipend and flight have significantly reduced taxpayers’ costs for immigration enforcement. According to DHS: “Currently, the average cost to arrest, detain, and remove an illegal alien is $17,121.” Furthermore, self-deporters preserve the possibility of legally returning to the U.S. at some point in the future.

But the political optics of sweeping roundups versus rounding up violent criminals is now a significant problem for Trump and Republicans, which they can’t afford. Cheering for the sweeps from some Trump supporter sectors will not change that political calculus.

As Thomas Gallatin wrote, there is also significant disagreement and division over these actions within the Trump administration: “On one side is Border Czar Tom Homan and ICE Director Todd Lyons, who favor a continued primary focus on arresting and deporting violent criminal illegal aliens. On the other side are Noem, senior advisor Corey Lewandowski, and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino. They want to cast a wider net, arresting and deporting illegal aliens irrespective of whether or not they have a criminal record.”

If the ICE focus is not narrowed to violent criminal illegal aliens, Trump will start hemorrhaging Hispanic support.

Actually, I think that bleed is already underway.

This week, there was an early warning sign on the terrible ICE roundup optics when a Democrat won the Miami mayoral race — the first Democrat to win that office in nearly 30 years. Miami is about 70% Hispanic, and that Demo defeated the Trump-endorsed Hispanic candidate in a landslide, the Republican only getting 41% of the vote. That is a seismic shift.

Yes, the MSM chalked that defeat up to Trump’s failed “affordability” messaging, which he is now attempting to correct. While that was a factor, the ICE ops were also clearly a factor.

At the end of November, ICE was holding a record 65,000 illegal immigrants, but fewer than 5% of those being detained have a violent criminal record, and 73% have no convictions, other than entering our country illegally. The number of those with no criminal record has surged 2,000% under Trump.

ICE and DHS are now actively publicizing arrests of violent offenders because somebody in the administration finally understands the relationship between the ICE roundup optics and Hispanic support for Trump.

Trump has declared he wants to deport “dangerous criminals” and “the worst of the worst.” It is past time to shift the ICE roundup focus, as Border Czar Homan insists, to arresting and deporting “the worst of the worst,” or the Trump hemorrhage of Hispanic voters will accelerate.