Democrats have controlled the immigration issue for decades, and their success is no surprise.

With the media serving as their mouthpieces, RINOs bending over backwards to look like compassionate conservatives, and businesses lobbying Congress for cheap labor, everyone in power who pushed for open borders got their way. And all the while, Democrats touted the benefits of unlimited immigration, handed out cash, expanded “voting rights,” and offered benefits to those breaking the law.

Without any pushback from Republicans, and with the narrative parroted by the Leftmedia, Democrats took even bolder steps. A case in point: Throughout his tenure, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has proclaimed the Big Apple’s status as a sanctuary city for illegals. Politically, it was a no-brainer. Adams had nothing to lose. As long as the masses of migrants remained in states bordering Mexico, he and others could appear to be compassionate — and nothing matters more to a Democrat than appearances.

In fact, back in October, Adams gushed on social media: “There is a reason that Lady Liberty sits outside of NYC’s harbor. This is the place where we ensure we live up to the expectations of what it is to be an American, an American citizen, or a country that welcomes those fleeing prosecution and persecution.”

What a tear-jerker.

But all that changed when two Republican governors, Texas’s Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis, started busing illegal aliens to cities like Chicago and, yes, Adams’s New York. Surely, he welcomed the migrants with open arms, right?

Wrong. Funny how politics works. All it takes is a little resolve from the other side to expose a big-city mayor as a fraud. Adams immediately changed his language and his tone.

“It’s going to come to your neighborhoods,” Adams warned. “All of us are going to be impacted by this. I said it last year when we had 15,000. I’m telling you now with 110,000. The city we knew we’re about to lose. And we’re all in this together.”

That’s tough language coming from the leader of a sanctuary city. If you’re on a bus from Austin to Yonkers, you might think twice about getting off that bus. Adams’s rhetoric was so shocking that some Leftmedia talkingheads compared him to Donald Trump.

Now that’s winning, as The Donald would say.

It gets even more delicious: Adams himself spent more than $50,000 in city funds to send migrants to other states and to China in 2022 and 2023. Meanwhile, Chicago’s mayor, the unfortunately named Brandon Johnson, wants to move illegals into the suburbs. How rich.

Yet this president and his handlers are going all in on illegal aliens as political pawns. As Christopher Bedford writes at The Federalist, Biden “knows that while his national media allies are happy to turn a blind eye, sanctuary city mayors can’t tolerate the real-life consequences of their party’s policies. In short, the president knows his immigration policies are hurting Americans.”

Bedford adds: “The White House knows this, and they’re trying to hide it; to sanitize it; to keep it out of the view of their children. The White House knows this, and they’re using it to punish their opponents.”

Just this week, more than 100 House Democrats sent a letter to Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to encourage them to “use all the tools available to provide stability to undocumented individuals.” And back in May, five Democrat senators sent a similar letter requesting the “lawful permanent resident status for immigrants who are vital contributors to their American families and our communities.”

The letters make it seem as though we have secure borders and we’re turning people away.

But the opposite is true. So true, in fact, that the Biden administration is ordering the release of illegals onto the streets in places like Arizona and decreasing the number of migrants being sent back to Mexico.

Of course, immigration has always been about politics. But now that a big-city leftist mayor’s ox is being gored, it’s a whole new ball game — and the Democrats are on defense.

What we’ve known all along is now a proven fact: Democrats only like illegal immigrants when they’re in someone else’s backyard. For too long, weak-kneed Republicans were afraid to call them out for their hypocrisy. Now, that hypocrisy is there for everyone to see.