The State Department’s May 11 rejection of the U.N.’s International Migration Review Forum declaration isn’t symbolic. It’s a statement of first principles: the American people decide who enters this country, not Geneva. I spent three decades advising single-family offices and UHNW families, and I watched California morph from an economic powerhouse into a cautionary tale. Clients who built generational wealth in this state started relocating capital years ago, not because they gave up, but because they read policy risk better than most. This rejection is the first honest thing the federal government has said about sovereignty in a long time, and it arrives not a moment too late.
The facts don’t require a lot of stage-setting. The International Migration Review Forum, hosted at U.N. headquarters May 5–8, adopted language the State Department correctly identified as an attempt to impose “guidelines, standards, or commitments that constrain the American people’s sovereign, democratic right to make decisions in the best interests of our country.” The framework echoes the 2018 Global Compact on Migration, the same document Trump wisely rejected during his first term. Secretary Rubio put it plainly: opening our doors to mass migration was a grave mistake that threatened social cohesion and the future of our people. Washington skipped the forum entirely. No participation, no signature, no diplomatic hedge. Just a flat no.
Border data confirms what enforcement advocates have argued for years: control works. Southwest border apprehensions in fiscal year 2025 hit 237,565, the lowest annual total in 55 years, 87 percent below the four-year average that preceded it. Daily apprehensions in September 2025 averaged 279, fewer in a full day than the previous administration processed in its first two hours. For five consecutive months through September 2025, U.S. Border Patrol released zero illegal aliens into American communities. Daily averages now run 95 percent below the Biden administration’s benchmark. When you hear politicians claim enforcement is cruel, ask them to explain those numbers.
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I served briefly in the Marine Corps and watched my brother deploy multiple times as a Green Beret. We learned early that ambiguous rules of engagement get people killed. The same logic applies at the border. You secure the line or own the consequences. Reagan understood this when he framed American security through strength rather than conciliation, a doctrine that translated directly to deterrence. The current statistics prove the point holds. Cartels lose revenue when entry is blocked. Migrant fatalities drop when smuggling pipelines collapse: recorded deaths in the Americas fell from 1,272 in 2024 to 408 in 2025, according to International Organization for Migration data. Families stop paying smugglers for death rides in shipping containers when the economics shift. Weak enforcement doesn’t produce compassion; it produces trafficking revenue and body counts.
Critics will call this isolationist. They’ll argue the U.N. framework promotes “safe, orderly, and regular migration” and that rejecting it signals indifference to global suffering. I’ve heard the same argument from people who defended sanctuary cities while encampment counts climbed and public budgets imploded. Here’s the rebuttal: sovereignty isn’t isolationism. It’s the only mechanism that allows a country to protect its citizens and, for that matter, make deliberate humanitarian choices rather than surrendering that decision to smugglers and U.N. committees. A government that can’t control who enters its borders can’t honor any promise it makes to the people inside them. My wife and I raised three boys in Orange County on the principles of accountability and earned outcomes. You don’t build that culture by making rule-following optional.
The policy path isn’t complicated. Keep rejecting every U.N. mechanism that erodes national authority. Complete physical and technological barrier construction. Fund interior enforcement without apology. Tie foreign aid to deportation cooperation. Shift immigration to merit-based criteria that filter for economic contribution rather than proximity to an open border. No catch-and-release. No criminal releases into communities. I’ve spent 15 years watching local budgets in smaller communities absorb the downstream costs of policies handed down from Sacramento and Washington. The wealthy families I advise demand fiduciary duty from investment managers; the same standard should apply to the people running the government.
The State Department’s statement makes one thing clear: “President Trump is focused on the interests of Americans, not foreigners or globalist bureaucrats.” The Framers didn't cross the Atlantic to take instructions from foreign committees. Neither should we. The U.N.’s migration apparatus has played a similar role for decades—setting frameworks, socializing compliance, and expecting deference. America just declined. My sons watched their father and uncle model the conviction that principles held under pressure are the only ones that count. This country just showed the same spine. The line is held. The only question now is whether we keep it.
Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He has a BS from Northeastern University and has completed postgraduate studies at UCLA, UPENN, and Harvard. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left's lies, new legislation wasn't needed to secure our border, just a new president.
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