Bonar is the Nebraska Chapter Coordinator of Mormon Women for Ethical Government. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband and three children.
In recent years, the approach by Congress to immigration seems to be a never-ending game of "Pin the Blame on the Other Party." At face value, the faults of the immigration system are not mutually obvious, and the solutions are not agreeably attainable. One party’s approach to immigration may be criticized as idealistic. The other’s tactic is viewed as draconian. Meanwhile, the immigration system remains frustrated, and the extended support agencies, economy, and general public suffers.
If both sides were willing to work together to iron out the details, the immigration system would be principled and pragmatic — the best of both worlds. That’s why collaboration between Republicans and Democrats needs to be encouraged and praised.
My representative, Don Bacon of Nebraska, is such a collaborator. He has a history of supporting immigration reform legislation that has benefited the greater Omaha area he represents. Rep. Bacon is a Republican, his district is purple, and his state is red. His approach to that tension is to be willing to work with members of both parties to collaborate on legislation that gets across the finish line and then benefits the general public.
Rep. Bacon continued his pattern of bipartisan work to benefit his state by choosing to support the Afghan Adjustment Act (AAA) last month. This bill provides a pathway for legal permanent residency and a right to work in the U.S. for our Afghan allies who served alongside Americans in the war in Afghanistan.
The AAA establishes additional vetting procedures for applicants and expands eligibility for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. Currently, most Afghans who have been admitted to the U.S. are on humanitarian parole — a program that allows applicants to stay in the U.S. temporarily, usually two years. This humanitarian parole has recently been extended for those who reapply, but once that expires again, parolees face loss of jobs, loss of homes, and deportation from the country. Parolees can try for permanent status by applying for asylum, but this system is severely backlogged and not likely to bring permanency before their parole expires again. The AAA would solve this problem by putting vetted Afghans on legal footing similar to resettled refugees, saving time and precious government resources.
Passing the AAA would be a great support for Afghan evacuees and their families, and it would ease the burdens of the community agencies that are working so hard to assist the refugee and immigrant communities. Afghans have contributed to American society by entering the workforce, creating businesses, attending schools, and adding richness to neighborhoods. Because passage of the AAA failed in the last Congress and may not be a guarantee in this Congress, many Afghans experience anxiety over the possibility of losing their new American homes and lives. The prosperity and safety of living in the U.S. have cemented many Afghans’ desires to stay in the U.S. and to continue supporting and contributing to the American way. However, the blessing of living in the U.S. is time bound unless the AAA is passed with bipartisan support in Congress.
Some lawmakers are hesitant to solve this issue when they feel solving a different immigration issue — at the border — is paramount. However, the AAA is as much a national security and veteran issue as it is an immigration issue. It is critical for the U.S. to be an honorable ally to those who served alongside our military and other agencies in the war in Afghanistan. Despite the country’s fall to Taliban rule, the U.S. needs to keep its promises of providing legal permanent residence to those who qualify and are vetted under the Afghan Adjustment Act.
Some also express concern that other immigrant groups — who are desperately waiting to obtain lawful permanent resident status — feel betrayed that Afghans would receive preferential treatment over them. Immigration is a hot issue that has faced political gridlock for more than three decades. This gridlock will never be broken if immigration continues to be viewed as a zero-sum game. A win for one group provides hope for another group, and the bipartisan relationships fostered through one improvement in our immigration system could help enable many more.
Lawmakers in Washington need to build bridges of cooperation between the two parties and not construct taller walls of division. Much work can be done with the cooperation and collaboration of members of both parties. Immigration will no longer be a migraine of an issue but a functioning system of the U.S. that both parties can be proud of and Americans can celebrate. Collaboration between Republicans and Democrats should no longer be a rarity. It should be the accepted reality.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.