Leadership Quote by Tom Tancredo

The line works because it turns a sprawling policy fight into a moral accusation: the problem isn’t capacity, it’s character. Tom Tancredo doesn’t argue that border control is hard; he insists it’s easy and deliberately neglected. That rhetorical move collapses complexity into culpability, inviting the audience to stop debating logistics and start assigning blame.

The intent is straight political leverage. “We can” implies tools already exist - laws, fences, manpower, surveillance, detention, employer sanctions - and that any failure is proof of willful permissiveness. “We just choose not” points the finger at decision-makers: Washington, bureaucrats, and, by implication, elites who benefit from cheap labor or ideological commitments. It’s a populist frame that converts anxiety into a simple storyline: ordinary people want enforcement; powerful people refuse it.

Subtext does heavier work. The border becomes a stand-in for sovereignty itself, and “choice” suggests betrayal. It also sidesteps the economic and humanitarian engines of migration. If enforcement is merely a switch we refuse to flip, then the messy trade-offs - labor demand, asylum obligations, civil liberties, the cost of mass enforcement - can be treated as excuses rather than realities.

Context matters: Tancredo rose during the mid-2000s immigration flashpoints, when post-9/11 security politics fused with backlash against legalization proposals and demographic change. The quote is built for soundbite warfare: short, absolutist, and calibrated to make any nuanced position sound like surrender.