This piece takes apart a New York Times take on immigration that laments potential labor gaps—right down to the fate of shrub trimming—while arguing that enforcing immigration laws and prioritizing Americans’ jobs is the correct path forward.

In the Latest Illegal Immigrant Sob Story, NY Times Hilariously Laments, ‘Who Will Cut the Shrubs?’

The New York Times ran a scenario imagining an America with tightened immigration and suggested everyday services might suffer, including landscaping. The paper tied wage increases in construction to deportations and warned that other trades relying on immigrant workers could feel pain. The framing treats illegal entry as a mere labor supply problem rather than a law-and-order issue.

One landscaping executive in Chicago described crews she said were often made up of immigrants and called them “easy deportation targets over the summer.” She added, “It’s going to be much more competitive to find that individual who’s been a foreman or a supervisor and has years of experience. We know that drives costs up.” That quote reflects a focus on immediate inconvenience and higher prices, not the principle of enforcing immigration laws.

The Times then suggested customers might simply skip decorative shrubs if prices climb, presenting that as evidence the policy is heartless. Framing enforcement as a crisis about curb appeal understates the larger priorities at stake: legality, public safety, and economic fairness for American workers. The paper’s tone makes border control sound like a villainous plot to deprive elites of yard maintenance services.

There’s an odd reflex among some media outlets to treat any enforcement action as a catastrophe, while downplaying the effects of illegal migration on wages, housing, schools, and public services. That reflex explains why the paper pivoted from landscaping to a roster of sob stories—local festivals suffering, parents nervous about sending kids to school—without centering the legal and civic obligations involved. Those anecdotes aim to tug at heartstrings instead of engaging with policy trade-offs.

The Times also examined Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, noting population shifts and casting the Amish as “a community that has refused to assimilate.” That characterization confused religious separation with the actions of people who entered the country unlawfully. The Amish maintain a distinct way of life by choice and protected belief, which is not the same as breaching immigration laws and seeking government resources.

Commentators who habitually excuse illegal entry treat immigrant labor like an entitlement that overrides citizens’ claims to work and community stability. Mark Krikorian observed, “Working-class Americans are just contemptible, even when the immigrants display all the same qualities that in working-class Americans they find contemptible.” That blunt line highlights a media double standard: praise for immigrant grit versus skepticism when the same traits show up in native workers.

The broader point is simple and political: enforcing borders is not about cruelty, it is about upholding law and protecting American livelihoods. Complaints about shrubbery and pool boys make for amusing headlines, but they do not change the fact that unchecked illegal migration creates pressure on wages and public services. Prioritizing American workers and legal immigration channels remains a core conservative position.

Coverage that treats enforcement as an unalloyed humanitarian disaster often ignores the consequences of lawlessness for citizens who obey the rules. When debate centers on who will tend private hedges, it distracts from necessary conversations about legal immigration, labor market integrity, and national sovereignty. That distraction serves the interests of open-borders advocacy more than it serves communities facing the real impacts of illegal entry.

Ultimately, the media’s fixation on the most trivial disruptions risks trivializing a serious policy debate. Lawful immigration systems exist to balance labor needs, social cohesion, and national security; those systems are undermined when illegal entry goes unchecked. Reporting that reduces the debate to yard care misses the point and undercuts citizens’ stake in enforcing the rule of law.

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.