With Republicans Winning on Immigration, Demoralized Democrats See Inflection Point

It’s not exactly news that Ronald Reagan’s views on immigration and policy that led to amnesty for three million immigrants in 1986 are no longer welcome in the modern Republican Party after the rise of former president Donald Trump. But what has gone less noticed is the way the Democratic Party has drastically transformed its rhetoric and policy pronouncements around immigration over the last decade. It's why in prominent circles of the party's left flank, there is the dejected view that on narrative and now immigration policy, Republicans have won. The issue came into sharp focus after President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that he was paving the way for a new 20-mile section of border wall to be built in South Texas by waiving more than two dozen federal environmental laws by executive action. While the administration stressed that the money for the wall was already appropriated by the Trump administration, who saw the unfinished wall as something of a crown jewel of its restrictionist immigration theory, many on the left responded angrily at what it viewed as a betrayal. In an MSNBC column entitled "There's no excusing Joe Biden deciding to add to Donald Trump's border wall," columnist Julio Ricardo Varela quoted Biden telling Black and Latino journalists as a candidate in the summer of 2020 that "there will not be another foot of wall constructed." Varela went on to declare "such a heel turn from Biden on the construction of a border wall could make some Latino voters question their support for his re-election," at a time when the Biden campaign is laser-focused on winning back Hispanic voters who have drifted from the party. In a piece titled "The Triumph of Trump’s Anti-Migrant Cruelty," in the liberal The New Republic, Felipe De La Hoz declared the news marked the "official death of the pro-immigrant consensus that solidified in mainstream Democratic circles (and blue cities especially) during the Trump administration—and it made clear that although Trump lost in 2020, his immigration policies have won out." While one of Biden's first actions as president was to release a proclamation stating that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution,” a number of Democrats in blue states are also now espousing views that are typically more at home in the Republican Party. An advisor for New York City Mayor Eric Adams said this month that the federal government, Congress, and the president have to do their job, which is to "close the borders." That day, New York Governor Kathy Hochul added that Congress must "have a limit on who can come across the border. It is too open right now. People coming from all over the world are finding their way through.” Read More Clogged US Immigration Courts Aggravating the Southern Border Crisis: Report Biden and Republicans Need Immigration Reform — Now Pence Blames Biden for ‘Man-Made’ Crisis at the Border Why Biden Can’t Win With Either Side on Immigration 25 Republican Governors Call on Biden to Release Immigration Data Sen. Ted Cruz Blasts Biden Border Wall Move as ‘Window Dressing’ US President Joe Biden walks along the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023 US President Joe Biden walks along the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images The border is in crisis narrative now seemingly accepted by senior Democrats represents a stark shift from 2015, when in the midst of a heated primary, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders espoused immigration platforms that would now seem to be written in another country, and certainly during a different political time. Clinton constantly said she would be open to going farther than Barack Obama did on immigration, who himself forged ahead on DACA and DAPA programs that were later caught in legal limbo. As both campaigns jockeyed to be seen as most progressive on immigration, Sanders announced in the fall of 2015 a plan to bring back deported immigrants, a plan that if announced by a Democrat now would not just lead Fox News and rightwing media, but also be seen dramatically at odds with current party orthodoxy. Democrats who spoke with The Messenger say the party is now adrift on the issue of immigration and at the whim of a Republican Party that is winning the political and narrative fight on the border. The party, they say, must fight back or risk the issue being further weaponized to their detriment in 2024. "Democrats have always taken their cue from non-Hispanics — they've never taken their cue on immigration from Hispanics," former congressman Luis Gutierrez, a longtime champion on immigration reform, said. There was a glimmer during Obama's presidency, he said, "but when it got tough they turned their back." Gutierrez argued that while Democrats charged forward on politically painful issues like the assault weapons ban and Obamacare despite the costs to members who lost their seats, the thought process from the Democratic caucus on immigration was always a calculation of whether it would lose the party the majority in Congress. "We have never fully marched forward when it comes to immigration reform and today I believe it is more pervasive than ever before," he said, before turning to the current moment. "Among the Democratic elite, starting with the Biden administration on down, they fear immigration." A senior Democratic lawmaker told The Messenger that the pendulum swings back and forth on immigration policy, noting that in the 1990's Democrats passed more restrictive immigration laws and a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed them. Later, Dreamer activists and the larger immigration movement pushed the Obama administration on overhauling the system through legislation, which came close multiple times but never passed, leading to executive actions that were challenged, with DACA still hanging in the balance today. "In the meantime you have a Republican Party who have become a lot more hostile towards immigrants and asylum seekers," the source said, calling some of their Republican colleagues "a**holes generally" because "a lot are prejudiced" against Latin American immigrants. "So when the Biden administration decided to keep some of Trump's policies in place and play all defense and hide and seek on the immigration issue, it emboldened Republicans to go even further to the right — and that's what you see today." Biden introduced a comprehensive immigration reform package at the outset of his presidency and was saddled with an asylum system Democrats described as broken and gutted and fueled by Trump and his advisor Stephen Miller's hardline stances on immigration, which they say made it harder to govern effectively. Democrats have in recent years passed the Dream Act and the Farmworker Modernization Act in the House, bills that did not get traction in the Senate. "Many Republican colleagues have moved so far right, they literally want to end immigration as we know it," Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar, a national co-chair for Biden's campaign, told The Messenger. "HR-2 would jail every asylum seeker and deport children, among other draconian things." Escobar said she "bristles" when people say Biden has done the same thing Trump did. "Donald Trump never opened up legal pathways, Donald Trump jailed families, Donald Trump separated small children from their mothers," she said. "I know some advocates and members of Congress are not happy with President Biden's efforts, but what can not go unrecognized is he only has the tools available to him that Congress has given him." Asked for comment, the Department of Homeland Security referred The Messenger to a fact sheet it released last month that said as a result of Congress’ "failure" to enact reform, the administration has been using the limited tools it has available to secure the border and build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system while "leading the largest expansion of lawful pathways for immigration in decades." It also urged passage of fully funded emergency appropriations, including the $4 billion supplemental funding request for border security, as requested by Biden this past summer. DHS also said it was combating smugglers, deploying a military personnel surge to support border efforts, expediting family removals of those without a lawful basis to be in the country, and working with international partners to speed removals and returns. But with border enforcement agents now making more than 9,000 arrests a day, which is a near record, and September's apprehensions surpassed only by the records set in May and December 2022, Republicans have a ripe target in the border they say is plainly in crisis. "Biden’s botched open borders policies are impacting the lives of Americans all across the country, regardless of political affiliation," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who once supported the Senate's bipartisan Gang of 8 for immigration reform during the Obama era, but has since fallen more in line with his party's views, told The Messenger. "The world is a dangerous place and we don’t know who is illegally entering our nation. This unprecedented chaos puts all of our communities at risk. The Biden Administration and left-wing activists need to answer for their reckless policies, which are undermining our national security interests and sovereignty.” It's no surprise that Rubio is slamming the Biden administration on the border, but it's unusual to see criticism extend to a group like FWD.us, a bipartisan immigration advocacy organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech and business leaders that has worked with Democrats for a decade. While its president, Todd Schulte, said the administration has done "transformative" work in 2023 on opening up legal pathways, he told The Messenger Biden's rhetoric as a candidate and first two years as president did not align successfully, citing keeping the Trump-era Title 42 policy as a mistake. "Biden shifted left rhetorically, but right on policy in ways that didn’t reduce migration [at ports of entry], which is not a good place to be politically," Schulte said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.