Our immigration quandary
Sometime soon, we will get the text of the immigration legislation the Senate has been working on since late last year. Chuck Schumer has said he wants to have a vote on it during the week. While we don’t yet know the exact details, whatever legislation is put forth will be much more favorable to those favoring tighter immigration rules than has been proposed in a long time. Unlike previous efforts at immigration reform, what has been negotiated over isn’t comprehensive and doesn’t include any pathway to citizenship for those currently here illegally. Its focus is almost entirely on the enforcement side.
I wrote recently that I think Biden should be willing to accept stricter enforcement measures than he would if left to his own devices. He has been doing just that. He has emphasized the toughness of what is being negotiated over, including that it allocates money to hiring more border agents. His rhetoric on it has also been tougher such as emphasizing phrases like “shut down the border.”
My main reason for wanting Biden and congressional Democrats to be maximally flexible on immigration is because it has been tied to approving aid to Ukraine. I think that is the most important thing at stake right now. Ukraine needs our help badly and abandoning them would be a moral abomination and horrible policy. If Biden and Democrats accepting tougher immigration enforcement measures than they otherwise would is the price to pay to avoid that, it’s absolutely worth it.
There is often a tension between good policy and good politics. From most Democrats’ point of view, the immigration measures that could pass now aren’t good policy. Politically, however, it’s probably very good. Immigration is a liability for Biden and Democrats. Getting legislation enacted that would be seen as “securing the border” would give them something to point to and maybe help to defuse the issue. I doubt it would make immigration an asset, but if it reduces its potency that’s a win.
Believe it or not, it’s a good thing that immigration is getting more attention from Trump and Republicans. It’s an implicit acknowledgment that the economy is good and economic sentiment is finally starting to catch up with where things are. The jobs report on Friday was great by almost any metric and put to rest the idea that the labor market is slowing down. Meanwhile, inflation continues to decrease and it’s only a matter of time before interest rates are lowered.
If Trump loses the economy as an issue or if it is a draw, that’s a big problem for him. The economy has been Biden’s biggest liability for over two years, but now even Trump’s team is acknowledging it’s not going to be as easy as they thought to attack him on it. Trump will need some other issue to talk about to gain an advantage. You can expect to hear a lot more on immigration from him and other Republicans.
I think the most important goal by far should be keeping Trump away from the White House. That doesn’t mean every bad policy in the world should be enacted to beat him. What it does mean is those who don’t want him to be president again should be very flexible in trying to minimize his odds of winning. If accepting some not great immigration measures is going to help accomplish that, it’s worth doing.
For Republicans, the situation is the opposite. The soon-to-be-introduced legislation is going to be full of things they want. They have more leverage now on immigration than they have had in a long time. There is a solid chance this is as good as it’s going to get for them. Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John Thune are well aware of that. That’s why they have been imploring House Republicans to take whatever deal is agreed to in the Senate. If Trump wins in November, Democrats aren’t going to cooperate at all.
The biggest obstacle to passing immigration legislation is House Republicans. They’re much more beholden to Trump than their Senate colleagues are. Trump has come out against any immigration legislation and has demanded Republicans kill whatever is put forth. He has openly said he wants to sabotage negotiations so he can have immigration as an issue to attack Biden on.
You have to thank him for being honest, but that’s not smart or savvy. Sabotaging legislation to keep it as an election issue isn’t unheard of. What is unheard of is the nominee of a major party for president openly saying they want to do that.
You don’t come out and say that’s what you’re doing. You say you’re doing it for every reason other than that. I doubt immigration will go from being an asset for Trump to a liability. That said, if there was ever a way to do that, openly sabotaging efforts to pass immigration legislation and crowing about it non-stop would be the way to go.
Sabotaging legislation to keep it as an election issue is like Fight Club. The first rule is you do not talk about it. The second rule is you DO NOT talk about it.
Republicans will have to decide whether they can take yes for an answer. Some of them, like Mike Johnson, have already changed their tune. Now, they’re saying no legislation is needed. Biden just has to issue some executive orders and the border will be secure.
That begs the question. Why didn’t Trump issue those orders when he was in office? Of course, when Trump was in office, the excuse was that legislation was needed because the president can’t secure the border on his own. One could be forgiven for thinking certain people aren’t arguing in good faith.
Do congressional Republicans actually want to secure the border or do they just want to talk about it? There isn’t any consensus on that. Some Senate and House Republicans want to get legislation enacted. Others openly say they don’t want to do anything and want to wait for Trump to win so they can enact their dream legislation. In other words, they don’t really want to do anything, they just want to entertain their audience and rant and rave because that’s what really matters to them.
If Republicans opt to go with the entertainment wing of their party and not pass anything, it will be Olympic level malpractice. Even if it’s good politics, it’s no guarantee of victory. It’s entirely plausible they could blow up the deal and Biden wins anyway. If that happens, they’ll be left with nothing and will lose the leverage they have now should talks resume later. What’s going on now would be like if a Republican president was trying to get paid parental leave legislation enacted and was willing to let congressional Democrats dictate its terms. I don’t care how much it would benefit a Republican president, I guarantee you every Democrat in Congress would jump at that opportunity with gusto.
Prioritizing the enactment of legislation over immediate political opportunity is a feature for Democrats, but a bug for Republicans. For example, in 2020, when Democrats controlled the House, they could have refused to provide any aid to combat the pandemic. Had they done so, the economy would have fallen off a cliff and they may have beaten Trump in a landslide and taken down tons of Republicans with him.
Luckily for everyone, they didn’t do that and they got to have a big say in how the aid was crafted. True, it benefitted Trump and probably saved him from losing in the rout he deserved. It may not have been the best politics, but it was definitely the right policy and I’m glad they did it.
How we got here
The politics of immigration today are very different from where they were not too long ago. In 2013, the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform on a bipartisan vote. It contained enforcement measures, but also included a pathway to citizenship for many of those who were here illegally. The House, then controlled by Republicans, refused to bring it up for a vote and it died.
The backdrop of that saga was the 2012 election. Mitt Romney had lost and was seen as having been too harsh on immigration. Part of the solution, argued for in an “autopsy” report put out by the Republican National Committee, was to support comprehensive immigration reform. Only then could Republicans overcome their deficit with Hispanic voters and win the White House.
Even after immigration reform died in Congress, that mentality was still prevalent. Establishment Republicans, i.e., party leadership, national party officials, donors, consultants, etc., almost all believed it. Their chosen candidate in 2016 was Jeb Bush. He was the key to winning back Hispanic voters in part because of his support for comprehensive immigration reform. If Republicans nominated him they would be back in the White House in short order. All other policies like entitlement reform and tax cuts for those at the top didn’t need to change.
Everything was set in motion. Bush was the heir apparent. He was a former governor of a swing state, didn’t come off as harsh or extreme, spoke Spanish, had high name recognition and tons of donor support. As we all know, things didn’t go according to plan.
Trump’s stance on immigration was 180 degrees different from Bush’s. He advocated for building a wall and mass deportation and called Mexicans rapists. Bush quickly flamed out, Trump won the nomination going away and the rest is history. Since Trump won, Republicans have abandoned any effort at pushing for comprehensive immigration reform and have been entirely focused on enforcement measures.
The effect of the rise of Trump on Republican immigration policy is noteworthy in many respects. One of those is that it’s the one major issue where he has definitively moved Republicans to the right. Trump is certainly on the political right, but he has moved Republicans leftward on some key issues. Most notably, he has opposed any effort to cut Medicare or Social Security. On most other issues, he’s just like a typical Republican.
I wish that was all, but Trump and his awfulness isn’t the full story of how we got to where we are now. As I have said before, immigration is one major issue where Democrats have dropped the ball since the Obama years. Rather than sticking with comprehensive immigration reform like what had been passed by the Senate in 2013, many Democrats, particularly on the left and far left, became very unenthusiastic about immigration enforcement. On rhetoric, talk of enforcement largely vanished. On substance, almost all Democrats moved leftward to varying degrees.
Some ideas advocated for since 2016 included abolishing ICE, decriminalizing border crossings, allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections and giving illegal immigrants health insurance. Even though the right candidate was nominated, the 2020 primary was awful and the leftward shift on immigration was a big part of it. One candidate after another did everything they could to emphasize how against immigration enforcement they were and make Trump look reasonable by comparison.
Much of the reason for why the most left-wing Democrats became hostile towards any immigration enforcement was their Pavlovian reaction to anything having to do with Trump. Because he was a jackass and favored harsh immigration measures that meant they had to favor the opposite. Reflexive hatred of Trump wasn’t the only part of it though.
A big part of the thinking driving the left since 2016, especially the far left, is defending what they see as marginalized groups. Those who were here illegally were viciously attacked by Trump and his ilk and they needed to be protected. In their eyes, support for open borders was about being compassionate and humanitarian.
Somewhat related to that sentiment, it has been an article of faith among many on the left that demographics are destiny. It really took off after Obama was reelected in 2012, based on exit polling that was bad.[i] Because the country is becoming more diverse, the thinking went, that meant Democrats would automatically be dominant. All that was needed was to mobilize this new coalition of the ascendant. The way to mobilize them was to go way out into left field. In the case of mobilizing Hispanic voters, the way to do it was to oppose immigration enforcement and advocate for open borders.
The entire mobilization idea is completely false and has been debunked in one election cycle after another. There is no stash of super left-wing non-voters just waiting to be fired up. The fantasy of mobilizing large numbers of such voters to create a permanent majority can’t die fast enough.
The conventional wisdom, believed by most Democrats and many Republicans, that the key to winning Hispanic voters was to support comprehensive immigration reform was dented in 2016 and shattered in 2020. Despite his rhetoric on and hostility towards immigration, Trump won in 2016. In 2020, he improved substantially with Hispanic voters and did very well in heavily Hispanic areas like South Texas and South Florida.
Contrary to what many thought, Hispanic voters aren’t singularly focused on immigration. They may not like harsh rhetoric on it, but it’s clearly not a deal breaker for many of them. Like everyone else, Hispanic voters care about issues like healthcare, jobs, the economy, education, etc. Many Hispanic voters are working-class and working-class voters tend to be much less receptive to higher immigration levels than middle and upper-class voters.
It’s important to remember that a large majority of Hispanics are of Mexican descent. That is particularly true in Texas and the southwestern states. For much of the 2000s, the biggest source of border crossings was people from Mexico. That created some amount of solidarity and sympathy for those who came here illegally from those who were long-time residents and citizens.
Since the early 2000s, however, immigration from Mexico has dropped off substantially. Those coming in from Mexico now are seldom from there. The solidarity and sympathy that existed before is no longer there. Humans are a tribal specie. The solidarity and sympathy that long-time residents and citizens may have felt towards those from Mexico doesn’t carry over to people from anywhere else.
Since Biden took office, there has been a surge in migration at the border. Not all of that is his fault, but it is his problem. At a minimum, there is a perception in other countries that his administration is much friendlier. With that being the case, many have decided they will come here, try to claim asylum and stay here while they’re waiting for it. That process can last many years and the gamble seems to be that either they will be granted asylum or something else will happen that lets them remain here.
The immigration system is a mess and has been for a long time. I’m yet to find a single person who doesn’t think that. Efforts at comprehensive immigration reform have passed the Senate with support from the White House only to be killed in the House. The last time any kind of comprehensive immigration legislation was enacted was during the 1960s.
Democrats have tended to be more supportive of comprehensive immigration reform than Republicans, but there are and have been plenty of Republicans in favor of it, too. George W Bush was in favor of it when he was in office. John McCain had long worked on that issue and so has Lindsey Graham. Even when some Republicans were more pro-immigration, there has been a big part of the party that is not. That part has had much more influence in the House and on the state and local levels, i.e., Joe Arpaio.
For all the attention it gets and passions it inspires, immigration hasn’t been a priority for either party when they’ve been in charge. Obama and Biden both campaigned on it, but prioritized health care and climate change, respectively. Trump talked plenty about it, but isn’t actually interested in it because that would require him to care about something other than himself. His legislative priorities (really McConnell and Paul Ryan’s) were repealing the Affordable Care Act and cutting taxes.
It would certainly be nice to fix our immigration system. Immigration is a good thing and brings far more benefits than costs. We also need to enforce our immigration laws and can’t invite the whole world in. I have some ideas for what a much better immigration system would look like, but that’s for another blog post.
[i] In general, exit polling is awful. It’s notoriously unreliable. When I’m reading something and it cites exit polls for anything other than to say they’re not reliable, I quit reading whatever it is. Anyone who cites exit polls as evidence for anything has no business writing about politics.