CHICAGO — Democrats are doing a tricky two-step on immigration, keeping one foot in the familiar terrain of immigrant rights while putting the other in a newfound restrictionist stance on the border.
The strained choreography was on full display at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, as speakers alternately gave paeans to America as a nation of immigrants who deserve a pathway to citizenship and hammered former President Donald Trump for tanking a bipartisan bill to clamp down on border crossings.
Behind the have-it-all approach, though, is an unequivocal lurch to the right. Democrats have backed down from their decades-long insistence that any new border security measures must be paired with a pathway to citizenship and relief for undocumented immigrants. Vice Preisdent Kamala Harris is running ads touting toughness on the border , with a more muted campaign emphasis on the legalization policies that for decades have been their immigration lodestar.
Yet even as Democrats make their rightward turn, the party’s left flank is not putting up a fight. The lack of major backlash from progressives has been striking as activists swallow their concerns and dutifully line up behind the vice president. Their calculus is partially rooted in the stark contrast of the presidential match-up: Harris, the daughter of immigrants who hails from a diverse border state, versus Trump, who promises to expand on the draconian policies of his first administration by enacting a massive deportation regime.
“It’s the fear of Trump,” said longtime pro-immigrant advocate Erika Andiola, bluntly summing up the overriding factor compelling progressives to dial down their dissent on a host of issues in the name of party unity .
But beyond the November election is a larger tectonic shift, as Democrats and activists alike wrestle with the political assumptions and longstanding legislative strategy that has defined their approach to immigration for a generation.
“We recognize that until we take immigration off the table — off from being used as a political piñata by Republicans — we will not be able to pass comprehensive immigration reform,” said Domingo Garcia, chair of League of United Latin American Citizens PAC. The civil rights group endorsed Harris this month, its first formal presidential endorsement in its 95-year history.
In Chicago, immigration activists quietly displayed their desire for a pathway to citizenship on lapel pins, avoiding any visible friction over a policy platform that skews far more toward border security than it did just four years ago. The convention programming not only featured a young influencer telling his personal immigration story, but also the sheriff of a Texas border county who said Harris, not Trump, would get tough on crime at the border.
“We do not have to choose between a secure border and building an America for all. Under President Harris, we can and will do both,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, illustrating the Democrats’ needle-threading.
The Harris campaign believes that mix reflects where the electorate stands: Voters don’t want to see chaos at the border, but they also support policies to help long-term, undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. But such a balancing act is exceedingly tricky, as polling shows immigration is a significant vulnerability for Harris and her party.
Gone are the days when Democratic strivers compete to out-flank each other on the left by promising to decriminalize border crossings , as most of the presidential contenders, including Harris , did last cycle. The spike in crossings in the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration has handed Republicans a potent political cudgel, though the numbers are now about where they were when Trump left office.
The first acknowledgment of this liability came when President Joe Biden endorsed a bipartisan border security package that did not include the typical Democratic demands of relief for children who were brought to the country illegally by their parents. When Trump told Republicans to spike the deal, preferring to keep the border as a top campaign issue, Biden followed up with an executive order that clamped down on asylum at the southern border.
“It was beyond disappointing and upsetting, because it was the first time that I could recall in my lifetime that it was an enforcement-only approach, not a balanced approach,” said Sen. Alex Padilla , the California Democrat who is a leading champion of an overhaul to the immigration system. “I feared that we'd end up negotiating against ourselves, and that risked becoming the new position of the Democratic Party.”
But Padilla said his reservations have been calmed — both by the GOP reneging on the border deal and his faith that Harris is an ally to his cause.
“We’re in a different place now,” he said.
Padilla and other immigrant advocates were assuaged partly by a second Biden executive order to shield undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens from deportation. The administration estimates roughly 500,000 people are eligible for the new protections, which includes work authorization and a pathway to legal permanent residency.
“That was the more balanced approach that we had been calling for,” said Padilla, who noted that Harris’ stump speech includes a reference to comprehensive immigration reform.
The spousal relief executive order was a tangible win for those championing the pro-immigrant cause. The American Business Immigrant Coalition celebrated it as a hard-fought policy achievement at a reception this week in a Chicago cantina roughly two miles from the convention hall.
But when Biden gave his keynote convention address on Monday — the same day the policy went into effect — he did not speak about the achievement. For some advocates, it was a sign of how efforts to aid immigrants have receded into the background even as Democrats increasingly talk about border security. The policy got a shout-out from the stage later that week from Rep. Pete Aguilar, the highest-ranking Latino in Congress.
To Andiola — the progressive immigrant advocate — the lack of a plug by Biden was “such a missed opportunity. They could have had a speaker who had a spouse who was undocumented speaking about how much better their life is going to be because of this program.”
For now, however, many pro-immigrant advocates are shrugging off the slights. Much of their enthusiasm is specific to Harris, whose personal backstory is deeply entwined with the immigrant experience.
Her California roots help, too — no Democratic politician from the state can ascend the party ranks without building fluency in the movement’s policy goals. Harris has long-standing relationships with immigrant activists; her first visit the day after being elected to the Senate in 2016 was with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, one of the state’s most prominent advocacy groups.
“The thing I hold a lot of hope for is this is not something I have to explain to Kamala Harris,” said Angelica Salas, the group’s executive director.
As Harris raced to shore up support in the hours and days after Biden dropped out of the presidential race, leaders of the advocacy group UnidosUS had a high spot on her call list.
“She took the time, with all the phone calls she was making, to call the organization,” said Carmen Feliciano, vice president of policy and advocacy for the group. “So it definitely shows that Latinos are top of mind for her and for her future administration.”
By tending to those relationships, Harris has earned a considerable grace period from advocacy groups that are accustomed to demanding policy details from Democratic candidates. Feliciano acknowledged Harris hasn’t presented a specific immigration plan but signaled a willingness to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“We know, based on where she’s been in the past, that her policies are probably going to be aligned with UnidosUS’ policies,” Feliciano said.
So far, Harris’ history on immigration has been fodder for a raft of GOP attack ads. Republicans have quickly worked to make Harris the face of the border chaos that defined the bulk of Biden’s term. They have dubbed her the “border czar,” a misleading title that exaggerates Harris’ portfolio on the issue. (Biden had tasked the vice president with working with Central American countries to address the root causes of migration.)
In the early days of her campaign, the issue emerged as one of Harris’ biggest weak spots, moving her team to quickly take an aggressive posture. They emphasized her record as a border state attorney general who prosecuted transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers. They’ve also tried to put Trump on defense, calling out his role in killing the bipartisan border security bill and highlighting unpopular policies during his presidency like family separation. The strategy pulls a page directly from Biden’s playbook, as Harris touts the president’s asylum crackdown that has led to a more than 50 percent drop in border crossings. It also evokes the campaign run by Rep. Tom Suozzi , a Long Island Democrat who flipped a red seat in a special election this winter by running as a border hawk.
“My consultants and other people in my party were saying, ‘Hey, what are you doing talking about that?’ That's a Republican issue,” Suozzi said. “No, it’s not. This is what people are talking about. And good politicians are the ones that say what people are thinking already.”
Suozzi, who has emerged as a top messenger for Democrats on immigration and nabbed a convention speaking slot on Wednesday, told POLITICO that emphasizing border security is a necessity for those who want to see other reforms, such as a pathway to citizenship, further down the line.
“Immigration activists — and myself — we still want to do all those things. But the reality is that the people are not necessarily clamoring for that,” he said. “It’s the right policy. … It’s the right thing to do. But right now, what the people [are saying] is, ‘Hey, I'm looking at this stuff on TV, and I don't like the way that looks.’ So we've got to respond to the people.”
Democrats are feeling liberated to tack right on the issue in part because there is increasing evidence that being doves on immigration is not necessarily the way to win Latino votes, a crucial constituency for the party. In polling, Latinos consistently rank economic issues higher than immigration as a top concern. Surveys also show that a majority of Latinos support increased border security measures.
“There's tons of data saying Latinos aren't where the Democratic advocates are on this,” said Mike Madrid, a longtime GOP consultant who specializes in the Latino vote. “They are where Joe Biden started to pivot and where Kamala Harris has doubled down. That's where they're at. That's why [Democrats] made the shift.”
Some advocates have undergone a shift of their own. UnidosUS on Wednesday released a border policy proposal , marking the first time the group has waded specifically into the debate on enforcement. Acknowledging that Latinos have grown increasingly frustrated with a sense of disorder at the southern border, the group is trying to redirect the enforcement debate away from talk of harsh clampdowns to a policy that is “firm, fair and free of cruelty.”
Though pro-immigrant groups are giving Harris space to run her tough-talking campaign, they are still laying down an expectation that she’ll champion their interests if she wins — particularly if Democrats also capture control of Congress.
“They should pass an immigration reform bill within the first 100 days, a voting rights act within the first 100 days and take those issues off the table for any future elections,” said Garcia, of LULAC.
If Congress remains divided and sweeping legislation is off the table, Salas from CHIRLA said she expects Harris to “take every single power she has as an executive to provide freedom for our folks and protections to our undocumented community right now.”
One thing advocates say they will not stand for is Democrats passing an enforcement bill — and then letting the issue drop.
Padilla says the party’s history means there’s no need for them to worry.
“We've been talking about border security … for last six [or] nine months,” Padilla said. “We've been talking about pathways to citizenship for decades.”
Myah Ward contributed to this report.
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