Democratic Fracture of Immigration: Support for undocumented migrants goes against border security

The Ohio representative, Tim Ryan, one of the last presidential candidates, says Democrats can beat President Trump only on the issue of immigration, in Popular places like the Young & # 39; s Stown neighborhood: Ryan: Start by talking to voters about border security.

"You can not come to Ohio and the Great Lakes states and provide them with immigration without first and foremost assuring people that you are going to protect their children," said Ryan. "It must be a lot smarter and more effective than it is now."

But so far this year, most of Ryan's rivals have chosen a different path, almost exclusively focused on denouncing Trump's policy as non-American, fanatical and inhumane. At the same time, Democrats are proposing more welcoming policies for undocumented immigrants than those proposed by President Barack Obama or, in some cases, by Hillary Clinton, the party's last candidate.

The result is a much more liberal Democratic primary debate on immigration than any previous campaign, fueling dissent over the fact that the party is minimizing the concern over the growing number of immigrants crossing the border. and gives Trump a useless boost in the key turning states to enliven his left-wing voters.

The gulf between Liberal Democrat primary voters and White White working class voters in immigration security is at the heart of the problem.

The numbers help explain Trump's strategy of fanning the fear of immigration while creating controversy around the subject that tends to enraged Democratic voters. In a typical provocation, Trump said on Friday that he was planning to release immigrants held in liberal cities as a punishment for the Democrats' refusal to change immigration laws. A few weeks earlier, he called the Democrats "a party with open borders, drugs and crime."

These statements are intended in part to remove white voters from the working class who might otherwise choose democrats.

A December poll by the Pew Research Center focused on demographic trends that would make the country mostly non-white by 2050. Of the white respondents, 46% thought that change would weaken US customs and values, compared to 23% said he would strengthen them.

Those without university degrees were more likely to say that change would weaken the country, and there were also clear regional differences: 37% of whites in western states said that change would weaken customs and values, compared to 47% of Whites in the Midwest States.

In addition, a January Quinnipiac survey found that 5% of Democratic voters agreed with the unsupported assertion that undocumented immigrants were more likely to commit crimes than US citizens. This compared to 24% of independent voters and 39% of white voters without a university degree.

"There is something about the issue of immigration that makes people lose sight of where the American public is," said Pete Brodnitz, a Democratic pollster who worked on the race. in the House in 2018 and has done extensive research on white voters who are not educated students. "It becomes a really difficult problem if we choose to talk about it in terms that do not resemble the way the American people talk about it."

The former Housing Secretary, Julián Castro, who said the border is now "safer" than ever, wants to remove the criminal charges against people who cross without permission. Senator Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Whose only mention of border security in her announcement was a condemnation of the separation of children, recently introduced a bill to allow undocumented youth to work in Congress. And the new regime of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Which has been endorsed by many of his rivals, would extend free health care to 11 million undocumented immigrants not covered by the Affordable Care Act. . .

In Congress, a similar pivot has emerged, where some Democrats have called for new limits on the funding of immigration detention and immigration enforcement, despite the substantial increase in in recent months the number of migrants held at the border. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Is mocked by Democrats for developing an "allergy to border security."

The discrepancy between the party's immigration rhetoric and the stubborn realities of general elections could create challenges, particularly in the Great Lakes states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of which have been narrowly won by Trump in 2016.

Several Democratic strategists involved in presidential politics are worried. Voters in the Democratic primary have been radicalized by anger over the controversial and insensitive approach to Trump's race of immigration. It's a mistake that many people within the party have concluded in 2016, when Clinton gave in to Trump the security aspect of immigration, with the goal of increasing the number of people in the party. enthusiasm of young and non-white voters. At a forum in 2015, she had promised to be a "much less severe and aggressive performer" than Obama, deemed too punitive by Hispanic groups.

The bet of his campaign was to be able to lead to the participation of Democrats in the bases without sacrificing too much support among the whites of the working class of the Upper Midwest. Something closer to the reverse happened on election day.

In recent days, Obama has even warned his party of the issue of immigration. At a public meeting held on April 6 in Germany, he implored his audience to show more empathy for those who fear that increased immigration will weaken their communities.

"To combat the clearly racist motivations of some, we can not call all people who are disrupted by immigration" racist ", he said.

Survey figures suggest differences in policy focus depending on the other side of the party's strategic division between candidates. Some, like Ryan and Joe Biden, who are expected to join the race soon, see victory in the Midwest as essential to victory at the constituency and place greater priority on the concerns of white voters in the working class.

Others, like Castro, have called on border states to win, such as Arizona and its home state, Texas, which have long been part of the Republican column, a strategy requiring a increased participation of Hispanics and immigrants' supporters. Candidates like Harris and Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) Are more interested in the growing participation of urban and non-white communities and have so far focused their discourse on immigration on the morality of Trump's policies.

"If you want to appeal to the people of the Midwest, it's mostly because people see it as a security issue," Brodnitz said. "If you want to talk about it in Arizona, they will probably be more likely to say that it's more of a human treatment of people at the border."

For Democrats seeking to improve the margins of white voters in the Midwest, the mid-term elections of 2018 seem to point a way.

Senator Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) Was reelected in a fight against the hard line of immigration focusing on the search for bipartite solutions to immigration including increased security at the border. In one of her first commercials, Representative Xochitl Torres Small (DN.M.), who won Trump District leaning along the border, showed herself walking along a fence . "We must uphold our borders and enforce our laws against violent traffickers and criminals," she said.

This same strategy could be effective now, say some Democratic advisers, in the face of Trump's almost daily attempts to assert that the party does not care about security.

"Democrats have been accused of being for open borders, and they have to refute this accusation, which is inaccurate," said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who had been advising Clinton's 2016 campaign on the issues raised. ;immigration. "Democratic candidates should express their reasoning for smart and effective implementation of borders."

This is a change that some candidates have started to make with caution. Former Congressman Beto O'Rourke (D-Tex.), Said weeks before announcing his candidacy for the presidency, wishing to remove the border barriers between Mexico and the United States. More recently, he has changed his position.

"I'm not for open borders," he said during a recent appearance in Iowa. "I think there are places where physical barriers along the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border make sense."

At a public meeting in Oskaloosa, Iowa on April 7, Sanders also rejected an elector's question suggesting he was in favor of "opening the borders".

"If you open the borders, my God, there will be a lot of poverty in this world and you will have people from all over the world," said Sanders. "And I do not think it's something we can do for the moment. I can not do it. So, this is not my position. "

Ryan, who launched his campaign on April 4, said the opioid addiction epidemic in the Midwest had made immigration difficult for many residents in the area, given the influx of people. heroin and fentanyl from Mexico.

The key, he says, is to tell voters that Trump is only playing politics on the issue, even though Democrats offer a more compassionate approach to the immigrants currently living in the country.

"We could do it a lot better than him to make them feel safer," he said. "They really understand that he's trying to make this issue a political issue."

Correction: A previous version of this report incorrectly quoted Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg. He said: "Democratic candidates should explain their reasoning for smart and effective border enforcement."