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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden faces the political risk associated with great ambition.
As one of his first acts, Biden proposed a radical overhaul of immigration last week that would pave the way for U.S. citizenship for the roughly 11 million people who are in the United States illegally. It would also codify provisions destroying some of President Donald Trump’s radical policies., in particular by trying to end the existing and protected legal status of many immigrants brought to the United States as children and crackdown on asylum rules.
This is precisely the type of measure that many Latino activists aspire to, especially after the difficult approach of the Trump era. But it must compete with other Biden legislative goals, including a $ 1.9 trillion plan to fight the coronavirus, an infrastructure package that promotes green energy initiatives, and a “public option” to expand it. ‘Health Insurance.
At the best of times, it would be difficult to enact such a wide range of laws. But in a tightly divided Congress, that might be impossible. And that makes Latinos, the fastest growing electoral bloc in the country, fear that Biden and congressional leaders could strike deals that weaken the finished product. too much – or not succeeding at all.
“This cannot be a situation where a simple visionary bill – a bill with a message – is sent to Congress and nothing happens with it,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, who advocates for low-income immigrants. “They are expected to deliver and there is now a mandate for Biden to be resolutely pro-immigrant and have a political imperative to do so, and Democrats are doing it too.”
If Latinos ultimately feel betrayed, the political consequences for Democrats could be lasting. The 2020 elections provided several warning signs that, despite democratic efforts to build a multiracial coalition, Latin American support could be threatened.
Biden has already been viewed with skepticism by some Latin American activists for his association with former President Barack Obama, dubbed “the chief expeller” for the record number of immigrants who were expelled from the country during his administration. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont beat Biden last year in the Nevada caucuses and in the California primary, which served as early barometers of the Latino vote.
In his race against Trump, Biden won the support of 63% of Latino voters versus 35% of Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 110,000 voters across the country. But Trump reduced the margin somewhat in some swing states such as Nevada and also received a bump from Latino men, 39% of whom supported him compared to 33% of Latin American women.
Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1996 to carry Arizona, in part because of strong grassroots support Mexican American groups opposed to the GOP’s strict immigration policies dating back decades. But he lost Florida by underperforming in its largest Hispanic county, Miami-Dade, where the anti-socialism message of the Trump campaign resonated with Cubans and some Venezuelan Americans.
Biden was also stranded in Texas, although his running mate Kamala Harris devoted precious and late campaign time there.. The note lost sparsely populated but heavily Mexican US counties along the Mexican border, where law enforcement is the primary employer and the GOP’s zero tolerance immigration policy has resonated.
There were more warning signs for House Democrats, who lost four seats in California and two in South Florida without winning any in Texas. Booming Hispanic populations reflected in new U.S. census figures could see Texas and Florida gaining congressional districts ahead of the 2022 midterm election, which could make addressing the issue all the more urgent for the Democrats.
The urgency is not lost on Biden. He spent months in private telling immigration advocates that major revisions would be high on his to-do list. As vice president, he observed that the Obama administration used larger majorities in Congress to speed up passage of a financial crisis stimulus bill and its health care bill while letting languish an overhaul of immigration.
“It means so much to us that a new president is proposing bold and visionary immigration reform on day one. Not on day 2. Not on day 3. Not a year later, ”said New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, senior sponsor of his chamber. the Biden package.
Menendez was part of a bipartisan immigration plan championed by senators from the “gang of eight” that collapsed in 2013. Obama then resorted to executive action to provide legal status to millions of young immigrants. President George W. Bush also pushed an immigration package – in an attempt to bolster Latino support for Republicans ahead of the 2008 election – only to see him fail in Congress.
Menendez admitted that the latest bill will need to find the support of at least 10 Republican senators to cross the 60 vote hurdle to reach the floor, and that he “has no illusions” how difficult it will be .
Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a moderate Republican from Florida, said Biden could find GOP support, but will likely have to settle for much less than what was in his original proposal.
“Many Republicans are worried about the main challenges,” Curbelo said, adding that the defense of the immigration crackdown by Trump and his supporters means there is “political peril for Republicans.”
But he also said Democrats could alienate part of their own base by appearing to prioritize the needs of people in the country illegally over those of struggling American citizens and “thus appearing to be going too far from a citizens’ perspective. swing and independent voters. “
Indeed, Democrats have not always consistently aligned behind an immigration overhaul, arguing that it could lead to an influx of cheap labor that hurts American workers. Some of the party senators joined with Republicans in overthrowing Bush’s bill.
Yet Latinos have not forgotten past immigration failures and have often blamed Democrats more than Republicans.
Chuck Roca, head of Nuestro PAC, which spent $ 4 million on Biden-boosting ads in Arizona, said that while Hispanics have traditionally tended to support Democrats, he’s started to see trends over the past decade. , where more and more are registering as independent or without party affiliation. . Those voters can still be won back, he said, but only if Latinos see real change on major issues such as immigration “even if it’s piecemeal”.
“They have to do something if they are to start addressing the loss of Latino voters,” said Rocha, who led Latin American voter outreach for Sanders’ presidential campaign. “They must do everything in their power now to get the Latinos back.”
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Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
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