Progressives may want something approaching open borders, but other Democratic voters don’t.
You might think President Biden would be eager to dispel the notion that he’s some doddering figurehead taking orders from progressive puppeteers who are really in control. Yet his immigration priorities thus far have reinforced that caricature.
While the Department of Homeland Security is dealing with an unprecedented crush of migrants on the southern border that is straining shelter capacity and raising Covid concerns, Mr. Biden is urging his fellow Democrats in Congress to move forward with two amnesty proposals that would affect millions of people who reside in the U.S. illegally. One would provide a path to citizenship for people brought here illegally as children, the so-called Dreamers. The other would legalize the status of undocumented farmhands.
The problem with both measures has less to do with their substance than with their timing and the message to other would-be migrants considering a trek north. Immigration restrictionists with a zero-sum view of labor markets accuse foreign workers of stealing jobs and depressing wages. But the people who would benefit from these bills were already part of a thriving U.S. labor force that, before the pandemic, saw record-low unemployment rates, wages rising fastest for the less-skilled, and a pronounced worker shortage in several industries.
You might think President Biden would be eager to dispel the notion that he’s some doddering figurehead taking orders from progressive puppeteers who are really in control. Yet his immigration priorities thus far have reinforced that caricature.
While the Department of Homeland Security is dealing with an unprecedented crush of migrants on the southern border that is straining shelter capacity and raising Covid concerns, Mr. Biden is urging his fellow Democrats in Congress to move forward with two amnesty proposals that would affect millions of people who reside in the U.S. illegally. One would provide a path to citizenship for people brought here illegally as children, the so-called Dreamers. The other would legalize the status of undocumented farmhands.
The problem with both measures has less to do with their substance than with their timing and the message to other would-be migrants considering a trek north. Immigration restrictionists with a zero-sum view of labor markets accuse foreign workers of stealing jobs and depressing wages. But the people who would benefit from these bills were already part of a thriving U.S. labor force that, before the pandemic, saw record-low unemployment rates, wages rising fastest for the less-skilled, and a pronounced worker shortage in several industries.
The question is why the Biden administration is pushing for the largest amnesty in history while Border Patrol agents are already at wit’s end and when homeland security officials are anticipating the situation will worsen as the weather gets warmer. The administration has boastfully reversed border-security policies put in place by Donald Trump, seemingly without regard for whether they were effective. This has won Mr. Biden plaudits in the media, but it also has undermined efforts on both sides of the border to reduce illegal crossings. The president should figure out which is more important.
“Under Mr. Trump’s Remain in Mexico Policy, which deported migrants to Mexico to wait out their court cases for asylum in the United States, communication and coordination was better between the various organizations operating along the border, shelter operators and Mexican officials said,” according to a report this week in the New York Times. “Mr. Biden ended that policy in January and promised to start processing some of the 25,000 migrants enrolled in that program.” That may thrill progressive lawmakers in the House, but it has exacerbated a humanitarian crisis and only makes it harder to get immigration-reform legislation through the evenly divided Senate.
Collectively, what the amnesty proposals and reductions in border security have done is signal to migrants—and to the human traffickers who prey on them—that if you can make it to the U.S., there’s a good chance you’ll be able to stay. Officially, the administration is saying that the border is closed, but its actions are ultimately what matter and what Central Americans are responding to.
The other reason Mr. Biden should be wary of moving too far left to please progressives is that it could fracture the party’s base, according to Democratic strategists who have done a deep dive into the November results. In an interview earlier this month with New York magazine, David Shor, a data analyst at the left-wing Center for American Progress, said that the party’s focus on progressive priorities cost Democrats support among blacks, Asians and especially Hispanics. “In the summer, following the emergence of ‘defund the police’ as a nationally salient issue, support for Biden among Hispanic voters declined,” Mr. Shor said. “The decline that we saw was very large. Nine percent or so nationwide, up to 14 or 15 percent in Florida. Roughly one in ten Hispanic voters switched their vote from [Hillary] Clinton to Trump.”
Mr. Shor’s comments on how the immigration issue played out in the 2020 campaign were even more illuminating. “In test after test that we’ve done with Hispanic voters, talking about immigration commonly sparks backlash,” he said. “Asking voters whether they lean toward Biden and Trump, and then emphasizing the Democratic position on immigration, often caused Biden’s share of support among Latino respondents to decline.”
Which is to say that Democrats who assume that decriminalizing illegal border crossings—an example Mr. Shor cited—appeals to most Hispanics, and Republicans who assume that Hispanic immigrants are natural Democrats, are both wrong. “Hispanic voters are more liberal on immigration than white voters,” Mr. Shor allowed, but “the extent to which Hispanic voters have liberal views on immigration is exaggerated.” He added: “I think liberals really essentialize Hispanic voters and project views about immigration onto them that the data just doesn’t support.”
If Mr. Biden wants to help himself and his party with Hispanic voters, he’ll need to keep his left wing in check. Nonwhite voters trended away from Democrats in 2020, and progressive policies were part of the reason.
This piece originally appeared at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal