Latino Opposition To Immigration Doomed Democrats

President Joe Biden’s recent executive actions on asylum and other border-security issues mark more than a shift to a more restrictive immigration policy. They’re also a rejection of the narrative that progressive advocacy groups and Latino Democrats have been pushing for years: that the best way to woo voters in the nation’s largest ethnic minority is to push for a permissive immigration system.

The fear of offending Latino voters with significantly tighter border measures has hampered Democrats’ ability to forge a coherent immigration policy—even though recent polling shows more and more Latino voters expressing concerns about the current level of undocumented immigration and backing stricter controls.

According to an Axios/Ipsos survey conducted in late March, nearly two-thirds of Latino respondents favored giving the president the authority to shut down the border. Only about 40 percent agreed with hard-line measures—a border wall, the deportation of all undocumented immigrants—but support for those ideas has jumped by about 10 points since late 2021.

Democrats were once divided on that question; many in the labor movement saw undocumented immigrants as competition for native-born workers. But as Latinos grew as a portion of the electorate—and voted Democratic in lopsided proportions—party strategists began to see them as a cornerstone of an enduring electoral majority.