{"id":13565,"date":"2023-08-08T19:36:46","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T19:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13565"},"modified":"2023-08-10T14:54:56","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T14:54:56","slug":"biden-is-moving-right-on-immigration-will-that-hurt-him-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13565","title":{"rendered":"Biden Is Moving Right On Immigration. Will That Hurt Him In 2024?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by<\/em> Alex Samuels<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, 538<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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President Biden\u2019s administration recently announced new asylum restrictions<\/a> and other proposed stringent initiatives<\/a> to deter an influx of migrants<\/a> at the U.S.-Mexico border. But for some Democrats, the latest crackdowns stand in stark contrast to the \u201cfair and humane immigration system<\/a>\u201d that Biden<\/a> once promised voters<\/a> following the harsher policies of his predecessors, Donald Trump<\/a> and Barack Obama<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number<\/a> of reporters<\/a> (including my colleague Nathaniel Rakich<\/a>) have speculated that Biden\u2019s pivot to the center<\/a> represents an attempt to shore up electoral weak spots as he prepares for his imminent reelection campaign<\/a>; after all, Americans regularly tell pollsters<\/a> that they trust Republicans on immigration<\/a> more than Democrats. And, sure, there are likely practical considerations at play, too \u2014 the 2022 fiscal year set a record<\/a> for migrant encounters with border patrol at the southern border with Mexico.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news for Biden, though, is that even though his latest moves have drawn ire from<\/a> notable progressives<\/a> \u2014 who have even compared his tack on immigration to Trump\u2019s \u2014 he probably won\u2019t face blowback from Democratic voters in 2024. For one thing, Biden isn\u2019t facing a competitive primary (at least not now) and the general election is still far away. But not only is immigration usually less of an important issue<\/a> to Democrats than Republicans, recent data<\/a> also suggests that Americans<\/a> might not be quite as pro-immigration as they were previously.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The flip side is that, like Obama<\/a>, Biden will likely face pressure from his base to advance immigrant rights in some way<\/em> between now and next November. The Obama administration\u2019s answer to this, according to Cristobal Ram\u00f3n<\/a>, an independent immigration policy consultant, was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals<\/a> \u2014 DACA \u2014 program, which was created in 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnless there\u2019s a major flashpoint on the border, I don\u2019t see this being the defining issue that will cause the administration more heartburn,\u201d Ram\u00f3n said. \u201cAt the end of the day, I think Biden is banking on the idea that people care more about lower numbers at the border than differences in immigration policy. But even if the administration is able to temporarily bring numbers down, they\u2019ll need to explain to voters how their policies are different from, say, candidate Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the context of the tough stances taken by both of Biden\u2019s Democratic predecessors (Obama and former President Bill Clinton<\/a>), the president\u2019s latest moves aren\u2019t that shocking. Karthick Ramakrishnan<\/a>, a public policy professor at the University of California, Riverside who focuses on the politics of race and immigration, told me that the reality of governing, coupled with an influx of migrants at the southern border, may have tested Biden\u2019s once-high-minded aspirations on immigration. And with a pandemic-era rule allowing for rapid expulsions set to expire in May<\/a>, it\u2019s possible that Biden thought the best path forward was to enact more <\/em>restrictions on how people can seek asylum, among other things. \u201cDuring campaigns, Democratic candidates make promises on immigration,\u201d Ramakrishnan said. \u201cBut once they get into office they find a much more complicated terrain to navigate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\u2019ve reported previously, though, Democrats have long struggled<\/a> to meaningfully address immigration \u2014 in part because there isn\u2019t a clear consensus within the party on the issue. Not only is public opinion all over the place \u2014 voters generally support a pathway to citizenship<\/a> for undocumented immigrants, along with rigorous border security<\/a> and the enforcement of existing immigration laws<\/a> \u2014 but there are longstanding fissures between Democratic politicians\u2019 more progressive and moderate wings. Immigration is also tightly intertwined with another issue Democrats have struggled to address: crime<\/a>. For example, Trump frequently justified strict anti-immigration policies by claiming<\/a>, without evidence, that unauthorized immigrants commit crimes at disproportionate rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Biden is unlikely to be running in a competitive primary, unlike in 2019, there\u2019s less pressure for him to show off his progressive bona fides on these issues and gives him space to move toward the middle without hurting himself politically. In fact, it\u2019s possible that his latest moves might even shore up<\/em> support among conservative and moderate Democrats, who tend to adopt more hardline stances on border issues than their liberal counterparts. For example, according to a poll from The Pew Research Center<\/a> poll conducted Aug. 1-14, 2022, conservative and moderate Democrats supported policies like increased security along the U.S.-Mexico border (70 percent) and more deportations of immigrants here illegally (50 percent). For that matter, even a significant minority of liberal Democrats supported these policies (44 percent and 25 percent, respectively).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Another survey, from NPR\/Ipsos<\/a>, conducted July 28-29, 2022, found that 41 percent of Democrats believed that comparing the record border crossings to an \u201cinvasion\u201d was at least \u201csomewhat true,\u201d while 34 percent said it was \u201ccompletely false\u201d and 25 percent said they didn\u2019t know. And according to a Gallup<\/a> poll released in February, only 28 percent of Americans overall are satisfied with the current level of immigration \u2014 the lowest in a decade. Relatively few Democrats (19 percent) are dissatisfied and want the current level of immigration to be decreased \u2014 but that share has risen from only two percent in 2021, and only 12 percent are dissatisfied and want the current level of immigration to be increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immigration has \u2014 and probably always will be \u2014 an incredibly divisive issue. But, as Ram\u00f3n told me, it\u2019s not clear whether Biden is becoming more conservative on immigration so much as he\u2019s reverting back to where his predecessors were (which makes sense, in some ways, considering he was vice president under Obama.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe shifted back to where Democrats have been on the border for a long time, which is significantly more hardline than the views many Democrats hold now,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, the administration saw the numbers of the border, realized Biden was facing a potentially significant political issue and decided to focus on prior positions that Democratic administrations have relied on. That\u2019s the story of this administration in a nutshell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Biden is still more progressive than some of his predecessors. Among recent Democratic presidents, Clinton arguably took the most hardline stance on crime and immigration. Not only did he help create<\/a> the immigration enforcement system as we know it today through his signing of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, but he even ran on a reelection platform<\/a> that said, \u201cWe cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it.\u201d Of course, back then, his decision to get tough on immigration was part of a larger effort by Democrats to push against GOP attacks that they were \u201csoft\u201d on crime<\/a>. But that crusade continued during Obama\u2019s administration, too, primarily through stepping up enforcement efforts, which ultimately led to the deportation<\/a> of hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In more recent memory, Democrats have moved further left on these issues \u2014 Biden even expressed regret<\/a> over the Obama administration\u2019s immigration policies \u2014 but the president\u2019s immigration stance was always more conservative<\/a> than many of his once-rivals, and it didn\u2019t stop him from winning the Democratic nomination in 2020. And, again, it\u2019s possible that these moderate to conservative stances won\u2019t be a death knell for his impending reelection bid, especially if it helps him win over more moderate and conservative Democrats and <\/em>if he\u2019s able to take credit for decreasing the number of migrant encounters at the southern border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat Biden\u2019s doing now is trying to signal a more moderate stance, and one that shows effective control over the border, to deflect against any criticism that his administration does not have the ability to maintain border control,\u201d Ramakrishnan said. \u201cVoters expect the president to be able to enforce and maintain law and order. So part of this is to blunt any critique of lawlessness.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, though, whether taking more strict stances on border-related issues helps or hurts Biden next year ultimately might come down to how much voters care about these issues come next year. Historically, immigration hasn\u2019t really been a top issue for Democrats, so it\u2019s easy to see why it\u2019s an easy place for Biden to moderate. And remember: Biden was never a liberal darling on immigrant rights to begin with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alex Samuels is a politics reporter at FiveThirtyEight. <\/a> @AlexSamuelsx5<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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