In 2018, when then-president Trump’s immigration policy included forced family separations and long detentions in crowded facilities on the border, Democrats objected loudly, calling those policies cruel or inhumane. But the stark differences on immigration between Democrats and Republicans are less so today, as some Democratic office-seekers adopt more conservative stances that remind some observers of 2018.
Christopher Hooks wrote recently for Texas Monthly that some Democrats of today sound a little like the Republicans of 2018. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: How has what Democrats say about immigration and border policy changed over the years?
Christopher Hooks: Well, President Trump’s hard line on immigration in his first term really allowed Democrats to turn immigration at the border into a moral issue, which a lot of Americans agreed with them on family separation. The Trump administration policy of separating children from their migrant parents at the border was very unpopular, and Democrats felt comfortable campaigning on the border for the first time in a while. It was something that they really liked to talk about.
And in the intervening years since they took power in 2020, it has again become an issue that they feel very uncomfortable talking about. They’ve ceded a lot of ground to Republicans. They are now in favor of a border wall – border fencing – which they used to be happy campaigning against.
Also, they in general don’t want to be talking about the border. They’ve become much more conservative on the issue in a way that is a remarkable change from where they were just a few years ago.
Are we talking, when we say this, primarily about a couple of candidates? In particular, Ted Cruz’s opponent this year, Colin Allred? I mean, he has taken a much more moderate stance there as compared to [2018 Democratic nominee Beto] O’Rourke.
Sure. I think you see this up and down the Democratic ticket, from Kamala Harris at the top to figures like Colin Allred and then congressional candidates like Michelle Vallejo in South Texas.
These candidates are doing something that, if you look at the polling, makes sense for them to do. I’m not saying it’s unwise. American polling is a lot more cautious and conservative on immigration and border issues than it was six years ago. So in some sense, these candidates are doing what makes sense for them to do well.
At the same time it seems Democrats have caught up with where Republicans are in 2018, that bar seems to be moving further for conservatives. I mean, I think about the lines that President Trump used in the debate against Kamala Harris, talking about sort of this anti-immigration rhetoric and talking about them eating pets. There’s not consensus now. It’s not like Democrats have caught up and everybody agrees on border policy. It is shifting ground.
Sure. I think the sort of the concerning thing is that while Democrats are playing defense on this issue, you see the Republican Party getting a lot stronger and weirder in their views.
They may pay a price for that electorally. But we have a situation now where the Republican candidate at the top of the ticket is spreading racist and vicious lies about immigrant communities in the United States.
And on the other side, Democrats facing their own political realities have decided to back a border bill proposed this year that would have gutted the asylum and refugee processing system in the country.
And while that’s happening on both sides, there really isn’t somebody standing up who is willing to make kind of the moral case for treating people seeking refuge on the border while making the case that this is something that we as Americans should take seriously and have a have an obligation to do for people who are really suffering and looking to us for help.
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Well, you mentioned that bill that got stalled out in the legislative branch. I mean, does what you’re looking at provide any hope for any consensus for some kind of legal reform coming from lawmakers on that end or not so much?
Well, I think a lot of Democrats and a few Republicans are willing in private to concede that America needs a kind of broader immigration overhaul, a comprehensive bill that provides a pathway to citizenship for people who have been here for a long time and also improves the way that America is handling these people that are coming up on the border.
I don’t begrudge Harris or Allred or any other Democrat for trying to play defense on this issue. It’s not a good issue for them. What I regret is that there isn’t somebody who is willing to tell the truth to the American people and to make kind of the case, the serious case, that immigration is good for the United States.
We need more immigrants. We have a moral obligation to treat them as human beings when they show up at the border.
