Can Biden find balance on immigration issues?
WASHINGTON — Democrats wielded demands to fix the nation’s broken immigration system as a cudgel against Republicans in the 2020 campaign. Elect us, went the argument, and we’ll stop the cruel treatment of migrants at the border, and put in place lasting and humane policies that work.
A year into Joe Biden’s presidency, though, action on the issue has been hard to find and there is growing consternation privately among some in the party that the Biden administration can’t find the right balance on immigration.
Publicly, it’s another story. Most Washington lawmakers are largely holding their tongues, unwilling to criticize their leader on a polarizing topic that has created divisions within the party.
It’s a hard balancing act to pull off, said Douglas Rivlin, spokesman for America’s Voice, an immigration reform group. Especially when Republicans are unrelenting in their negativity toward the president, even a little friendly fire can be a challenge.
“It’s hard but they’ve got to do it,” he said. “They’re going to face voters next year, all the people on the Hill. Biden isn’t, they are. And they have to be clear they’re pushing Biden to be the Democratic president we elected, rather than being scared of the issues because the politics are difficult.”
Democrats have pointed to the recent House approval of a huge spending bill backed by the White House that would allow for expanded work permits and some other, less ambitious immigration provisions. When Biden took office, he promised a pathway to U.S. citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally. Democrats say the measures in the spending bill are enough to show the party won’t shy away from the immigration issue during next year’s midterms.
“I don’t see it as the fault of the president per se,” said Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents a district in El Paso across the border from Juárez, Mexico. “It is a collective obligation that we have and I think Democrats have solutions and we need to lean in on them.”
Her Democratic colleague, Rep. Joaquin Castro, from San Antonio, ducked a question when asked if House members in swing districts will be forced to run away from Biden in 2022, saying “I’m going to wait on political discussions.”
But Castro added that the party had done as much as it could do on immigration this session, given Senate rules that have prevented larger legislation on the issue from advancing with the required minimum of
60 votes in that chamber.
“Right now, Democrats have control of the White House, the Senate and the House and we have pushed as hard as we can with the number that we have in the chambers to get protections from deportation, workplace permits, driver’s licenses, travel abilities,” Castro said.