Dems can beat Trump on immigration in 2020
Voters in both parties disagree with the president
In announcing that his administration will begin removing “millions of illegal aliens” next week and cut off aid to Central America, President Donald Trump signaled the predictable contours of his 2020 reelection campaign: demonize immigrants, puff up his strongman persona, and bask in “build the wall” chants. He believes immigration is a political winner.
As an expert in immigration policy and politics, I have a different take. If Democrats are deft and daring, they can transform immigration into his Achilles’ heel.
In the world according to Trump, in 2016 he rode racism and xenophobia to victory. In the 2018 midterms, he invoked caravans filled with criminals and terrorists and produced an ad so racist even Fox News wouldn’t air it. Republicans suffered the largest midterm popular-vote defeat in U.S. history.
A wiser president would get it: His immigration obsession backfires except with his core supporters. But Trump refuses to let up. He has demanded billions for his wall, shuttered the government for 35 days, declared a national emergency of dubious constitutionality, sent troops to the border, decapitated the Department of Homeland Security, and threatened economic warfare to get Mexico to (pretend to?) bend the knee.
Yet the numbers of families arriving at the border are sky high. His strategy is as ineffective as it is cruel.
Meanwhile, at Trump rallies, he tells his followers that he is “finishing the wall” (he’s not) and calls Democrats the party of “open borders and crime” (they’re not). Yes, in 2020 he’s going to run, and run hard, on xenophobia.
Propose a 21st century system
What should Democrats do? First, recognize that the public is with them, not Trump. A majority of voters believe that immigration is good for America, object to Trump’s racebaiting divisiveness, reject the practice of ripping toddlers from parents and putting kids in cages, oppose his border wall, and want Congress to create a line for undocumented immigrants to get into — with “Dreamers” and Temporary Protected Status holders in front.
Second, beyond calling out the failure of Trump’s cruelty-and-chaos strategy, Democrats need to propose pragmatic solutions. For instance: Hire enough adjudicators and lawyers so Central Americans seeking asylum have fair, orderly and efficient hearings. Launch a regional refugee resettlement initiative — away from the border — to rescue eligible refugees through an orderly application, acceptance and admissions program. And address the root causes of migration from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador so it becomes safer for families to stay home than to risk the journey to America.
Third, Democrats need to press for a properly regulated 21st century immigration system. This would involve putting the nation’s 11 million hardworking undocumented immigrants on a path to legal status and eventual citizenship by creating a line and establishing requirements; improving a legal immigration system that reunites families and meets legitimate labor demands at all skill levels; smart and accountable border security, and enforcement focused on bad actors, from criminal smugglers to unscrupulous employers.
A failure and a fraud
Fourth, and speaking of unscrupulous employers, Democrats should realize that Trump is not just a failure, he’s a fraud. As a politician, Trump rages against undocumented immigrants to score points. As a businessman, he hires them.
Trump’s duplicity was first exposed last December in The New York Times when workers from the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, came forward to tell their stories of hard work, low pay, no benefits and unfair treatment. The Washington Post exposed Trump’s reliance on undocumented immigrants at Trump enterprises in New York and uncovered a “pipeline” of undocumented workers from Costa Rica to build the Bedminster property. And Univision recently reported that Trump’s winery in Virginia hired undocumented workers who worked “long hours from sunrise to sunset, without overtime pay.”
The president’s son Eric, nominally in charge of the family business, has rushed in to cover up the Trump Organization’s misdeeds by discarding the exploited workers, mostly through the introduction of E-Verify, a voluntary program that lets employers check the legal status of employees. Meanwhile, his father has displeased the nativist right by expressing opposition to E-Verify. Evidently, the habits of an old school lawless employer die hard.
Finally, Democrats need to expose Trump’s cynical motivation. He wants voters to blame “the other” so he can distract them from issues like health care, retirement security and fair wages that favor Democrats. He lines the pockets of his super wealthy friends, picks the pockets of ordinary Americans, and points the finger at brown and black immigrants. This is nothing less than the strategic use of racism in the service of plutocracy.
Democrats need not fear this fight with Trump. They need to take it to him. On his signature issue, Democrats support solutions that hit the mark with most Americans, while Trump is an abject failure and a world-class hypocrite.
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