ACCEPTING EXTREME IMMIGRATION MEASURES ONLY STRENGTHENS TRUMP

Washington, DC – Unless higher forces intervene, Donald Trump is expected to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024. With that will come a repeat of the 2020 duel versus Joe Biden, who this time is president, and with Immigration and the border at the center of the contest once again.

Because if anything has remained clear about Trump, it is that the immigration issue is his favorite workhorse. He brie)y mentions other topics like the economy, but returns to immigration as the demagogic weapon that catapulted him to the presidency in 2016, for being the issue that truly moves his base. A base that it seems has no political interest in other matters of national relevance, but rather an ideological and racial contrivance smeared with migration morbidity. That is the cloud on which they )oat.

Essentially, if one listens to Trump’s speeches, they would realize that apart from his references to himself, and complaint of being a “victim” of a “witch hunt” by opposition politicians, the constant among his messages is extremist rhetoric about the border and immigrants.

They even see an opening with Latino voters, and claim that they are “abandoning” the Democrats “massively,” when the reality is that the Hispanic vote continues to be majority Democrat.

More still, a recent poll from Unidosus found that Latinos reject many of the policies and messages of the Republicans, and think that the Democrats manage the issues that concern them better. For example, the survey found that immigration, while important, is not Hispanics’ central preoccupation. Those are in)ation, jobs and the economy, health, criminality, and guns, as well as the cost of living.

In addition, on the matter of immigration, Latino voters’ points of view are diametrically opposed to what Trump and the Republicans are proposing: they strongly support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and Dreamers; they support better asylum laws, and policies that allow immigration through legal routes: there show less support for focusing on border security, and very low backing for mass deportation plans.

But Trump has promised mass deportations, to begin when he assumes the presidency in January 2025, if he does beat Biden.

In fact, various Republican senators have said as much.

“When the bill is released and everyone – especially conservatives and President Trump – sees the tools that will be available to a President Trump should he win the election, to lose this opportunity to get it into law, I think is malpractice,” declared the Republican senator from North Carolina, Thom Tillis.

But Biden, despite having instituted 535 immigration actions in his term so far, seems to Ind himself between a rock and a hard place: ensuring that his central foreign policy issue, Ukraine, obtain funds to continue combating the Russian invasion; or ceding to Republican demands on immigration matters, along the way disappointing pro-immigrant groups and, even worse, the voters for whom this issue determines how or whether they will vote at all. And in the face of Trump and a highly enthusiastic MAGA base, every vote counts. (America’s Voice)