TRUMP'S BRUTALITY GIVES DEMOCRATS OPENING ON IMMIGRATION

DON'T SCREW IT UP THIS TIME

Donald Trump overreached on immigration, unleashing poorly-led and untrained masked thugs on a rampage, committing murders, terrifying families and businesses, scaring little children and disrupting communities. This was not on the immigration agenda or chaos that helped elect the President in 2024.

This affords Democrats a chance to get back in the game on the issue in the midterms and the next Presidential election.

They had the same opportunity at the end of the first Trump term and they screwed it up.

To help avoid a rerun, I turned to one of the smartest, most knowledgeable, realistic and passionate immigration advocates who I’ve been talking to for fifteen years: Frank Sharry, who led a major advocacy organization America’s Voice, advised foreign governments and Kamala Harris’ short-lived Presidential race and has written several insightful pieces on what Democrats got wrong and how to get it right.

President Clinton wasn’t able to get much done on immigration, but Sharry notes he framed the essence of what Democrats should embrace and repeat often: “We are a nation of immigrants and we are a nation of laws.”

Obama instituted a tough border policy, with lots of deportations -- he was dubbed the deporter-in-chief amid allegations there was some racial profiling -- while supporting more legal immigration and seeking a pathway for citizenship. It all didn’t work but politically he and most Democrats held their own.

Then after Trump 1.0’s abuses, especially family separation, Democrats veered sharply left, responding to vocal immigration activists. In the 2019 presidential debates almost all Democratic candidates, including Joe Biden, supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings. The first three years of the Biden Administration were marked by a porous border, placating the advocacy groups with White House political aides advocating to mainly ignore immigration, it’s not our issue.

Politics 101: don’t ignore an issue that is one of the three foremost in voters’ minds.

“They were playing to the sweet spot of the immigration groups rather than the sweet spot of the American electorate,” Sharry notes. “That was a fatal mistake.”

Although the Biden Administration rectified its immigration policies in its final year, it was too little too late. Looking ahead, Sharry says, to be credible Democrats have to acknowledge Biden’s mistakes.

He says they have to advocate a tough border policy, not one that relies on artificial numbers or walls, but addresses the major issue of asylum. In general, this would mean stricter standards to qualify and an easier and quicker process for those that do.

Sharry, who has spent his entire adult life working on behalf of refugees and immigrants, doesn’t warm to the subject of deportations -- except for violent criminals -- but says Democrats have to acknowledge there will be some non-violent migrants sent back. It’s the law.

But the indiscriminate and brutal Trump policies can and should be forcefully rejected. It isn’t just the murders that shock. The picture of that little five year old boy, Liam Ramos, in a snow suit and backpack being carted off by ICE agents in Minneapolis could be front and center for most Democratic campaign this fall.

Sharry wants to expedite legal immigration and favors a pathway to citizenship but believes it may be necessary to accept some way stations. Immigration advocates, he says, “need to be creative,” with more companies, unions, religious organizations and communities sponsoring immigrants.

Maybe, he ponders, a Federal Reserve type system to oversee different situations with different employees and different states. He warns Democrats above all don’t repeat the mistakes made five years ago responding to the evil Trump policies. He cringes at left wingers who call for “abolishing ICE,” the equivalent of the earlier “abolish the police,” which still haunts Democrats although almost no major figure in the party advocates that.

“We need an immigration enforcement arm,” Sharry notes, “but we need one that needs to be appropriately focused and accountable.”

Don’t abolish, reform, and get rid of the thugs and incompetent leaders.

This longtime champion of liberal immigration, soldier of the immigration +wars for decades, realizes change has to be incremental and bipartisan. There are bipartisan bills floating around: in the House the “Dignity Act,” offered by Republican Maria Salazar of Florida and Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat, with tougher border controls and better treatment of migrants. In the Senate, liberal Connecticut senator Chris Murphy and James Lankford, a conservative Oklahoma Republican sponsored a broader bill. It was attacked by both left wing immigration advocates and by Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

For the foreseeable future, immigration advocates should keep the spotlight on the Trump abuses, build on the opposition to these policies, embrace the legal and humane components of the issue while preparing for a day -- it will come -- post Trump.