The Great Political Transformation Flying Under the DNC’s Radar – DNyuz

On the third night of the Democratic National Convention four years ago, immigration took center stage. Americans heard a series of personal stories about how Trump-era policies had disrupted the lives of immigrants and their families.

An 11-year-old girl read a letter to Donald Trump; the Trump administration had deported her mother two years earlier. An undocumented mother told how she illegally crossed the border to seek better medical care for her baby daughter — “When we got to the river, I picked her up and we crossed,” she said on national television. She wasn’t the first illegal immigrant to address the DNC, but she was the first non-DREAMer — and even more controversially, someone to cross the border as an adult.

Four years later, the DNC sounds very different, a reflection of how public opinion on immigration in general has deteriorated as concerns about the security of the border have grown. Gone are the heartfelt testimonies of undocumented immigrants, the rejection of Trump-era policies, and the calls for better treatment of migrants and expanded asylum protections. In their place, Wednesday night’s speakers embraced tougher policies for asylum seekers, praised Joe Biden’s efforts to negotiate a bipartisan border security bill, and acknowledged the changed realities of immigration politics since the start of the pandemic.

In other words, the Democrats’ speeches on immigration and the border were dramatically different than those at the 2012, 2016, or 2020 conventions. That’s because the reality and the public’s feelings have also changed dramatically.

The problems of migrants do not seem to be such a big problem this year

Unlike last month’s GOP convention in Milwaukee, no one is waving “Mass Deportations Now” signs in Chicago this week, or talking about an “invasion” or “bloodbath” at the southern border. But given the party’s often extreme rhetoric and its consistent anti-immigrant stance over the past two decades, it’s easy to overlook the Democrats’ own rightward shift in recent years.

In past conventions, Democrats have made significant efforts to highlight the plight of young immigrants and immigrant families. Whether it’s families torn apart by immigration policies, young DREAMers struggling and succeeding in America despite being undocumented, or activists working to push for immigration reform.

In 2012, for example, Benita Veliz, a DREAMer from San Antonio, Texas, became the first undocumented person to speak at a national party political convention. She told millions of viewers how she graduated as a top student and earned a double major in college before nearly being deported for a traffic violation. As a DREAMer, she praised Obama’s plan to implement deportation protections in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Four years later, another DREAMer would join First Lady Michelle Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders as keynote speakers at Hillary Clinton’s convention. Astrid Silva would tell the story of coming to the U.S. with her mother as a 4-year-old, climbing onto a raft to cross the Rio Grande with only “a little doll.”

And 2020 was marked by contrasts with Trump and the human suffering he caused during his presidency.

Speakers on Wednesday night balanced two messages: that Democrats don’t have the same anti-immigrant flavor as Republicans — they value diversity and believe in the humane treatment of migrants — but they understand the need for reform and enhanced security. They’re starting to sound like the fictional vice president from HBO’s cattlewho once described the need to reform, affirm and deter immigration.

On Wednesday night, some DREAMers got a 50-second chance to support Kamala Harris and advocate for DACA protections. And in nearly every biopic of Harris, or biographical mention of Harris’s upbringing, her parents’ immigrant life stories are central. But this week, there was hardly any genuine embrace of immigration in general, rarely any welcoming of economic migrants seeking “a better life,” as in past conventions. And that’s because reality has changed.

Public sentiment is now sharply against all forms of immigration. As I have explained before, the shift has been rapid but lasting:

Since 2020, the percentage of Americans who want to see the level of all immigration decrease has skyrocketed, from 28 percent in mid-2020 to 55 percent by June 2024, according to Gallup poll data.

These analysts note that 2024 will mark the first time since 2005 that a majority of the U.S. public wants less immigration and that anti-immigration sentiment is at its highest point since 2001, when the country faced renewed anti-immigration flare-ups after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

These shifts are also happening across all sectors of the electorate. It’s not just white voters. Non-white voters and especially Latin voters are more likely than in the past to want less immigration, and anti-immigration sentiment is growing among all political groups, including Democrats.

That changed reality also explains the choices the DNC makes regarding immigration programs.

Latino Democrats tried to portray Republicans as weak on the border

Though it wasn’t theirs alone, a handful of Latino Democrats were tasked with promoting the Democrats’ new, hard-on-the-border image. California Rep. Pete Aguilar, the highest-ranking Latino in Congress, described Harris as both pro-immigrant and pro-border security: “Under President Harris, we can and will do both. As prosecutor, she took on transnational gangs and cartels. As president, she will fight for pathways to citizenship.”

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto also leaned into this message, praising Harris’s track record of prosecuting drug smugglers and human traffickers. And it was Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff Javier Salazar who criticized Trump for sabotaging Biden’s border deal, saying that Trump “has only made our job harder.”

These lines likely predict how Harris will continue to position herself as moderate voters, swing voters and less informed voters view her. Immigration policy and border security are among her biggest vulnerabilities, and Republicans have been quick to lean on specious attacks on her role in handling diplomatic relations with Latin American countries to blame her for the surge in border crossings during the first three years of the Biden administration (though those increases have slowed significantly in recent months.)

Still, the direction the party is moving was clear throughout the night: The days of Obama and Clinton portraying the Democratic Party as the unambiguously pro-immigrant party are over. The differences in the convention platforms make that clear, too. The party’s 2024 platform supports faster deportations of economic migrants and stricter asylum rules, including the ability to halt the processing of those asylum claims. It’s unclear whether those policies would help deter or slow future immigration, legal or illegal, but for now, Democrats can report some results. After historically high numbers of migrant encounters at the southern border, the number of border crossings has declined every month for the past five months, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics provided to USA Today this week. The Department of Homeland Security attributes some of that to the administration’s stricter asylum and deterrence efforts, but it’s unclear whether the public is aware of these trends yet.

Meanwhile, the 2024 Democrats sound very different from those of 2020, when none of these tougher proposals were in the party platform.

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