Hispanic leaders on border talks: It’s a trap

Hispanic leaders are warning President Biden and Democratic leaders to step away from border policy talks with Republicans, or risk losing political support ahead of a crucial election year.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) on Wednesday came out in a show of force, amid reports that the White House has officially joined Senate talks pairing permanent changes to border laws with temporary aid to Ukraine.

“Republicans continue to hold funding for America’s allies hostage at the expense of migrants and to pass Trump-era border policies. Republicans are pitting vulnerable groups against each other to strong-arm policies that will exacerbate chaos at the southern border,” said CHC Chair Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.).

“We are urging the Biden administration to say no, do not take the bait.”

Hispanic and immigration leaders both within and outside the halls of Congress are irate that Democrats, including the White House, are considering policies they decried under the Trump administration.

“What we hear is on the table in these quote-unquote negotiations — a return to Trump-era policies — is not the fix, in fact it will make the problem worse. Mass detention, gutting our asylum system. Title 42 on steroids. It is unconscionable. That is not the way to fix our immigration system,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee.

But CHC members are not just incensed about the substance of talks, they are appalled by negotiators horse-trading on immigration without consulting the group.

“Not a single member of the CHC was given a heads-up that the administration would be proposing or considering these right-wing non-starters, despite outreach for many of us over the last several weeks from requesting to meet in person with a White House chief of staff,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who stepped back from the limelight after a federal corruption indictment in September, but has been vocal in opposition to the border-Ukraine talks.

“That is a hard slap in the face to all the Latino and immigrant communities we represent. Imagine the administration trying to cut a deal on voting rights or civil rights without bringing any members of the Congressional Black Caucus to the table — that would never be tolerated. And we absolutely cannot tolerate this either.”

The implication behind excluding the CHC is twofold: that the group is neither powerful nor united enough to stand up to leadership and the White House, and that its members are incapable of providing a sober assessment of the issue.

The CHC has not taken kindly to that apparent condescension. 

“We’re not the don’t-do-anything caucus. Do we want to address, do we want to update and modernize our immigration system? Absolutely. We know it needs to happen and we know what needs to happen if you’re genuine about improving the system. This is not it,” said Padilla. 

Grassroots Hispanic groups are backing the CHC, in large part because the current negotiations reflect a historical trend where immigration policy has been dictated to, rather than with, immigrant communities.

“For too long, we have been the political piñata, enduring broken promises that fail to address decades of neglect and abuse through an outdated immigration policy that is not working,” said Domingo García, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the country’s oldest Latino civil rights group.

Janet Murguía, president and CEO of UnidosUS, the largest Latino civil rights organization, noted the policies under consideration would “expand the mandatory detention of migrants — including children and families — and lead to the rapid deportation of long-term immigrants.”

“The Latino community — over 62 million strong — wants effective and humane solutions to strengthen our borders and protect people who are seeking security and opportunity in our country,” said Murguía.

Latino leaders say Biden’s political calculation — throwing the kitchen sink at the issue to appease voters worried about border security — is destined to fail, because it will depress Latino participation in key states.

“I have to go and ask people to vote for Biden, and get them out next November, because the alternative is so bad. But why does it have to be that we have to ask Latinos to vote for the Democrat because the Republican is so bad?” asked former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), a vocal immigration advocate who will spend the next year campaigning among Hispanic voters in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia with Casa en Acción, the political arm of a top mid-Atlantic immigrant advocacy group.

“Why can’t we say because we’re good? Why don’t we give them a good reason? We always have to give them — how would I say — ‘The monster’s coming. We must all stop the monster.'”

The White House saw its position bolstered, however, with a national poll conducted by YouGov for Blueprint, an initiative to direct Democratic strategy through public opinion.

According to the poll, first reported by Politico, a majority of voters support the Ukraine-border deal, and 55 percent would rather get Ukraine aid tied to border policy, risking the aid, than passing it now and dealing with border policy later.

The poll was conducted nationally — entirely in English — among 1,012 voters between Dec. 2 and Dec. 5, long before controversy over negotiations had heated up; it has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent.

But Hispanic and immigrant community leaders say the White House is flying blind without their advice and that what’s being negotiated won’t improve conditions at the border.

“It is imperative that my Senate colleagues and the White House understand what is on the table are policies so extreme that if enacted, it would literally be the most exclusionary restrictive immigration legislation since the racial quota laws of the 1920s, literally turning the clock back 100 years,” said CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

If those policies are enacted, CHC members say, conditions at the southern border will worsen, further alienating voters who worry about chaos there.

“Republicans have set up this trap, where if they make it harder to legally migrate here, there will be more irregular migration. Then they can go and complain about that irregular migration and try to win elections. We can’t fall into that trap,” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), adding, “Hispanic Caucus members know it’s a trap.

“And we’re trying to warn the rest of the Congress, the rest of our Democratic colleagues not to take this Republican bait.”

Though Senate negotiators seem to be all in with White House and leadership support, House Democratic leadership is keeping its powder dry.

“It’s hard for me to evaluate anything that’s theoretical until I actually am able to look at the substance of what’s presented, and nothing has been presented to me so far,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told The Hill.

Regardless, the debate is driving a wedge between Biden and Latino leaders, a wedge some say is not new but growing.

“For Biden, we’re invisible. We’re just invisible. They don’t do any outreach. They don’t do any consultation. They didn’t even think of calling the CHC to consult with them. And I think the CHC did the right thing,” said Gutiérrez.

Though Biden campaigned on morally guided border and immigration policy and has surrounded himself with top-level Hispanic advisers, both at the White House and in his campaign, his immigration policies have been a constant source of friction with Latinos.

And millions in immigrant communities have for decades seen legislative action consistently make their lives harder on the immigration front, even though some executive actions — including many by the Biden administration — have allowed hundreds of thousands of people to freely live and work in the United States.

“Latinos won’t come out to vote. And our efforts to knock on their doors to canvass and to get them out to vote will only become increasingly more difficult. We don’t have a magic wand,” said Gutiérrez.