Will Biden’s executive order on immigration improve the erosion of Latino support?

NOGALES, Ariz. – When Arturo Garino was mayor of Nogales, he joined other border mayors to campaign for national Democratic candidates, including then-President Barack Obama.

Now out of public office and with Arizona becoming an immigration hot spot, he told NBC News he is certain he will not campaign for President Joe Biden. Although he voted for him in 2020, he said in an interview last month, he doesn’t know how he will vote in November.

“I don’t think what this administration is doing right — letting all these people just show,” Garino told NBC News. “I’m a Democrat and I’m very upset.”

President Biden’s executive order signed Tuesday, dramatically restricting access to asylum for migrants at the border, shows how vexatious immigration is for his campaign, even among Latino voters who have generally sided with his party on this issue. question.

Voters like Garino, who once punished the administration by continuing the pandemic ban on border crossings, they are frustrated with the high number of migrant arrivals in recent years. At the same time, many blame Biden for failing to deliver on promises of immigration reform for long-established immigrants without legal status, despite years of blocks to legalization by Republicans in Congress.

In a presidential race with razor-thin margins, any erosion of Latino support in such a heavily Latino battleground state could have consequences.

A dwindling advantage?

As has been the case historically, immigration is not the biggest voting issue for Latinos in this election. But many Latino voters have used immigration as a litmus test, judging that those who are anti-immigrant are also anti-Latino, said Carlos Odio, co-founder of Equis Research, a Democratic-leaning Latino polling and research firm.

“That has changed a little in recent years. Democrats no longer have the advantage they once had,” he said. There are perceptions that Democrats have broken campaign promises to provide pathways to legal status for immigrants, and that Republicans will not go as far as they say they will with their immigration crackdown, Odio said.

Recent polls have shown an increase in the number of Latinos who agree with the Republican Party’s calls for more border control, as well as increases in the percentage of Latinos who say that Republicans and presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump could do a better job in border control.

According to the latest NBC News poll, U.S. voters ranked immigration and the border second, behind inflation and the cost of living, as the most important issue facing the country. Less than 30% approved of Biden’s handling of immigration and the border. Republicans were much more likely, 42%, than Democrats, 4%, and independents, 15%, to see immigration and the border as an important issue, the poll showed.

An April poll from Axios-Ipsos and Noticias Telemundo found that some hardline positions on immigration have gained popularity among Latinos. Building a border wall or fence, for example, jumped from 30% to 42% approval among Latinos between December 2021 and March 2024. But Latinos are still less likely than white Americans to support construction of a wall or calling for deportations, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Clarissa Martinez de Castro, vice president of the Latino Vote Initiative at UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Latino advocacy group, said in a recent interview that the Biden administration and campaign have not offered undecided Latino voters a counter-narrative. convincing to Republican talking points on immigration.

“It’s political negligence. They are giving up space and allowing people with a different view to define them,” said Martinez de Castro, whose group recently supported Biden in Arizona.

Biden’s executive order is the latest in the administration’s crackdown on immigration. Biden has attacked Trump for essentially killing a bipartisan bill that included money for border enforcement, added visas and green cards for some immigrants and toughened asylum laws. After Republicans twice blocked that bill, Biden used his executive power to order asylum checks.

More control, but not repression

Along with other liberal researchers, Martinez de Castro cautioned against exaggerating the extent of changes in Latino voters’ views on immigration — or drawing the wrong conclusions.

It’s a mistake to assume that Latino voters’ dissatisfaction with the situation at the border means they want tough, Trump-style crackdowns, she said. Her organization’s polls show there is still strong support among Latinos for providing asylum to new migrants, Martinez said.

“All things being equal, immigration tended to be an area that favored Democrats, and even today, Latino voters see more alignment (on immigration) with Democrats than with Republicans,” Martinez said. “But there used to be very high contrast, and that contrast is not as high as it used to be.”

This is not the first time that immigration has been a thorn in the side of Democrats. Former President Barack Obama was labeled “deporter in chief” in his first term due to the high number of deportations carried out by his administration. But then Republicans attacked him during his re-election campaign for failing to fulfill his promise to sign an immigration reform bill within his first 100 days in office.

In recent years, Republicans have blocked repeated attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform. For years, the model for such failed legislative proposals has involved providing an opportunity to obtain permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for decades, along with tightening border security and other restrictive measures.

In Arizona, Republican lawmakers voted to put a proposal on the November ballot empower local and state authorities to arrest and deport people they suspect are in the country illegally – an area of ​​the law that is currently limited to the federal government.

Opponents dubbed the new proposals “SB1070 2.0,” The reference to the “Show me your documents” law signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in 2010, which allowed police to check the immigration status of people they detained if they had a “reasonable suspicion that they may be in the country illegally.” The widespread backlash among Latinos to SB1070 is often credited with transforming Arizona from a reliably red state to the purple it is today.

Changes in migration and voter reaction

At a recent campaign event in Nogales for Kari Lake (the Trump-aligned Senate candidate), Yvette Serino, president of Latinos for Lake, said she was able to convert some friends and family to the MAGA cause. Serino herself comes from a prominent Democratic political family in Nogales, where her grandfather spent decades in public office.