Democrats’ Immigration Problem

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Not available in all states or situations. Donald Trump lost New York, like everyone thought he would.
So that's not news. What is, though, is how much better he did in the city than last time.
Manhattan moved to the right by five points. Brooklyn by six.
Queens, where I grew up, by 11. 11 points.
As my Trump voting brother bragged to me, it was a shellacking. I'm Hannah Rosen.
This is Radio Atlantic.

New York, Miami, Chicago, Philly, Dallas, Detroit, all shifted right.

Trump's message seemed to especially land in urban working-class neighborhoods where immigrants and people of color live.

Now, there are lots of reasons why the country shifted rightward, and we'll probably be talking about them for a while. But these are neighborhoods that have voted reliably Democratic.
So the shift is noticeable and surprising. Although, not to this person.
To me, the far left is a gift to Donald Trump, and it will be the gift that will keep on giving until there's a serious reckoning with the results of the election. This is Congressman Richie Torres.
He represents a district in the Bronx, which, by the way, shifted right by 11 points. He, like many people, had a theory for why Trump won.
The day after the election, he tweeted, quote, Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like defund the police or from the river to the sea or Latinx. The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling, end quote.
Now, this is not an original take. Lots of people last week were screaming at the Democrats some version of, woke is broke.
That's how Maureen Dowd put it, at least. But Torres has some authority on the subject that other people lack.
He's young, 36. He's Afro-Latino.
He's gay. He grew up poor.
And he didn't finish college. He's also a proud Democrat, representing a district that's over 50% Latino.
To him, what happened seems pretty obvious. You know, the main reason we lost was inflation and immigration.
And on the subject of immigration, I do believe we swung the pendulum too far to the left. When I think of Kamala Harris, I don't necessarily think far left.
I mean, she talked about being a prosecutor. She was measured on her Israel-Gaza positions.
Her position on the border got more moderate. So far left does not necessarily, to me, describe what happened in the last election.
I am not suggesting that Kamala Harris is far left. Right.
So I'll take as an example, defund the police. Yeah.
It was never the case that the majority of the Democratic Party endorsed defund the police. But the far left has an outsized microphone and therefore has an outsized impact in defining the image of the Democratic Party in the public mind.
And you don't think that's because the far left is exaggerated by the right? I mean, that the right has a megaphone making it seem like the far left is the Democratic Party when neither Kamala Harris nor Joe Biden are especially far left or advocate far left policies? Can you make that argument with respect to immigration? Yeah, immigration is an exception. You're right about that.
I mean, I was thinking about... It's the exception that costs us the election.
Yeah. I was thinking about working class policies because if I think about actual policies, because you talk a lot about policies versus messaging.
We have prosecutors in America who have swung the pendulum too far to the left and have been rejected by voters in blue states. So we can blame the voters.
We can claim that the voters are misogynist and white supremacists. We could blame Fox News and the New York Post.
But those institutions have always been with us in recent political history. Although never as mobilized as they are now.
I mean, there is a concerted effort to make the Democrats seem like its most extreme version. And that effort is well-funded, well-coordinated, and very effective.
I'll take an example of the issue of Israel, right? I'm known to be strongly pro-Israel. There's not a Republican in the country that could caricature me as anti-Israel because I make it crystal clear where I stand.
And rule number one in politics is if you do not define clearly what you stand for,

others will define it for you. And I often feel like the image of the party is defined not by the center left, which is the heart of the party, but either by the far right in the form of the

New York Post and Fox News or the far left. So where do you stand? Like, what would you say publicly and loudly about where the Democratic Party should be? The Democratic Party should stop pandering to a far left that is far more representative of Twitter and TikTok than it is of the real world.
And it should start listening to working class people of color. And we have to take positions that are aligned with the priorities of working class people of color.
Look, take the issue of immigration. I'm strongly pro-immigration.
For me, the more the merrier. I see immigration as the driver of entrepreneurial and the essential workforce of America.
But I'm also self-aware enough to know that I'm considerably to the left of the country. Right.
And you have to meet people where they are. You cannot impose your ideology on the majority of the American people.
You know, as elected officials, we are constrained by public opinion.

This rightward drift we now know in New York happened in Washington Heights, the West Bronx, Queens, which is where I grew up. It's working class communities of color.
So how do you explain that? Is it all immigration? So what is that? Look, for me, what was most troubling was not only the fact that Donald Trump won, but how he won.

Not only did he crack the blue wall in the industrial Midwest, but he's beginning to crack the blue wall in urban America. He came within five points of winning New Jersey.
He came within 12 points of winning New York. Yeah.
He won nearly 30% of the vote in the Bronx, which is the one of the most democratic and Latino counties in America. And keep in mind that the trends that we are seeing unfold long predate the 2024 election.
Donald Trump made inroads among voters of color, particularly Latinos, in the 2020 election, and he decisively built on those gains in the 2024 election, but he did not begin those gains in the 2024 election. So you think it's police and immigration? The main reason is inflation and immigration and public safety, but on the subject of inflation, we were a victim of circumstance.
Supply chain disruptions during COVID led to high inflation. And when you're the incumbent party in power, you're blamed for what happens, no matter, fairly or unfairly.
And to be blamed for inflation is a political death sentence. So that to me is not the fault of the party.
Inflation is a global phenomenon with global causes, but immigration is different. I do feel there was political malpractice that led to our loss of credibility on the issue of immigration.
Since 2022, there has been an unprecedented wave of migration whose impact was felt not only at the border, but in cities like New York, where the shelter system and the social safety net and municipal finances were completely overwhelmed. In December of 2023, Quinnipiac reported that 85% of New Yorkers were concerned about the impact of the migrant crisis on New York City.
Despite clear signs of popular discontent, the Biden administration waited two and a half years before issuing an executive order regulating migration at the border. And by then it was too late.
The political damage had been done. The Republicans had successfully weaponized the issue against us.
Okay, this is helpful. I'm seeing, you know, your critiques come across on Twitter as broad critiques, the sort of, you know, general broad critique that we don't speak to the working class.
And there are parts of that that don't totally make sense to me. But I think you're

narrowing that to a couple of specific and important issues. Well, I think if you, first,

it's Twitter, so I'm constrained by the limits of tweets. But if you read, I would recommend that

you read all the commentary I've made, not simply one tweet that gained more than 3 million

Thank you. constrained by the limits of tweets.
But if you read, I would recommend that you read all the commentary I've made, not simply one tweet that gained more than 3 million views. But the first tweet I sent out was about the, just the complicated electoral environment that we were entering.
Like Vice President Harris was at a structural disadvantage in an anti-establishment atmosphere, right? The majority of Americans disapproved of the Biden administration. The majority of Americans feel that America is on the wrong track or heading in the wrong direction.
And the majority of Americans feel that they are worse off today than they were four years ago. That is an insurmountable challenge, no matter who's the nominee.
It's about structural reality structural reality rather than individual personality now we thought that donald trump was so radioactive that we could overcome that structural challenge and we were wrong did you think that by the way did you also think that i like were you surprised it's i'm not i i'm shocked but not surprised like i find Donald Trump's victory to be shocking, but not surprising. Because in recent electoral history, there is no precedent for an incumbent party winning a presidential election when more than 70% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track or headed in the wrong direction.
And so in the end, it is not surprising that Trump fatigue was outweighed by the popular discontent over inflation and immigration. After the break, I asked Torres how he thinks Democrats can rebuild after this loss.
Okay, so let's turn to rebuilding.

It seems genuinely difficult in 2024 to compile a Democratic Party that's working class voters plus urban college educated, you know, mostly white liberals. Do you have any ideas or thoughts about how to how to stick those two coalitions together? I would look to New York as a success.
I mean, New York was a profound disappointment in 2022. You know, Lee Zeldin was masterful at weaponizing the words of the far left against the Democratic Party, causing congressional losses in 2022.
But in 2024, we had a resounding success. We took back nearly all the congressional seats that we had lost.
We ran on the strength of strong candidates like Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi and Josh Riley and Pat Ryan. And the common threat among all of them is that every one of them is a centrist or center-left Democrat.
So for me, the lesson learned there is that the road to 270 electoral votes and the road to the congressional majority runs through the center-left, not the far-left. And can you say what center-left sounds like? What is a center-left Democrat talking about? Are they talking about specific constituent issues? What does it look like to be responsive? Economically populist, right? We have to convey the sense that we're fighting for working people, right? And that we're holding powerful interests accountable, right? And I think that's where the left is onto something, right? I think what we should avoid are the excesses on issues like immigration or public safety, right? There should be nothing resembling defund the police, nothing resembling open borders.
Like, people do care about border security. People do care about public safety.
We have to ensure that we're on the center of those issues while doubling down on economic populism. So weirdly, like, on a national level, like an Elizabeth Warren-ish message, it sounds like what you're talking about.
So when I think of real solutions to working class problems, I think of, you know, breaking up monopolies, real strong consumer protections. But those are big government policies and big government policies are not that popular.
Like that approach doesn't seem to really gain traction, even though, you know, it seems like the right policy solution. You know, so much of politics is rhetorical.
And I just feel like we have to give people the sense that we are fighting for them. Right.
And too often people have the impression that we're obsessed with the culture war. But I want to be clear.
I continue to believe the main reasons we lost the election were inflation and immigration. And I disagree with Bernie Sanders' critique.
I do not think President Biden abandoned the working class. In legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, it is meant to support working people.
It's meant to support America. But the benefits of the legislation in the short term were outweighed by the cost of inflation.

So can you say how you would talk about immigration or address immigration? Because, you know, for people who are not looking too closely, it feels a little counterintuitive that, you know, a majority, say, Latino or people of color districts and voting class, their main issue is restrictions on immigration.

It seems on its face to be a contradiction. Now, I'm sure when you get deeper, it isn't.
If you're stereotyping Latino, sure. Yeah, exactly.
So let's get beneath the stereotype. And like, how would you walk through that issue? Well, I mean, keep in mind that the most Latino county in America was Star County, right at the border.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won it by 60 percentage points. And in 2024, Donald Trump won nearly 60%, a complete collapse of Latino support.
But my view is that we do not have a messaging problem. We have a reality problem.
When the migrant crisis was unfolding, we should have responded with the sense of urgency that the public demanded of us. The public saw it as a crisis.
So it's not a messaging problem. It's a reality problem.
When there is a crisis, when there's an emergency, when there's a metaphorical fire, we have to extinguish the fire. We have to do everything we can to extinguish the fire or else we're going to pay a price at the ballot box.
Although it still surprises me that people would drift towards a leader who uses words like mass deportation, you know, or the whole floating island of garbage thing. Like, it still surprises me that that doesn't, that's not an automatic no.
Again, I'm appalled by it. Yeah.
But I'm self-aware to recognize that I'm considerably to the left of the rest of the country in immigration. I see.
And here's the danger. If we swing the pendulum too far to the left on issues like immigration and public safety, we will risk a public reaction that will make our country more right-wing, not less.
Got it. More restrictionist on immigration, not less.
Got it. More conservative on public safety, not less.
Got it. Okay.
That makes sense. So how do you...
I just want to illustrate this point further. Before the defund the police movement, Republicans were becoming more open to criminal justice reform.
Hakeem Jeffries, who's going to be eventually the Speaker of the House, negotiated a bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation. And then after the defund the police movement, any hope of bipartisanship on criminal justice has all but collapsed.
I see. So this is what you mean.
You're saying the Democrats are allowing, or by capitulating to some far-left language, are allowing the Republicans to use the language against us, like they're handing them a tool. Okay.
Precisely. I understand what you're saying.
Just as a model, can you just tell me how you talk to your constituents about immigration? So we know what your own personal feelings are. We know that you're listening to what they're saying.
What's the kind of language that the Democrats could have adopted and should adopt in the future about a touchy issue like immigration? I'm not clear the issue's language. I mean, I'm happy to answer the question, but I feel like...
What kind of policies? Sorry. Yes, you're right.
What kind of policies? I mean, basic border security. Just talk about that.
Yeah. So you cannot have a system where anyone anywhere can cross the border, declare asylum, and then remain here indefinitely.
And there was a point at which the sheer number of people coming

became overwhelming.

Like it put unprecedented strain on the shelter system

and social safety net of New York City.

And I know Mayor Adams came under severe criticism

for excoriating the administration,

but for me the problem was not Mayor Adams complaining

about the migrant crisis. The problem

was the reality of the migrant crisis

and the administration's failure to

address it with the urgency that the public

demanded. Look, I feel

if we return to the center

left on both immigration

and public safety,

I'm

cautiously optimistic that communities of color will naturally gravitate toward the Democratic Party as its natural home. That's my belief.
We have to meet people where they are, or we could, or there's a limit to how far we can deviate from strongly held public sentiment on an issue like immigration. Last thing I want to say is, I, you know, disinformation seems overwhelming, like just overwhelming in a very, very coordinated way.
How do you combat something like that? No matter what you will say on immigration, there'll be a disinformation campaign to skew it, turn it, whatever. Look, we do our best to speak out against disinformation, but I'm not, and I'm i'm probably in the minority here i'm not convinced we lost because of disinformation like if you remove inflation and immigration from the table we win the election okay we win the election okay because donald trump's net favorability has been chronically underwater he is unpopular among most americans but he was seen as a change agent as an alternative to a status quo marked by inflation and the migrant crisis.
If you change the status quo, he no longer wins the election. That's my belief.
Okay. All right.
This has been really, really helpful. I really appreciate this.
Thank you. Of course.
This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudina Bade.

It was engineered by Rob Smersiak.

Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

I'm Hannah Rosen.

Thank you for listening.