The summer before a tough re-election campaign in 2012, President Barack Obama lost the support of Latino voters, who labeled him the “deporter in chief.” He then signed a sweeping executive order to protect hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Luis V. Gutiérrez, an Illinois Democrat and former congressman, recalled that in his Chicago-area district, some Latinos celebrated the moment in the streets. “Everywhere I went people said, ‘Now we’re going to vote for him,'” he said. “I swear to God. That’s how important it was for him politically.”
Twelve years later, President Biden appears to be trying to repeat that move.
Mr. Biden sought to stand with immigrant families on Tuesday as he unveiled an executive order expanding legal protections for spouses of undocumented American citizens. He recalled Mr. Obama’s powerful moment by announcing it at an event commemorating the anniversary of that executive action targeting young immigrants in 2012.
News of Mr. Biden’s expected announcement has already drawn widespread praise from Latino and immigrant rights advocates, including some former critics who denounced him as “border shutdown” Biden just weeks ago.
“The Biden administration is listening to young people, voters of color, who are demanding a pro-immigrant message on immigration,” said Bruna Bouhid-Sollod, senior policy director at the immigration rights group United We Dream Action. “For those of us directly affected, it has always been about keeping families together.”
But behind the celebrations lies considerable uncertainty. It remains unclear what this decision will mean for Mr. Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign and whether he will be able to reshape the narrative on an issue that has so far been dominated by his Republican rival Donald J. Trump.
Unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden is grappling with a very different immigration landscape.
The president faces pressure from members of his own party as well as Hispanic voters, many of whom want both tougher enforcement and better pathways to citizenship. Republicans have ratcheted up their rhetoric and moved in lockstep to blame Mr. Biden for what they call chaos at the border. Even before Mr. Biden unveiled his executive action, Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s anti-immigration policies, called it “amnesty for illegal immigrants during a border invasion.”
In 2012, under pressure from a national immigration rights movement, Mr. Obama signed his executive action as his administration rushed to forestall a similar legislative proposal from Sen. Marco Rubio, then a young and rising Republican star from Florida.
Mr. Rubio moved to the left of his party to issue work permits for Dreamers, the young undocumented immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. In a sign of how much the political waters have changed, Mr. Rubio has now thrown his support behind Mr. Trump, who wants to be his running mate for vice president.
Mr. Biden has been criticized by Latino leaders, immigrant rights activists and progressives for being too accommodating to far-right demands. Democratic leaders and strategists said it was too early to tell how much his latest action would energize Democrats, especially after the president’s recent decision to sharply limit asylum for migrants as border crossings increase.
Chris Newman, a longtime immigrant rights advocate, said Mr. Biden’s order could still be a game-changer. He said the president needed to deliver a message strong enough to win public opinion over policies that could help him campaign and defend himself since they would likely be challenged in court.
“Performance is just as important as policy and policy,” said Mr. Newman, legal director and general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a labor organization based in Los Angeles. It will also depend, he argued, on Mr. Biden’s ability to provide other forms of assistance to other undocumented immigrant groups.
Mr. Obama’s executive action created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. It provides work and study permits to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children, provided they pass a criminal background check and meet certain requirements. The effects were soon felt across the country. But that initiative — which included around 800,000 immigrants at its peak — is still in limbo in court and new applicants can no longer sign up.
Mr. Biden’s order on spouses is expected to benefit about 500,000 people.
Mr Biden’s supporters and allies say the president has grappled with the thorny issue of immigration for much of his career. In 2020, Mr. Biden, who served as Mr. Obama’s vice president, had to walk a fine line between invoking Mr. Obama’s legacy on health care and the economy and distancing himself from the huge increase in deportations under the Obama administration.
Mr. Biden helped negotiate the Dream Act, which sought a path to citizenship for people brought to the country illegally as children, when it came closest to passage by Congress in 2010. Three years later, he worked with Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to push a comprehensive immigration reform bill through the Senate, although that effort was ultimately blocked by far-right Republicans who called it “amnesty.”
“He’s been in the middle of all this ever since,” said Héctor Sánchez Barba, president of the Latino rights group Mi Familia Vota, adding that the president had at times stood at Obama’s side in discussions about DACA.
In recent months, Mr. Biden has tried to flip the narrative on Republicans with campaign ads, a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border and calls for bipartisan legislation that Republicans have twice blocked. When Mr. Biden endorsed one of those Senate proposals at a dinner with South Carolina Democrats in January, he indicated he was serious about enforcing it, saying, “If this bill were law today, I would close the border immediately.” and fix the problem quickly.” .”
Immigration and the southern border are particularly key concerns for Republican and independent voters in the 2024 presidential race. But some Democratic pollsters and strategists have warned that it may be too late to sway voters who say Mr. Trump is better at handling immigration than Mr. Biden.
Still, Mr. Biden’s recent action to protect undocumented spouses could be a game-changer in some respects. The American Business Immigration Coalition, which represents hundreds of companies and supports Mr. Biden’s order, has predicted that the latest policies could help Mr. Biden in battleground swing states. In Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, more than 300,000 voters are estimated to live in “mixed status” households, meaning households with at least one undocumented person.
Mr. Gutiérrez, the former Illinois congressman, said polls had not taken into account what he called the “X factor” of these recent measures — how quickly word of mouth could spread among mixed-status Mexican American and Central American families who would benefit .
“This will bring a lot of joy and happiness, and the best thing it will do is hope,” he said.
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2024-06-18 19:58:46
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