The Congressional Black Caucus, usually one of the most united groups in Congress, is currently grappling with an issue that has divided Democrats for decades: immigration.
Specifically, CBC members can’t seem to decide whether to talk about immigration as a “Black issue” or to treat the issue more as a generic item of political ideology.
Immigration has long been one of the trickiest issues for Democrats, dividing the party along a number of fault lines and giving Republicans plenty of room to attack their counterparts. But as President Joe Biden makes an executive order to address illegal border crossings, the CBC is internally debating Biden’s border policies — and how the president’s rhetoric has ignored how immigration is also a Black issue. (Naturalized Black immigrants counted for nearly 20% of Black people eligible to vote in Florida in 2020, for example.)