The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, once loudly furious with the Democrats’ conservative tack on immigration, has fallen curiously silent on Vice President Kamala Harris making the bipartisan immigration bill central to her platform.
But privately, progressive lawmakers and those in the CHC are worried this rightward shift in border policies will go beyond election year politics and could become more ingrained in the party.
“There’s a lot of concern about what we’re hearing. People want her to win the election, but it’s out of step with where Democrats have been for the last 20 years,” one House Democrat told NOTUS, requesting anonymity to speak freely about the caucus’ political calculations. “At some point, there has to be a reckoning about that.”
The member pointed to a similar conservative tone among Democrats in the ’90s, which they said didn’t save the party.
“There were some harsh immigration policies that were pursued in an attempt to win elections, and we still lost the 2000 presidential election and Republicans continued to hold the Congress for years and years,” the Democrat said.
Those willing to talk on the record put on rosier glasses. Lawmakers in the CHC told NOTUS they’re still hoping this is a political wind that dies out, that their caucus will have more power after the election and that Harris will throw out the Senate deal altogether if elected. They stopped short of criticizing Harris for adopting it in the first place.
“I think it’s a reflection of the tough circumstances that we’re facing,” Rep. Chuy García said of Harris’ support for the bill. He said there was a lot left out of the bill that he was very disappointed in, which should be argued for next time. “My hope is that after the passions of the current cycle subside that we get back to those hard, tough conversations.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez said she remains opposed to the bipartisan immigration proposal but gave Harris an opening as well.
“I also understand that we are in campaign mode, and my responsibility is to make sure, one, that she gets elected, and two, to make sure that when we come back in January, we’re coming back from scratch, creating the kind of bill that we should have been passing,” she said.
Many CHC members came out against the Senate’s proposal because it lacked protections for most undocumented people already in the country and made the threshold to qualify for asylum more restrictive. Under the deal, the United States would stop accepting new migrants who did not go through ports of entry if illegal crossings reached certain thresholds, and would make it more difficult for migrants to claim asylum in those scenarios.
“While it is understandable to knock on President Trump for sabotaging a bipartisan compromise, at the end of the day, I believe that that bill was very narrowly a result of the politics of that individual moment, as opposed to the policy that’s actually going to solve this problem,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told NOTUS when asked if the party’s embrace of the border bill concerns her.
However, when asked specifically about Harris’ embrace of the legislation, Ocasio-Cortez declined to provide a specific critique.
“Overall, in terms of our party, I think that there still is a lot left to be desired in terms of how we approach and also own the politics on immigration,” she said.
“We should not completely cede and abdicate all aspirations and good policy on immigration, just due to the inability for some folks to change the politics around this issue,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
Many hope the gap between campaign season and the legislative session will help Democrats change course. If the Democrats do well, there will be no reason to cater to so many Republican priorities, at least not without more in the bill for their side.
“It is a very different environment come January, and I will refuse and reject any bill that looks like the current Senate bill,” Ramirez said.
“The Democrats were negotiating for Ukraine money,” Rep. Greg Casar added. “So now I think the bill needs actual Democratic priorities in it, rather than just the Republican priorities.”
Though when it came to Harris, Casar focused on her other proposals.
“What I heard the vice president say during her acceptance speech at the DNC was that she wanted an immigration bill that paired pathways to citizenship and taking care of people, immigrant families that have lived and worked here for many years and enforcement resources at the border,” he said. “That kind of a compromise bill is one that I think Democrats should be willing to work on.”
The Senate proposal is part of Harris’ official platform: “As Vice President, she supported the bipartisan border security bill, the strongest reform in decades,” her website reads.
She also mentioned the bill during the debate Tuesday night.
“The United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill, which I supported, and that bill would have put 1,500 more border agents on the border,” Harris said, lauding the proposal.
CHC Chair Nanette Barragán is looking past all that messaging.
“I do hope to hear more on the campaign trail of what she has spoken about and reiterating the need to have a balanced approach, the need to have more legal pathways,” Barragán said. “I think she could be one of the most pro-immigrant presidents we’ve ever had before.”
—
Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.