Democrats Insist They Won’t Forget DREAMers As They Shift Right On Immigration

The party’s rightward movement reflects new realities on the border and in public opinion.

WASHINGTON – The immigration debate has undoubtedly shifted to the right.

The border bill Democrats endorsed this past week was far more conservative than anything the party had agreed to in the past – and they slammed Republicans for not going along.

The bill would make it more difficult for migrants to qualify for asylum, while giving the president the power to put asylum fully out of reach for long stretches of time, and it would restrict the president’s ability to give temporary legal status to immigrants who cross the border.

Behind the shift is a transformed political reality, based on public opinion on immigration moving sharply to the right since Biden became president. A variety of factors in recent years – including instability in South and Central America and the end of pandemic-era provisions restricting migration – led the number of immigrants crossing the border to skyrocket to record highs, with Border Patrol taking more than 225,000 migrants into custody in December 2023.

What’s ahead of the shift, according to interviews with Democrats and immigration advocates, is far less certain. Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants, whose legal status has long been what Democrats hoped to gain out of immigration negotiations, were left feeling left out after party leaders instead prepared to trade tougher border enforcement for U.S. aid to Ukraine. The seeming abandonment of their cause has alarmed Latino Democrats.