The Lesson Democrats Have Yet to Learn on Immigration
As news cycle after news cycle fills with stories about children ripped away from their parents’ embrace at the U.S. border, you could forgive many Democrats for thinking that the best way for them to beat President Trump on immigration is to just say, “We’re not that guy.”
For example, Kamala Harris, the U.S. senator from California and a rumored presidential aspirant, has drawn attention to the family-separation crisis by calling hearings on the question, and then denouncing Trump’s executive order replacing family separation with family detention as insufficient. But she has not rallied her own caucus behind an alternative blueprint for immigration; she apparently sees denouncing Trump as a sufficient strategy.
She, and other Democrats,, roughly eight in 10 Americans prefer a merit-based immigration system over a family-based immigration system, as Trump says he supports. Six in 10 want increased border security. If Democrats are going to gain their trust on this issue, they not only need to differentiate themselves from Trump, they need to follow the lead of French President Emmanuel Macron.
