Column: Our immigration problem isn't what Trump says it is

Former President Trump pointing as he speaks at a lectern, with a border wall in the background

May 2, 2024 3 AM PT

Happy Thursday. There are 186 days until the election, and “politics ain’t beanbag.”

That’s a sentiment penned by Chicago newspaper columnist Finley Peter Dunne in 1895.

It’s as true today as it was back then, when Grover “Uncle Jumbo” Cleveland recently won a second term in the White House — amid past voting scandals, labor strikes and attempts to block Black Southerners from going to the polls.

Someone may want to let RFK Jr.’s running mate Nicole Shanahan know that history may repeat itself, but campaigns will just punch you in the face and keep walking.

In a new video as softly lit as it is self-referential, the vice presidential noncontender laments that politics is full of bullies — including all those former friends who would really like her to not destroy democracy with her ego and her cash.

But those naysayers/sane people have just become “noise” to her. Folks, she is convinced she has an “unshakable” duty to do it anyway, because — wait for it — she’s from an immigrant family.

I don’t know, the logic was murky. You’ll have to wade through that Freudian id swamp on your own.

But I will talk about immigrants, President Biden, former President Trump and, if you make it to the end, how U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) is one of the few who understand that border photos win votes, but they don’t show the whole picture.

Bloodbaths, hordes, invasions and votes

Biden has an immigration problem, but not the one you think.

Even if you despise The Donald, you’ve almost certainly heard his overtly racist remarks about immigrants.

This is his No. 1 favorite, most reliable issue going into November, and his base loves it.

Many of his comments are cut straight from the Great Replacement trope — a backdoor way to slide white Christian nationalism into a valid policy debate.

But beyond the ugliness of the ideas, the frequency of them is a problem.

Though endless repetition, Trump has created, even among reasonable people, a rock-solid belief that immigration is a crisis, and that dangerous people are crossing unchecked.

Even though the number of migrants crossing the border has declined. And even though immigrants commit less crime on average than American-born Americans. And even though people have always crossed our borders.

As you are reading this, you are probably saying, “Yeah, but ... I’ve seen the photos.”

And it’s that feeling among even Democratic and undecided voters that is Biden’s real immigration problem. Even Latino voters (many of whom are conservative, but also critical in this election) have voiced approval of closing the border because it looks crazy down there.

Do something already!

But it’s not true, immigration scholar and UCLA law professor Hiroshi Motomura told me. People have come in to the United States, sometimes in waves, since its founding.

And often, we’ve met them with backlash: Chinese immigrants, Jewish immigrants during World War II, even people with HIV have found themselves targeted and even banned.

Our immigration policy is totally messed up, and has been for a long time, but that is different than a laser-focus on the physical border as an existential threat to our democracy.

“To call it a crisis is to suggest it is something unprecedented, unusual, and I don’t think that is true,” Motomura said.

Crisis or political creation, it doesn’t matter, because, “something is necessary to give Americans confidence that borders aren’t open and porous as many Americans think they are,” Kevin R. Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law and an immigration expert, told me.

Which is why you’ve probably heard the reports that Biden may do some sort of executive order on immigration before the election.

Biden does not have the power to “close” the border or stop all immigration. But there are two main ways he could take action:

Through Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president the right “to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens.” You’ll know it best through Trump’s “Muslim travel ban,” which restricted immigration from eight countries for national security reasons and was upheld by courts.
Through Title 42, part of a 1944 public health law that Trump weaponized during the COVID-19 pandemic to turn away asylum seekers. Biden did away with that policy, but could potentially use the law in some other way to limit border crossing.

But you see the problem here. Executive orders on immigration were a Trump thing — “out of the playbook of the Republican Party,” as Bijal Shah told me. She’s an associate professor of law at Boston College and an expert on immigration law.

They would, however, grab headlines and potentially provide better border visuals. Biden just this week announced new efforts with Mexico for greater enforcement aimed at doing just that.

Why I talked to Alex Padilla

Sen. Alex Padilla is the son of Santos and Lupe Padilla, Mexican immigrants who settled in Los Angeles.

So he’s got some views on immigration, and recently, he’s been more vocal about them. When Congress waylaid a bipartisan immigration deal this year — at the request of Trump — Padilla was quick to condemn that politicking.

But he also had some criticisms of that bill because it mainly focused on the border.

“A lot of people agree that the need to modernize our immigration system is long overdue. I know that the president feels that,” he told me Wednesday.

But, he said, he reminds the president and anyone else who will listen that while we secure the border, “we have to equally prioritize a humane process for people who come to the border seeking asylum.”

And we “cannot leave behind ‘Dreamers,’ farmworkers, other essential workers, many who are long-term residents of the United States that have been here for years, in some cases, decades, contributing to the strength of communities, contributing to the strength of our national economy.”

And that about sums up the whole point of this column. The border is about keeping people out. What do we do for the people who are here, part of the fabric of our society?

If Trump got his way in a second term, he has threatened to not just close the border but deport millions of people in a horrific, military-led campaign modeled after an Eisenhower-era shame.

That is a family separation plan that would devastate millions of Americans. It would hobble our economy. It would leave generations in trauma and poverty.

California in particular is home to millions in mixed-status families. Kids might be citizens when parents are not. Siblings, cousins, husbands, wives — it is common for some to be documented and others not.

As Padilla said, we are the world’s fifth largest economy, and that’s “not despite our immigrant population. It is because of the immigrant population.”

So why does Trump get to set the narrative?

Imagine what it would do for votes — especially that coveted conservative Latino element — if Biden went on the offense about the value of immigration to America.

If he put forward a promise: We’ll fix the border, sure. But we’ll also protect families.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: RFK Jr. is all over conservative media. Trump’s camp is concerned.
The political disaster cleanup: Arizona Lawmakers Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban, Creating Political Rift on the Right
The L.A. Times Special: ‘Unacceptable’: Why it took hours for police to quell attack at UCLA pro-Palestinian camp

Stay Golden,
Anita Chabria

P.S. The image that haunts

The violence at UCLA — and the unrest at college campuses across the country — is a complicated story with election consequences that we are still working out. But this image, by Times photographer Wally Skalij, stopped me for its raw rage and the sorrow that brings to my heart. However we got here, this is not the way forward.