Tomorrow, Hillary Clinton hosts a roundtable discussion in Las Vegas and her remarks are expected to focus heavily on immigration.
The event will serve as a significant indication regarding Clinton’s policies and strategy. Is she planning to play it so safe she misses an opportunity to mobilize critical voting groups, or is she planning to embrace the new politics of immigration by leaning into the issue and running her campaign as an assertively pro-immigrant candidate?
She has hinted at in recent weeks that she intends to lean in. If she does, it will help energize and turn out Latino and other pro-immigrant voters and draw a sharp contrast with the Republican presidential field. Such a development would also be a welcome contrast from the “old” Democratic thinking on immigration. Encapsulated by Rahm Emanuel’s infamous 2007 advice to Democrats, which viewed immigration as the “third rail of American politics,” the old Democratic school of thought emphasized that immigration was an issue to avoid and, if you had to discuss the issue, candidates should sound like enforcement-first Republicans.
Ahead of tomorrow’s event, America’s Voice is issuing a detailed backgrounder on Hillary Clinton and her immigration record. For the most part, Hillary Clinton had a pro-immigration voting record while serving in the United States Senate. Yet, since her days in the Senate, the immigration debate has moved at a rapid pace away from the “third rail” in American politics mindset. Hillary Clinton seemed a bit rusty and more than a bit disconnected from the rapid growth of the immigration reform movement and a dramatic shift in the center of gravity of immigration politics during a series of comments she made last summer and fall. However, there have subsequently been a series of positive indications from Clinton and her campaign that show that she may recognize that good immigration policy is also good politics for 2016.
- Read Up on Hillary Clinton’s Immigration Record: http://americasvoice.org/research/meet-the-2016-democratic-candidates-for-president-and-their-positions-on-immigration/
- Check out the full set of America’s Voice 2016 materials, analysis, and candidate tracking information: http://americasvoice.org/2016
