For a longer-form, more detailed version of this “10 Things” overview, visit the AV Substack HERE
Washington, DC — While there’s much we don’t yet know with less than two weeks remaining in a tightly contested 2024 election cycle, below are 10 things we do know with confidence about immigration and the 2024 elections. For a longer-form version of this piece, with a more detailed explanation of each of the below points, visit the America’s Voice Substack post: HERE.
- Donald Trump is making his closing argument all about immigration lies – and it’s getting more apocalyptic. Don’t just take our word for it – as the Washington Post wrote, Trump is “leaning into a nativist, anti-immigrant message … a closing argument centered on fearmongering, falsehoods and stereotypes about migrants.”
- Trump is running the most vicious anti-immigrant presidential campaign of any major party nominee in modern U.S. history, using xenophobia and racism as the vehicle to seek absolute, fascistic power and not stopping at people who lack legal status or even citizenship. Ugly nativism has always been a central part of Trump’s message, but his 2024 campaign crossed a new threshold that is more aligned with fascists than Republicans of the past.
- The Republican Party and outside allies are on track to spend more than one billion dollars on anti-immigrant ads and messaging this election cycle. Republican-aligned campaigns are on track to spend over a billion dollars on anti-immigrant ads – more details in this recent analysis from America’s Voice, “Republicans’ Billion-Dollar Bet on Nativism.”
- Despite the GOP’s obsessive anti-immigrant focus, Republican nativism hasn’t been an election winner in recent general elections. Yes, running hard on nativism motivates core GOP base voters, but their extremism hasn’t worked and has backfired in some races in recent general elections. See reminders and examples from the 2018, 2020, and 2022 cycles and off-cycle races such as the NY special election won by Tom Suozzi.
- Trump, JD Vance, and other Republicans are hiding from the details of their radical mass-deportation agenda. At both presidential debates, Trump refused to answer specific moderator questions about his proposed mass deportations and JD Vance similarly avoided answering in specifics during the VP debate. As HuffPost’s Igor Bobic wrote in, “Republicans Duck Questions About Trump’s Plan For Mass Deportations,” key GOP candidates and elected officials are similarly refusing to engage on specifics.
- Trump promises to deploy the military and a “private red state army” to go after immigrants with and without legal immigration status and also U.S. citizens. The broad Trump definition of “the enemy within” at whom his retribution will be targeted using the “National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military” includes American citizens like Nancy and Paul Pelosi and Adam Schiff, so the notion that roundups and incarceration will only be aimed at non-citizens without legal status is false. And both Vance and Trump also have made it clear that TPS holders and DACA recipients – here legally – will be among those targeted.
- Trump’s unsparing mass deportation plan is unpopular – when voters learn more details and hear about its impact, the Trump plan rapidly loses public support – which is likely why Trump, Vance and other Republicans have avoided specifics. Trump and GOP allies are refusing to engage on the specific details because they know the specifics are politically unpopular – see polling conducted by Professor Tom K. Wong and read Ron Brownstein’s CNN column here: “Carlos Odio, a Democratic pollster who focuses on Latino voters, says surveys show that support for mass deportation plummets among not only Latinos but also other voters when ‘people learn that Trump’s plans are to deport [undocumented] people who have been living and working here for decades.’”
- The GOP’s anti-immigrant obsession is directly linked to its anti-democratic push. Republicans’ anti-immigrant obsessions aren’t distinct from their threats to democracy. The “Big Lie 2.0,” and the myth of non-naturalized immigrants casting ballots in significant numbers purposefully fuels election denialism and is a pretext for both voter restrictions targeted at eligible voters AND a potential 2024 post-election challenge.
- American voters still strongly prefer a balanced approach to immigration, both an orderly border AND support for legal immigration/citizenship, instead of Trump-style mass deportation and enforcement-only. The American public, including Latino voters and broad majorities of battleground state voters, endorse a balanced approach that pairs an orderly border alongside a pathway to citizenship for immigrant families, instead of a mass deportation-only alternative (see a roundup of polls here and fresh example from the University of Maryland, Program for Public Consultation (PPC) – voters prefer citizenship over details of mass deportation by a 58-26% margin nationally).
- The Harris-Walz campaign is embracing an approach that works and has the support of the majority of Americans. They are seeking reforms to our broken immigration system and supporting policies that pair an orderly border with legal pathways and opportunities for long-settled immigrants. See recent speeches from VP Harris in Arizona and Las Vegas for examples (and read the AV take here). Democrats also have coalesced around a strategy of defining contrasts with Trump and Republicans and calling out their preference for immigration politics over solutions – this includes a consistent focus on Trump’s cynical obstruction of the bipartisan, enforcement-heavy Senate bill.
And here is the most undeniable fact: No matter the outcome of the election, we know immigration is essential to the future vitality, competitiveness, and potential of America. Immigration has played a key role in cementing the country’s economic rebound from the pandemic. According to a recent report by the non-partisan National Foundation for American Policy: “immigrants are responsible for the bulk of growth within the U.S. labor market” and “ Immigrant workers will be the only source of U.S. labor force growth in the economy after 2052.”
