Your Weekend Talking Points: Immigration

In late January, just as Mike Johnson became Speaker of the House, we discussed the Republican plan to kill the compromise immigration bill that gave them much of what they’d been demanding. Speaker Johnson said the bill was “dead on arrival” and refused to bring it to the floor of the House. After shutting the bill down, Johnson, apparently with no shame over the hypocrisy, told the House that on the matter of immigration, “I’m here this morning to beg my colleagues to help us force the administration to take action.” All of this, of course, happened in service to Donald Trump, who didn’t want to fix the border after all when the opportunity was there for the taking because it would forestall an issue he wanted to run on for November.

If you really think the border is a problem, you can’t walk away from a deal that would fix it. But Trump did. That takes us to our job this weekend.

Some polling out today shows that when voters learn that Republicans killed the proposal for a tough new border bill, it impacts who they’re willing to vote for. Republicans start with a 15-point advantage over Democrats on the issue of who handles the border better. But that advantage evaporates when the facts are explained to them. The truth can still be powerful in American society.

This polling was done by Third Way, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank that bills itself as developing and advocating for policies that are “modern center-left ideas.” More about them here. (I always like to know who is behind a poll before I rely it.)

When Republicans in the poll’s sample were told that Trump’s opposition to the immigration bill killed it, only a plurality of them approved, saying they didn’t want it to pass. When it came to Independents, they favored passage of the bill by five points. Democrats favored it by 65 points. And Latino voters favored the measure by 15 points. In a race where every vote counts, an issue with this level of impact is important.

So spend some time this weekend talking about this issue with Republican and Independent voters in your circle, and Democrats too. Everyone needs to understand what happened on this issue. Make a point of having coffee with a friend or family member you haven’t seen for a while to try out some civil discourse.

The polling here involved 1,000 likely voters in battleground congressional districts, with an oversample of 150 Latino likely voters. Not huge, but instructive. The polling detailed some points that were particularly persuasive for voters reassessing their position on the issue:

• Explaining that Democratic candidates wanted to “fix our broken border” and were willing to compromise to restore order.

• Talking about fixing the system while also protecting migrants was effective, too. A majority of Independents polled, 72%, responded positively to protecting asylum seekers and other migrants, providing humanitarian aid, speedier processing, and creating legal pathways that let migrants work and support their families.

It was important to emphasize that Republicans in Congress have acknowledged they’re playing politics at the expense of fixing the problem. People who were polled showed concerns about voting for Congressional Republicans when they learned about this.

The pollsters determined that “After voters hear Democrats go on offense owning the deal and are reminded that Republicans walked away, the latter’s advantage on the issue almost completely dissipates.” Their sample, which started out giving Republicans a 15-point advantage as the party with the better approach on immigration, turned into a statistical tie when provided with accurate information—Republicans were up two points, but that was within the poll’s margin of error. And Independents, who started out believing Republicans had the better approach on immigration by 24 points, sided “with Democrats by seven” after hearing them talk about their role in this work. For Latino voters, there was a switch from favoring Republicans by two points to siding with Democrats by 13 on immigration, following receipt of accurate information.

I try to never do math in public (it’s why I went to law school), so I won’t hash out the poll’s results in detail. I’ve included the link if you want more. But what’s clear is that voters are moved by conversations that provide them with accurate information about why immigration reform failed, and we all know from our personal experience that it’s most effective when you have that conversation with someone you like or someone you respect. Republicans themselves acknowledged they backed out on immigration reform because it would be good for President Biden, politically speaking. Don’t hesitate to use Republicans own words on this topic, some of which you can find here, in your conversations. Key Senate Republicans confirmed Trump wanted them to defeat the measure.

So try out a little civil discourse of your own this weekend. Share your experience in the comments, so we can all learn how to get better at having these important and often difficult, but heartfelt, conversations. There’s a popular narrative that says we can no longer have respectful conversations about the issues with people who don’t see entirely eye to eye with us. The results of this polling suggest otherwise. Put it into practice!

If you’re enjoying Civil Discourse and don’t already have one, I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription. It lets me devote more time and resources to this work. You can also give Civil Discourse as a gift to others who you think will like and benefit from it. I appreciate everyone who is here, and I truly believe we have important work ahead of us. I’m worried about where our country is headed, especially after the disappointing week we’ve had with the Supreme Court. So lets make sure as many of our fellow citizens as possible are engaged ahead of the 2024 election.

We’re in this together,

Joyce