The Democrats onstage saw themselves as morally courageous. American voters, it turned out, saw a group of politicians hopelessly out of touch.
Standing side by side at a primary debate in June 2019, nine of the party’s candidates for president were asked to raise their hand if they wanted to decriminalize illegal border crossings. Only one of them held still.
Six years later, the party remains haunted by that tableau. It stands both as a vivid demonstration of a leftward policy shift on immigration that many prominent Democratic lawmakers and strategists now say they deeply regret, and as a marker of how sharply the country was moving in the other direction.
Last year, 55 percent of Americans told Gallup that they supported a decrease in immigration, nearly twice as many as in 2020, and the first time since 2005 that a majority had said so. The embrace of a more punitive approach to illegal immigration includes not only white voters but also working-class Latinos, whose support Democrats had long courted with liberal border policies.
“When you have the most Latino district in the country outside of Puerto Rico vote for Trump, that should be a wake-up call for the Democratic Party,” said Representative Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, who saw Mr. Trump win every county in his district along the border with Mexico. “This is a Democratic district that’s been blue for over a century.”
How the Democrats reached this point, and their continued struggles on immigration, is a decades-long story of political failures, missteps, misreadings and misplaced bets — and some shrewd Republican moves.
“We got led astray by the 2016 and the 2020 elections, and we just never moved back,” said Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who introduced an immigration and border security plan in May. “We looked feckless, we weren’t decisive, we weren’t listening to voters, and the voters decided that we weren’t in the right when it comes to what was happening with the border.”
What the party does to change its approach — and to change how voters see Democrats on immigration — may be the most consequential and difficult decision it faces as it searches for a path back to power.
But while there is party-wide agreement that Democrats have a problem on immigration and border security, there is no consensus on how to fix it.
Some are pushing for a course correction they see as overdue. A soon-to-be-released proposal from the Center for American Progress, the party’s leading policy shop, embraces restrictive ideas long championed by conservatives, including making it harder for migrants to qualify for asylum.
Neera Tanden, the center’s chief executive, said the plan acknowledged a reality that Democrats had long resisted: They must embrace new immigration restrictions in order to have the credibility with voters to fight the far more expansive plans of the Trump administration.
“I’m happy to argue with Stephen Miller or anyone else about why they are wrong,” she said. “But the way we’re going to be able to do that is to also honestly assess that the border has been too insecure, that it allowed too many people to come through and that we need to fix that.”
Many on the left vehemently disagree, insisting that more conservative policies will only aid what they see as an insidious and ambitious effort by the Trump administration to demonize and deport Black and brown immigrants who have been in the country for years, remaking the fabric of a nation that once took pride in its diversity.
“Democrats have to stop talking about the issue of immigration within a Republican frame,” said Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. “This has nothing to do with law and order. This is about power, control, terror, and it is about racism and xenophobia. Donald Trump wants to make America Jim Crow again, and then some.”
Complicating Democrats’ efforts to chart a new path is the fact that the party’s debate is unfolding in the midst of what it sees as a national crisis. The Trump administration is pursuing the harshest crackdown on immigrants since World War II. Raids and patrols by masked officers, detentions at courthouses and workplaces, the promises to arrest and deport millions, and the deployment of National Guard troops against protesters all have undocumented immigrants and even some naturalized citizens running scared and lying low.
“We, and I include myself in this, created a vacuum on this issue that we allowed the current president to fill,” said Cecilia Muñoz, who led the Obama administration’s domestic policy council. “And the country is now living with the results. And the results are appalling.”
What the past may teach
Some Democrats believe their party can find its path forward by looking to the past.
It was under President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, that Congress broadly expanded the grounds for deportation and that border enforcement officers saw their ranks increase sharply. The next Democrat to win the White House, Barack Obama, promised to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, including a pathway to legal status for an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants.
Seeking Republican support, Mr. Obama also pursued aggressive enforcement, deporting more undocumented immigrants in his first term than any president had since the 1950s. But his attempts to balance the two priorities ultimately failed: His plan to modernize the immigration system stalled in Congress, while his executive actions to aid undocumented students, workers and families were challenged in the courts. Disillusioned advocates denounced him as the “deporter in chief.”
Then came Mr. Trump, who rode down the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential campaign with promises to build a “great wall” along what he described as an out-of-control southern border and to expel migrants he condemned as criminals, drug traffickers and rapists.
As Mr. Trump competed for his party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton was under pressure in the Democratic primaries from Senator Bernie Sanders on the left. Immigration activists persuaded her to break with Mr. Obama’s approach — not to mention her husband’s — and pledge not to deport illegal immigrants beyond violent criminals and terrorists. But that promise fueled Mr. Trump’s candidacy more than it helped hers. He hammered away at her, saying she wanted to “abolish” the country’s borders.
After Mr. Trump won, Democrats moved even further to the left in opposition to what they saw as the cruelty of his policies.
Elected Democratic officials echoed activists’ calls to “abolish ICE,” ban deportations, decriminalize border crossings and end detention. Their efforts focused mainly on curtailing enforcement and standing up to Mr. Trump. They said little about the economic and social benefits of expanding legal immigration.
Mr. Trump’s restrictive policies, particularly the separation of children from their families, inspired a broader backlash: By the time he left the White House, more Americans favored increasing immigration than opposed it for the first time in six decades of Gallup polling.
But soon after President Joseph R. Biden Jr. entered office, illegal crossings at the southern border began to increase, as pandemic lockdowns were lifted and would-be migrants in Central America responded to Washington’s changed tone.
Some aides urged Mr. Biden to avoid the subject and stay focused on the pandemic, the economy, Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, issues more politically favorable to him.
“The through line in every decision they made around immigration was ‘What can we do to stop having to talk about this?’” said Carlos Odio, a founder of Equis, a Democratic-aligned polling firm specializing in Latino voters. “The problem is that doesn’t work when you’re in charge and people expect you to deal with everything.”
A migrant crisis by the busload
Republican governors made the subject impossible to avoid.
The first buses of migrants chartered by the Texas Division of Emergency Management pulled into Washington from Del Rio, Texas, in April 2022. The White House dismissed the effort, organized by Gov. Greg Abbott, as a “political stunt.” But the buses kept rolling.
Over the next two years, Texas sent nearly 120,000 migrants to cities like New York, Chicago and Washington. Doug Ducey, then the governor of Arizona, sent buses to Denver, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida flew migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
As Democratic governors and mayors struggled to house and feed the arrivals, Republicans blamed Mr. Biden for the crisis engulfing liberal cities.
Representative Veronica Escobar of Texas said she first realized Democrats were in trouble in December 2022. So many migrants were crossing into El Paso that they were sleeping on pizza boxes as temperatures fell below freezing. A city known as a haven for immigrants since the 1800s was overwhelmed. Residents were losing patience, she recalled.
Still, when she worked on bipartisan legislation to expedite asylum cases at the border, Ms. Escobar said, fellow Democrats criticized the proposal as too restrictive.
“Living through what El Paso lived through, feeling how unsustainable all of this was, and frankly how challenging this was, I knew this would cause a massive shift in the perspective of Americans about immigration,” she said. “There was a failure on the part of the Democratic Party altogether during the last administration in adequately recognizing what was happening.”
Democrats far from the border saw public opinion moving toward Republicans, too.
Lori Lightfoot, a former mayor of Chicago, recalled a homeless Black woman complaining that she could not get help finding an apartment because “they’re giving everything to the migrants.” The city’s established Mexican American communities, Ms. Lightfoot said, were not thrilled to welcome busloads of Venezuelans.
“What we started to hear, which was also a little bit of a surprise to me, was, ‘Hey, what about us? We’ve been here forever. Why are you paying attention to and giving resources to these newcomers who, by the way, you know’ — in soft voice — ‘are Venezuelans?’” she said.
Democratic mayors and governors begged Mr. Biden to authorize emergency aid and work permits for the migrants. Some took their criticisms public in frustration with what they saw as White House inaction.
But Biden aides were locked in furious debates over how, and how fast, to dismantle Mr. Trump’s policies and what should replace them. That infighting crippled the administration’s ability to respond quickly.
Congressional Democrats tried to step in, striking a compromise on a bipartisan border bill that would have made illegal entry more difficult while allowing admitted migrants to receive work permits more quickly. But Mr. Trump pressed Republicans to torpedo it, to deny Mr. Biden a victory and keep the issue inflamed heading into November.
In New York that February, immigration and border politics overtook a special House election. Tom Suozzi, a Long Island Democrat, prevailed after adopting a hard-line approach, calling for a temporary shutdown of the border and for deporting migrants who assault the police.
Mr. Suozzi attributed his win to a willingness to take tough stands, as the Biden administration waited for legislation that would never happen.
“I don’t think that the voters moved to the right,” he said. “I think they voted more for the Republicans because they felt that they were not getting attention paid to their concerns.”
Mr. Biden finally responded to the crisis in June, issuing an executive order preventing migrants from seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border when crossings surge — the most restrictive border policy any modern Democrat has instituted.
Unlawful crossings plummeted. But it was too late to change voters’ perceptions. Mr. Trump maintained his advantage on the issue when Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Mr. Biden on the ticket.
Mr. Trump campaigned in front of signs reading “Deport Illegals Now.” He interpreted his victory as a mandate to push through an even more aggressive immigration agenda that would reach beyond the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and into a broad swath of American life.
Public opposition, private recrimination
High school students are getting arrested at traffic stops. Children are being handcuffed outside courthouses. Restaurant workers are being hauled from kitchens during their shifts. And when protests erupted, the administration deployed the military in Los Angeles and arrested or manhandled many people, including high-profile Democratic officials.
But as Democrats publicly oppose the president, they have privately traded recriminations over their failure at immigration politics.
Latino civil rights organizations are busy with “listening tours” to understand how Democrats misunderstood voters. Party strategists are conducting surveys and focus groups on immigration and border security. Some immigration advocates are warning that unless Democrats determine how to go on the offensive, they will keep losing elections.
In a private briefing for Democratic senators recently, Andrea R. Flores, a border official in the Biden White House who is the migration policy expert at FWD.us, a bipartisan advocacy group, blasted the party’s failure to make the case for immigration and its benefits, according to people in the room. She urged Democrats to lay out a clear vision for how to fix the immigration system — something she said the Biden administration had failed to do.
Democrats trail Republicans by as many as 41 percentage points in whom voters trust more on immigration and border security, according to polling released in May by Third Way, a center-left think tank. Still, Mr. Trump’s sinking approval ratings on immigration give some Democrats hope that voters will listen if the party has something new to say.
“The vast majority of Americans, including Republican voters, are appalled by Trump deporting a child who’s recovering from brain cancer, or appalled by Trump deporting students simply for writing an opinion piece in a student newspaper,” said Representative Greg Casar of Texas. “Democrats can’t be scared about talking about immigration. We have to recognize that Trump’s overreach is also not popular with the American people.”
Mr. Casar and Ms. Pressley expect to reintroduce proposed curbs on mandatory detention and a ban on privately run, for-profit detention centers.
More moderate Democrats say easing up on the border and fighting over incarceration won’t win back working-class Democrats.
Mr. Gallego insists that what Americans want is simple: a secure border, deportation of dangerous criminals and a humane path to legal status for families already in the country. If Democrats fail to provide that, he argues, they will continue to pay a price.
“We have to be able to present an idea of what border security looks like that is not Donald Trump,” he said. “And when we actually say what Donald Trump is doing wrong, we need to be able to point to what we would be doing right.”
Lisa Lerer is a national political reporter for The Times, based in New York. She has covered American politics for nearly two decades.
Jazmine Ulloa is a national reporter covering immigration for The Times.
Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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