Convention Delegates, Virginia Voters Reflect on Immigration Policy Ahead of Presidential Election

Since America was founded nearly 250 years ago, debates about immigration policy have ebbed and flowed. And with crossings at the U.S.’s southern border higher in recent years, immigration policy is a key platform in this year’s elections and a top issue for some Virginia voters.

Viginians’ views varied on presidential hopefuls’ immigration stances

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump’s vision, and the GOP’s, has been to continue constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to ramp up deportations of those who’ve entered the country illegally. Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’, and  Democrats’, vision has been to enhance pathways to citizenship and address root causes that lead to spikes in migration. They’ve also attempted to work with Republicans on boosting funding for border security, but efforts have failed.

At the state level, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares have been critical of the Biden administration’s border policies. Both endorsed Trump when he won primary elections this spring and both joined him when he held a rally in Chesapeake this summer.

Trump has an established history of false claims about immigrants. He alleged without proof that other countries are releasing droves of people from prisons and mental institutions to come into America, among other claims.

That rhetoric is a “desperate racist play to bring out white suburban voters,” said Del. Alfonso Lopez, D-Alexandria, who is among Virginia’s delegates who will vote for Harris at the Democratic National Convention this month.

Meanwhile Loudoun County resident and longtime Republican activist Jo-Ann Chase said Trump’s hardline stance on immigration is one of the reasons she was excited to vote for him last month at the Republican National Convention as a Virginia delegate.

“We are white, brown and Black,” Chase said of Latino and Hispanic voters, a group with which she personally identifies. A lifelong Republican, she’s spent time working on outreach for the party, particularly to Hispanic and Latino communities. She also served on Youngkin’s Virginia Latino Advisory Board.

Chase said that she hasn’t been bothered by Trump’s rhetoric painting migrants from Latin countries with a broad stroke as criminals. In a speech announcing his first presidential candidacy in 2015, Trump said that Mexico “isn’t sending their best” and that immigrants are “bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

Chase said it never offended her.

“I understood that he didn’t say that everyone was like that — but there were a lot of people like that,” she said. “And to ensure that [violent criminals don’t enter], he was going to make sure that the individuals coming across the border did it the right way.”

Born in Puerto Rico, Chase has always been an American citizen, but she’s lived stateside and been active in Republican politics for much of her life. She feels the border policy during the Biden-Harris administration has been “rewarding” people for breaking the law by entering the country illegally. As she’s canvassed on behalf of the GOP over the past few months, a top concern she’s heard from potential Republican voters in Virginia is immigration policy and border security, she said.

Former state delegate Elizabeth Guzman, who is originally from Peru, said she is excited to cast her vote for Harris at the DNC this month. Guzman said she thinks her daughters will see  Harris’ candidacy and“believe that they could be presidents one day,” since Harris is, like them, the daughter of immigrant parents.

She and Lopez said that recently, they’ve been frustrated by how Republicans are framing their party as soft on the border, because Democrats were working with them on the bill this year to bolster border security.

Lopez alleged that Republicans reneging on the bill — a move that included one of its patrons — allowed immigration to remain a key talking point for Trump’s campaign, and that of congressional representative hopefuls, going into November.

It’s “hypocritical with a capital H” for the GOP to say “look at all this horrible stuff on the border” when they weren’t following through on a solution months prior, Lopez said

Michelle Mittlestadt, a communications director with the Migration Policy Institute, said the GOP messaging is “an expected move” given the salience of immigration for the party.

Immigration will continue to be a hot topic, regardless of whether Harris or Trump win the White House or which party controls Congress, Mittlestadt said. But, determining which parts of immigration and border security policy will take center stage is the question.

Continuing challenges, inside and outside the state

Seventy percent of new U.S. citizens last year reside in 10 states, including Virginia, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Democratic lawmakers in Virginia have proposed legislation to support some of its immigrant populations, such as bills this year to allow undocumented minors access to state-funded healthcare and eligibility for careers in law enforcement to certain immigrants. The healthcare bill failed in committee and the law enforcement bill passed with bipartisan support before it was vetoed by Youngkin.

Meanwhile, U.S. immigration policy at the national level has been rather stagnant for decades.

Typically, to become a U.S. Citizen, people have to apply and have met certain criteria to continue the process. That includes having been a permanent resident in the U.S for at least five years — or in other words, have held a green card or special visa for that amount of time.

People in the immigration process can usually apply for special visas through family stateside sponsoring them or being married to a citizen. Others may qualify for refugee status. Some people — like the thousands of migrant farmers employed in Virginia — may hold temporary work visas.  Others seek employment-based green cards so they can live and work in the U.S. permanently.

But there’s a cap on employment-based green cards at 140,000 per year, a number that hasn’t moved in decades.

“People that come here illegally do so because they can’t come legally,” Mittelstadt said.

With an estimated population of 11 million undocumented people in America, she said “that is a sign of the fact that the legal immigration system does not match employer, family reunification, and humanitarian protection needs.”

Addressing the cap on green card types would be a place to start, she said.

Meanwhile, Guzman noted some other “low hanging fruit” she hopes federal lawmakers could agree on, like pathways to citizenship for Temporary Protected Status holders and DACA recipients.

TPS holders are people coming from specifically designated countries that are dealing with issues that endanger citizens, such as ongoing armed conflict or environmental disasters.Some of these people may wish to live in America permanently as a result.

DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The roughly decade-old program has allowed for some children of undocumented immigrants to remain stateside, but it doesn’t guarantee them the opportunity to become citizens.

Creating the DACA program was the “last time Congress really worked” on immigration issues successfully, Lopez said.

“You have to be able to pull multiple levers at the same time,” Mittelstadt of Migration Policy Institute said. “It can’t just be in border enforcement. It can’t just be dealing with root causes in Central America. It can’t just be, you know, individual ad hoc actions.”

Addressing immigration issues will take sustained collective action by local, state and federal leaders, she said. Until then, she said, one thing remains apparent.

“The immigration system that we have today is not firing on all cylinders.”

by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury