Democrats’ Immigration Problem

In the days after the election, Representative Ritchie Torres, who represents a district in the Bronx, piled onto the complaints about his party. He argued they are too responsive to the “far left” and have “managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos.” They were spouting “ivory-towered nonsense” that the working class wasn’t buying. As a series of tweets, the theory is superficial. Kamala Harris—and even Joe Biden—have not been especially beholden to the far left, either in their policies or in their presentation. Harris did not lean into her identity nearly as much as, say, Hillary Clinton did in her campaign. And Bidenomics was aimed at the working and middle class.

But Torres’s conviction, it turns out, comes from a deeper place. Torres is 36, Afro Latino, and represents a district that is more than 50 percent Latino and working class to poor. He grew up poor himself and did not graduate from college. It’s by now a very old stereotype, he says, to assume that Latinos are pro-immigration. In his experience, the perception of New York being overrun by undocumented immigrants is a preoccupation among his constituents, and ignoring their worries about this issue, and the state of the economy, is what he believes caused urban neighborhoods to shift rightward.

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we hash out the “Democrats are too woke” theory and talk about Torres’s ideas of how the Democrats should change their approach to immigration.

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Hanna Rosin: Donald Trump lost New York, like everyone thought he would. So that’s not news. What is, though, is how much better he did in the city than last time. Manhattan moved to the right by five points, Brooklyn by six, Queens, where I grew up, by 11—11 points! As my Trump-voting brother bragged to me: “It was a shellacking.”

I’m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic. New York, Miami, Chicago, Philly, Dallas, Detroit all shifted right. Trump’s message seemed to especially land in urban, working-class neighborhoods, where immigrants and people of color live.

Now, there are lots of reasons the country shifted rightward, and we’ll probably be talking about them for a while. But these are neighborhoods that have voted reliably Democratic. So the shift is noticeable and surprising, although not to this person.

Ritchie Torres: For me, the far left is a gift to Donald Trump. And it will be the gift that will keep on giving until there’s a serious reckoning with the results of the election.

Rosin: This is Congressman Ritchie Torres. He represents a district in the Bronx, which, by the way, shifted right by 11 points. He, like many people, has a theory for why Trump won.

The day after the election, he tweeted: “Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’ … The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

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Torres: You know, the main reason we lost was inflation and immigration. And on the subject of immigration, I do believe we swung the pendulum too far to the left.

Rosin: When I think of Kamala Harris, I don’t necessarily think far left. I mean, she talked about being a prosecutor. She was measured on her Israel-Gaza positions. Her position on the border got more moderate. So far left does not necessarily, to me, describe what happened in the last election.

Torres: I am not suggesting that Kamala Harris is far left. So take as an example, “defund the police.” It was never the case that the majority of the Democratic Party endorsed “defund the police,” but the far left has an outsized microphone and, therefore, has an outsized impact in defining the image of the Democratic Party in the public mind.

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Rosin: So where do you stand? What would you say publicly and loudly about where the Democratic Party should be?

Torres: The Democratic Party should stop pandering to a far left that is far more representative of Twitter and TikTok than it is of the real world. And it should start listening to working-class people of color. And we have to take positions that are aligned with the priorities of working-class people of color.

Look—take the issue of immigration. I’m strongly pro-immigration. For me, the more the merrier. I see immigration as the driver of entrepreneurial and the essential workforce of America. But I’m also self-aware enough to know that I’m considerably to the left of the country. And you have to meet people where they are.

You cannot impose your ideology on the majority of the American people. You know, as elected officials, we are constrained by public opinion.

Rosin: This rightward drift we now know in New York happened in Washington Heights, the West Bronx, Queens, which is where I grew up. It’s working-class communities of color. So how do you explain that? Is it all immigration? What is that?

Torres: Look—for me, what was most troubling was not only the fact that Donald Trump won but how he won. Not only did he crack the blue wall in the industrial Midwest, but he’s beginning to crack the blue wall in urban America. You know, he came within five points of winning New Jersey.

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Rosin: So you think it’s police and immigration?

Torres: The main reason is inflation and immigration and public safety. But on the subject of inflation, we were a victim of circumstances—like, supply-chain disruptions during COVID led to high inflation. And when you’re the incumbent party in power, you’re blamed for what happens, fairly or unfairly. And to be blamed for inflation is a political death sentence. So that, to me, is not the fault of the party. Inflation is a global phenomenon with global causes. But immigration is different. I do feel there was political malpractice that led to our loss of credibility on the issue of immigration.

You know, since 2022, there has been an unprecedented wave of migration, whose impact was felt not only at the border but in cities like New York, where the shelter system and the social safety net and municipal finances were completely overwhelmed. You know, in December of 2023, Quinnipiac reported that 85 percent of New Yorkers were concerned about the impact of the migrant crisis on New York City.

Despite clear signs of popular discontent, the Biden administration waited two and a half years before issuing an executive order regulating migration at the border. And by then it was too late. The political damage had been done. The Republicans had successfully weaponized the issue against us.

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Rosin: And can you say what center left sounds like? What is a center-left Democrat talking about? Are they talking about specific constituent issues? What does it look like to be responsive?

Torres: Economically populist, right? We have to convey the sense that we’re fighting for working people and that we’re holding powerful interests accountable, right? And I think that’s where the left is onto something, right? I think what we should avoid are the excesses on issues like immigration or public safety, right?

There should be nothing resembling “defund the police,” nothing resembling open borders. People do care about border security. People do care about public safety. We have to ensure that we’re on the center of those issues while doubling down on economic populism.

{snip}

Rosin: So can you say how you would talk about immigration or address immigration? Because for people who are not looking too closely, it feels a little counterintuitive that, you know, a majority say—Latino or people-of-color districts and voting class—their main issue is restrictions on immigration. It seems, on its face, to be a contradiction. Now, I’m sure when you get deeper, it isn’t.

Torres: If you’re stereotyping Latinos, sure.

Rosin: Yeah, exactly. So let’s get beneath the stereotype, and, like, how would you walk through that issue?

Torres: Well, I mean, keep in mind that the most Latino county in America was Starr County, right at the border. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won it by 60 percentage points. And in 2024, Donald Trump won nearly 60 percent—a complete collapse of Latino support. Look—my view is that we do not have a messaging problem; we have a reality problem.

When the migrant crisis was unfolding, we should have responded with the sense of urgency that the public demanded of us. The public saw it as a crisis. So it’s not a messaging problem. It’s a reality problem. When there is a crisis, when there’s an emergency, when there’s a metaphorical fire, we have to extinguish the fire. We have to do everything we can to extinguish the fire, or else we’re going to pay a price at the ballot box.

Rosin: Although, it still surprises me that people would drift towards a leader who uses words like “mass deportation,” you know, or the whole “floating island of garbage” thing. Like, it still surprises me that that’s not an automatic “no.”

Torres: Again, I’m appalled by it, but I’m self-aware enough to recognize that I’m considerably to the left of the rest of the country in immigration. And here’s the danger: If we swing the pendulum too far to the left on issues like immigration and public safety, we will risk a public reaction that will make our country more right wing, not less; more restrictionist on immigration, not less; more conservative on public safety, not less.

{snip}