The politics of immigration have shifted as the chaos at the border persists, according to a pollster who says Black voters in particular are slipping away from President Biden over the issue.
Black men, in particular, are drawn to former President Donald Trump, and his critique on immigration — that the surge of people is a drain on America — rings true to them, said Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence and founder of its TIPP poll.
“Now what is happening is that the government resources that used to go to help them in cities — that is being diverted to migrants. They’re asking, ‘Hey, what’s happening, you guys are cutting this stuff and you are spending it on migrants,’” Mr. Mayur told The Washington Times.
Immigration has soared to the top of voters’ lists of most important issues, playing at No. 1 or No. 2 in many surveys, and it’s driven by what’s going on at the U.S.-Mexico border.
A new Pew study says 45% of Americans see the border as a “crisis,” and another 32% call it a “major problem.”
Security concerns loomed large, with a majority saying the surge of people leads to more crime. But there was also significant worry about what Pew called economic burdens, or the drain on safety-net programs and government resources.
Other surveys show support for a border wall, which dipped during the Trump administration, has surged now that Mr. Biden is in office, reaching all-time highs.
Mr. Mayur said the dispersal of the migrants throughout the U.S. has driven the border issues home to voters deep in America’s interior. That’s helped push the issue beyond its usual boundaries of GOP politics and deep into the political bloodstream.
“There is a change here and that is caused by all the flood of migrants into the sanctuary cities. What once was basically dismissed by many as a sort of right-wing thing, it’s no more that,” he said. “There has never been a time where this issue is as wide open as it is now.”
That helps explain the drift of Black voters, and particularly Black men, who are generally among Democrats’ most reliable voters.
“This is an unintended consequence of uncontrolled immigration. It’s basically coming back to hurt Democrats,” Mr. Mayur said. “I’m not sure whether over the long term they may benefit, but at least in the short term, over the next year or so it is hurting them.”
The border’s implications stretch well beyond this year’s elections, though, with analysts saying there’s been a serious shift in Americans’ openness to even legal immigration.
In 2020, with Mr. Trump still in office and the border largely calm, 34% of people told Gallup they wanted to see the level of immigration increase and just 28% wanted to see it cut. By last year just 26% wanted to see increases and 41% wanted to see a decrease — the highest rate in a decade.
And in one stark poll taken by TIPP for The Daily Mail, 47% of people agreed with Mr. Trump’s statement that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America.
Mr. Mayur said those results show “angst” about immigration at an all-time high.
Immigrant-rights groups aren’t happy about the direction the national conversation has gone — they say it’s drifted deep into white nationalist territory — and acknowledge the issue’s power in GOP primaries.
But they argue there’s little evidence that the issue moves voters in a general election.
Indeed, Republicans had expected the chaotic border to deliver big wins in the 2022 midterm congressional elections. Instead, the GOP lost ground in the Senate and won only a narrow majority in the House, defying prognosticators who had predicted bigger gains.
More recently, a special congressional election in New York last week saw Republicans rely heavily on immigration to try to hold onto a seat left vacant when the House expelled Rep. George Santos, a Republican, last year.
Tom Suozzi, the Democratic candidate, cruised to an easy victory with a pledge to support more border security, though not the kind of more forceful answers for which Republicans are calling.
Democratic strategists said that showed a path for other candidates to deflect GOP attacks.
“If there were a race where this nativist strategy should have worked, it was this one. It didn’t,” said Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a leading immigration advocacy group.
She said the message out of the New York race is that focusing on enforcement is a losing proposition, and most Americans want to see “legalization alongside an orderly border.”
The Pew Research Center, though, says there’s little consensus on how to improve the situation at the border.
Democrats favored ideas around making the trip more painless, such as making the crossings less dangerous, and issuing faster work permits so illegal immigrants can hold jobs while waiting for their immigration cases to be heard.
Republicans, meanwhile, tilted toward ideas such as wall construction and increasing deportation of illegal immigrants.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.