Donald Trump and the Republican presidential field have frequently been criticized for going too far on immigration, and Wednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate was no exception.
But it’s worth noting that the Democratic presidential candidates have gone pretty far toward the opposite extreme as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders try to move past their past positions on immigration.
Sanders has come under fire for his past opposition to guest-worker programs. Even during this campaign, he was criticized for saying he was against open borders.
Clinton has had to explain her past opposition to drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants and why she attacks Trump for advocating a wall when she has also voted to build border fencing.
The Democratic front-runner was reduced to saying that what she favored was common-sense fencing as opposed to Trump’s “tall” and “beautiful” wall.
An effective line mocking Trump’s talk about building big, beautiful walls, but if taken literally it commits Clinton to only voting for short, ugly walls.
As Clinton and Sanders participated in the CNN/Univision debate, they positioned themselves to the left of the Obama administration. They promised more executive action if Congress doesn’t pass comprehensive immigration reform. They pledged not to deport children. They essentially said they would not support deportation for immigration enforcement-only purposes, only in situations when the illegal immigrant is a terrorist or guilty of some other crime.
Both Democratic presidential candidates are recognizing the changing demographics of their country and party. The Hispanic vote has become central to Democratic national ambitions. Immigration is often framed less as a policy matter than as a question of whether you welcome Latinos into American society. Many younger Democrats are immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants.
Democrats particulary hope that Trump’s comments about Mexican “rapists” and immigration in general will help them turn out minority voters in 2016, replicating Barack Obama’s successful electoral coalition. Clinton and Sanders will want to contrast themselves with the Republicans. The two of them worked overtime to contrast themselves with each other, with Clinton comparing Sanders to the Minuteman Project of the mid-2000s.
But just because Trump’s views are controversial doesn’t mean that the exact opposite of those views are popular and without political risk.
