Democrats are Turning Immigration into a Moral Ultimatum

By A Colleague

Thu, Jul 25, 2019 4:26 p.m.

Democrats are Turning Immigration into a Moral Ultimatum

More evidence of Democrats' sharp leftward lurch on immigration and their "white saviorism".  

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/288500/democrats-immigration-moral-ultimatum 

Sensible immigration reforms and policies that long commanded the support of majorities in both parties are now decried as veiled racism. In their place, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is pushing for an immigration vision that borders on open-borders advocacy. Three years into the Trump administration, some of the radicalization on the left is undoubtedly responding to the reports of deportations, squalid conditions in detention facilities and the increasing normalization of nativist rhetoric from the White House. But Trump is not the fundamental driver of this phenomenon, which started before he took office and fits into the larger pattern of "white saviorism" pulling the Democrats to the left.  

• The percentage of Democrats who view illegal immigration as a "somewhat" or "very serious" problem fell 30 points in just five years between 2014 and 2019 from 80% to 50%; 
• The percentage of Democrats who think that large influxes of refugees and immigrants into the U.S. is a "critical threat" went from 62% in 2002 to 19% in 2018; 
• The percentage of Democrats who support fining employers who hire illegal immigrants dropped from 61% in 2010 to a low of 38% in 2017; 
• The percentage of Democrats who favor increasing the number of border patrols on the U.S.-Mexican border declined from 46% in 2010 to 26%  in 2017; 
• The percentage of Democrats who support conditioning amnesty and citizenship for illegal immigrants on learning English fell 16 points between 2006 and 2013 from 85% to 69% (this stipulation was also removed from the Democratic Party platform in 2016); 
• The percent of democrats who regard controlling and reducing immigration as an important policy goal fell from 51% in 2008 to 19% in 2018.  

Some of these attitudinal swings appear to be a response to the rise of Trump, but, as is evident in some of the graphs above, many predate his arrival. They've also emerged in a changing (or "wokening") liberal media context that seemingly seeks to normalize illegal immigration. For instance, the graph below shows that from 1980 to 2012, The New York Times almost exclusively used the terms "illegal immigrants" and/or "illegal aliens" in articles covering illegal immigration. But as of 2014, the terms "undocumented" or "unauthorized" have taken over while the others have sunk to the bottom of the frequency distribution. Incidentally, the percentage of white liberals saying they're "very sympathetic" toward illegal immigrants shot up from 22% in 2006 to 42% in 2014.