Border Fence, Playas de Tijuana, Mexico (1998) | Camilo J. Vergara / Library of Congress
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have emphasized US-Mexico border security as one of the top concerns of their 2024 presidential campaigns. Why? In a conversation hosted by the New School for Social Research, Eugene Lang College, and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, politics and global studies professor Alexandra Délano Alonso sat down with NSSR dean and Zolberg director T. Alexander Aleinikoff to talk about the place of immigration in the 2024 US election.
T. Alexander Aleinikoff: Why is the immigration issue so salient in the current presidential campaign? The flow at the southwest border has decreased dramatically, the unemployment rate is low, and when Trump made immigration an issue in 2018 and 2020, it didn’t work out for the Republicans very well. So why is it taking front and center now?
Alexandra Délano Alonso: Immigration has been a top issue in presidential campaigns for many years, but one difference now is the inflammatory rhetoric, which started with the Trump years. We can go back to the 1980s, with Reagan making it a central issue by tying national security and the drug war with immigration, and then in the 1990s, with Clinton focusing on the need to secure the border from different threats and building the border fence. On the Republican side, it has mostly been framed as an issue that has to do with security and the economy. And on the Democratic side, it has been framed as a moral issue to do with protection of rights and the law. However, increasingly, both parties are aligned around the idea that securing the border is the top priority.
Images of more and more people in camps around the border have created the sense of a crisis and an issue of great concern. Most polls and surveys show that Republican and Democratic voters alike do not support the extreme rhetoric of criminalization of immigrants. They are generally more supportive of certain paths to legalization and a more orderly process for controlling the border.
The impact of the 1986 IRCA legislation, and then NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement], both have shifted both the economy and the demographic composition of many communities in lasting ways. It is true that in many parts of the country, people have lost jobs, the economy has changed, and it’s very easy to blame immigrants for their displacement or loss of livelihoods. Trump and the Republican Party have maximized on the real concerns that people have with their rhetoric of blame and fear, even though the reasons for those concerns have more to do with the economy and changes in their lives, and less with immigration. But it’s very easy to tie them to immigration. Trump did win in 2016 with this campaign of attacks against immigrants and a very inflammatory rhetoric against Mexican immigrants in particular. And he’s banking on that again.
Aleinikoff: Trump has claimed that the Biden administration opened a border that he (Trump) had closed. How do you assess that claim?
Délano Alonso: Biden did lift some of the restrictions, but he also imposed new restrictions and continued some that had been established during the Trump administration. First, to recall some of Trump’s policies: he established the so-called Muslim ban, ended temporary protected status programs, increased enforcement of the border, separated families at the border, implemented the “Remain in Mexico” policy to keep migrants from crossing into the US throughout their asylum process, and invoked Title 42, the public health measure to close the border to non-essential travel during the COVID years.
These measures contributed to reducing immigration during this time. Biden ended the Muslim ban and family separation; he reinstated some temporary protected status programs and created new ones. He ended the “Remain in Mexico” policy in 2021 and Title 42 in 2023. But then he replaced those programs with a capped limit to entries through the border and the implementation of the CBP One app. So now there are even more limits to where and when people can request asylum at the Mexico-US border and how many people are allowed to do so every day.
While the first years of the Biden administration show an increase in migration, the most recent policies have reduced the number of people coming through the Mexico-US border to a lower number than when Trump left office.
Aleinikoff: It is interesting that while the numbers have gone up and down of people arriving at the border without papers, the number of legal entries for people seeking green cards has stayed very high, at over a million, and the number of refugees is now back over a hundred thousand. There have also been new categories of temporary visas that have admitted hundreds of thousands of people. Can you say something about this continued high level of lawful immigration?
Délano Alonso: Yes, the Biden administration has returned the cap of refugee admissions to 100,000 and also expanded other categories for legal admission, especially related to temporary workers and humanitarian parole.
The humanitarian parole program created for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) allows a limit of 30,000 applicants to request temporary entry if they have a sponsor in the US and pass a background check. This new category tries to go around the limits of the asylum system and the huge backlog that exists there with more than 2 million cases that take months or years to be evaluated.
And then there has been a significant increase in temporary worker visas, H-2A and H-2B in particular, with most workers coming from Central America and Mexico. This recognizes the networks of demand and supply of labor that have existed historically in the region, which is a very important part of what has to be restored in the system, and Biden has tried to address some of that by creating or expanding these categories. There is also the TN visa category that exists within USMCA [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement], targeted towards high-skilled workers in Mexico and Canada, which has also seen an increase in numbers.
Aleinikoff: The Biden Administration has tightened up on the asylum side but has opened up other avenues for entry through work visas and humanitarian visas in an attempt to channel the flow into legal pathways. If you were the border czar, would this be about the right mix of policies for you?
Délano Alonso: It’s the basic starting point. If people had opportunities to migrate through legal channels, they would use them. The dysfunction and backlog of the asylum system, together with the limited number of work visas, has created a situation where people have no other opportunity to migrate through legal channels, but at the same time they’re being offered jobs and opportunities here. If the asylum system could guarantee a process that worked more clearly and faster, then people would apply through the system, as long as they were in a safe place to do so. Given the opportunity to use these channels, people are using them—the parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans is an example—and they work.
Aleinikoff: Trump and Vance have made deeply troubling comments about lawful Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. What’s gone on in Springfield?
Délano Alonso: Haitian immigrants in Springfield arrived there under parole programs and temporary protected status. They have been widely welcomed by the community of Springfield. They have been attracted by economic opportunities there. City officials, the governor of Ohio, a Republican, and business owners have all said that the arrival of Haitian workers has helped the economy and job creation.
It is true that housing prices and health and education services have been stretched as a result of the arrival of new immigrants, similar to any place that experiences a new arrival when there are no measures to invest resources in new services needed. That has to be addressed by the city officials, and the governor himself has talked about the need to invest resources in the schools and in the public health system, which would benefit migrants and citizens alike.
The story about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs was quickly proven to be untrue. But this is an example of how, despite being based on false evidence, the rhetoric of blaming immigrants is seen by the Republicans as something that gets voters. It redirects anger and blame from systemic issues and touches on issues of identity and nationalism that are central to some voters and more powerful than facts and numbers.
Aleinikoff: Someone defending the Trump position would say that a regime of detention is what deters unlawful entry—and that it was when Biden was releasing people that the numbers spiked because people saw that if they simply got to the border, they would get in and could stay for a long time until immigration proceedings. How would you respond?
Délano Alonso: None of these deterrence policies have stopped people from wanting to come into the country. As long as there is economic opportunity here, and people are able to get jobs here and find the safety that they don’t have in their origin countries, they will continue to come. These so-called deterrence policies have just damaged the fabric of communities and led to disappearance and death at the border, family separation, and reinforcement of the rhetoric of criminalization.
Aleinikoff: Then what has led to the significant decrease in the last six months at the border, if not the tougher policies?
Délano Alonso: It’s a combination of the limits to the asylum process through the CBP One app that have managed the flows in a more organized way, and the remote control policies that have kept migrants further south, as well as the parole programs, the work visas, and the temporary protected status programs.
Aleinikoff: What changes has Biden made to the asylum process at the border?
Délano Alonso: With the implementation of the CBP One app, there are designated areas of Mexico where people can make those appointments, and only 1,500 people are allowed to make an appointment per day. So there’s more control over the number of people that come in every day and where they stay while they wait. There’s also the emergency measure that Biden invoked so that no applications will be accepted for a certain period of time if the number is considered too high. The US has also collaborated with other countries in Central America and South America to implement measures to keep migrants there.
While the numbers have indeed decreased in the US, the cost of this new framework, in which people are forced to wait or remain in other countries instead of continuing their journey into the US, is that it creates increased risks for migrants. In Mexico, for example, tens of thousands of migrants who are waiting there face danger—drug cartels, smugglers, traffickers—and there’s a very limited infrastructure of integration to fully support their access to opportunities during their stay in Mexico. It’s a policy framework that is shifting the paradigm of border control into a regional structure. But this comes with a lot of concerns about people’s agency to decide where they want to stay, where they are safe, and their ability to fully access their rights in whichever country that is.
Aleinikoff: Kamala Harris has repeatedly said that she favors a very tough border bill that Donald Trump told his allies in Congress not to support. Looking at that bill, how different is the Democratic Party from Donald Trump when he was in office?
Délano Alonso: I think they’re not that different in the element of border control. Kamala Harris has pledged to resurrect that Senate bill, which contains the toughest border security measures in years. The difference is Republicans’ inflammatory and criminalizing rhetoric, which the Democratic Party continues to step away from. Kamala Harris has criticized some of the Trump policies, like the Muslim ban, the separation of families, and the mass deportation strategies he is now promising. She supports paths for citizenship and legal immigration, which Trump does not.
Kamala and the Democrats talk about the border in a more humane language, which is significant in contrast to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has now become so explicit here and in other parts of the world.
Regardless of where Harris or Trump stand, it will come down to who has control of Congress to enact these larger changes in policy. This bill, which had bipartisan support, failed. Any attempt at immigration reform of any sort will require a broad coalition, something that has been really difficult to achieve in the last 40 years.
Aleinikoff: Has this led advocacy groups to not support Harris, or are they willing to go with Harris because of other things we want to get accomplished?
Délano Alonso: Even if they disagree with Harris and the border security focus, it is clear that for immigrant communities, the implications of having Trump in power are much more dire. It has been more possible for advocates to work with the Democrats on other aspects, such as legal pathways, for example. With a Trump administration, the consequences are much higher—not just in concrete proposals to deport people but also in the rhetoric. Having a president use language that enables anti-immigrant and racist actions and promising to implement policies like mass deportations tears the social fabric of communities.
Aleinikoff: Do you take seriously Trump’s claim that he’s going to deport tens of millions of unauthorized migrants? Is that a clear and present danger if Trump is reelected?
Délano Alonso: In 2016, he said the same thing, and the numbers didn’t change much from what they had been. He hasn’t explained how he would do it, and both Trump and Vance keep overstating the number of undocumented migrants in the country at 20 or 25 million (there are 10 to 11 million). But I take this claim seriously because Trump is even more emboldened now than he was in 2016 to carry out some of these measures, and he has the capacity to do so.
Aleinikoff: Why can’t we pass Dreamer legislation that would help children who have lived their entire lives in the United States? Over 90 percent of Americans are in favor of legalizing the status of these folks. What’s holding that up?
Délano Alonso: The debate has become so entrenched. The Obama years prove that no amount of border security or deportations seem to convince the Republican Party that the government can offer an opportunity for regularization that wouldn’t create a new surge of immigration into the country.
It’s a matter of how they all gain something from the system being the way that it is. Employers benefit from having undocumented migrants. If that weren’t the case, we would be in a different scenario. We’ve known for a very, very long time that the system is broken, but many argue it’s broken by design.
Aleinikoff: What’s the evidence on undocumented immigrants voting?
Délano Alonso: Undocumented migrants don’t vote; they cannot. But it is important to note that the rates of legal permanent residents, especially from Mexico and Central America, who naturalize are also extremely low. So that’s a significant element to take into account: why they’re not interested in participating in the political system in this way and what could mobilize that vote. This reality also challenges this rhetoric and accusation that the Democratic Party wants immigration because they want more voters for their party.
Aleinikoff: How much do you think the transporting of migrants and asylum seekers to cities in the Northeast has had to do with shifting more moderate voters to see immigration as a bigger problem than they’d seen it previously?
Délano Alonso: I think that was part of what the Republicans at the border were betting on—shifting the debate and moving immigrants to so-called mostly “sanctuary cities” and trying to change how people saw the issue in these places. Once we get the results of the election, we will see if there has in fact been a shift in voting in communities where migrants have settled and whether this has been a significant issue shaping their political preferences.
Aleinikoff: How do immigrants lean politically in this election?
Délano Alonso: One of the most interesting debates happening now is around the Latino vote, and how support for the Republican Party has increased significantly in the last three election cycles. Even though there’s still a majority vote for Democrats among Latinos, the rates of support for the Republican Party among this group have increased since the Trump election. A deeper analysis of surveys and polls will also help understand whether that has to do with immigration, or other issues, like abortion, among generally conservative populations, or if it has to do with the economy.
Aleinikoff: The United States seems to rely heavily on Mexico in terms of enforcing its border, dealing with asylum seekers there, or accepting people back from the United States to make sure they don’t try to come back across the border. Did [Mexican president] Sheinbaum talk in her election campaign about what the relationship would be with the United States vis-à-vis immigration?
Délano Alonso: Her stance has been mostly a continuation of AMLO [Andrés Manuel López Obrador] policies and cooperation with the US. The level of cooperation that has existed between the countries on this issue is something that had never been seen before. Allowing people to be deported to Mexico, accepting the “Remain in Mexico” program and the CBP One app conditions, and actively participating in the enforcement of its borders at this level is something that had never happened before. The policies that Mexico has implemented have come at a great expense for migrant populations who remain in Mexico with very limited resources, in very precarious conditions, in shelters that don’t have enough capacity.
The strategy of enforcement and militarization that has trickled down all the way from the US-Mexico border down to the border of Mexico with Guatemala and Belize has led to a lot of abuses, discrimination, and lack of protections of rights. But this issue was not as salient in shaping the Mexican election as it is in the United States.
I think Sheinbaum will have a different strategy and rhetoric around this issue depending on whether her counterpart is Trump or Harris. If Trump comes into office and focuses on mass deportations, that will be a very different conversation than the one that might be possible if Harris were to come into office. As vice president, Harris was leading the program for development in Central America to address the root causes of migration—something where the visions are really aligned and that has been central in Mexico’s agenda since the AMLO administration.
Aleinikoff: I suppose that the rhetoric around migration may be overstated, but nonetheless, the costs are significant for cities in terms of their programs and migrants.
Délano Alonso: I agree. I don’t think we can underestimate those costs, but for me it’s a matter of redirecting federal funds toward the kind of support that is needed, like we might do with refugee resettlement programs. What advocates have done really well in New York, for example, is to show that these questions around costs and resources point toward structural issues that are affecting citizens and migrants, and that investing in infrastructure like housing, health, education, and transportation instead of border enforcement will be for the benefit of the whole city. That’s the type of shift in mindset that has to occur in the narrative: it’s not just about thinking of migrants and their contributions to the economy in a utilitarian way, but acknowledging that there is a need for immigration, that the economy depends on this labor, and that resources can be distributed in a different way for the benefit and well-being of all.
