As far as the immigration debate goes, Democrats made their bed, and now have to lie in it. Remember that infamous 2019 primary debate? Nine out of ten Democrats on stage raised their hands to decriminalize illegal border crossings—a move so tone-deaf it’s haunted them ever since. Fast-forward six years, and the party is still reeling from that honest display of just how radical the party had become.
Make no mistake about it: The country moved right, but Democrats sprinted left—and voters noticed.
For decades, Democrats positioned themselves as the party of compassion and tolerance, and with that came the notion that the country had to lay down the welcome mat for anyone who wanted to come, even if they broke the law doing so. But, their compassion was only limited to the drug traffickers, gang members, and sex traffickers crossing the border, not the innocent American citizens who paid a huge price for these policies. Some of them—like Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray—paid the ultimate price.
Now, after a tidal wave of public frustration and electoral humiliation, they’re waking up to a cold reality: Americans want border security, and the only way Democrats can hope to win back trust is by parroting the GOP playbook.
According to the New York Times, “here is party-wide agreement that Democrats have a problem on immigration and border security, there is no consensus on how to fix it.”
Some are pushing for a course correction they see as overdue. A new proposal from the Center for American Progress, the party’s leading policy shop, calls for expanding legal immigration while embracing ideas long championed by conservatives, including making it harder for migrants to qualify for asylum.
Neera Tanden, the center’s chief executive, said the plan acknowledged a reality that Democrats had long resisted: They must embrace new immigration restrictions in order to have the credibility with voters to fight the far more expansive plans of the Trump administration.
This isn’t a policy tweak—it’s a desperate retreat. The Democrats’ old mantras—“abolish ICE,” “ban deportations,” “decriminalize the border”—have become political dead weight.
Now, Democrats are trailing Republicans by a staggering margin on immigration and border security. Their strategists are running focus groups and “listening tours,” desperately searching for a message that will resonate. But the answer is staring them in the face: If you want to win, you have to act like a Republican on immigration. Secure the border. Deport criminals. Restore order. Anything less, and voters will keep punishing them at the polls.
ICYMI: The Left’s SICK Response to the Texas Floods Will Make Your Blood Boil
But, let’s be honest here. Have Democrats given us any reason to trust any public pivot on immigration? When anti-ICE riots erupted in Los Angeles, the party couldn’t bring itself to condemn the chaos or the extremist agenda fueling it. Their reaction to Alligator Alcatraz has been outrage and condemnation, not praise. And don’t get me started on the whole Kilmar Abrego Garcia debacle.
At the end of the day, the Democratic Party is too beholden to its radical fringe to chart a new course. So let’s stop pretending. Any Democrat claiming to support border security is just reading from a script—because when it matters most, their silence always exposes where they really stand.
