In the relatively short life of this journal, immigration policy has vexed both sides of American politics. It’s difficult to believe now, but in 2013, leading Republicans thought the party’s restrictionist immigration policy was so damaging to their national prospects that it needed wholesale revision. The roles have now reversed. Progressives have seen multiple national elections lost with immigration as an issue at the forefront, and now a President implementing policies utterly beyond the pale. We recruited two longtime and respected activists to debate where Democrats’ immigration policy needs to go. Frank Sharry founded America’s Voice and served as its executive director. Marielena Hincapié is the former executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. We hope this helps clarify the debate for you, the reader, even if it can’t resolve it.

Put Immigration on a Legal Footing

Frank Sharry

The Democrats have lost their way on immigration.

The Democratic Party used to be united in favor of a balanced approach that combined order at the border with generous legal pathways. Democrats used to dominate public opinion, with three-quarters of the American people supporting their proposals to overhaul the nation’s broken immigration system. Democratic candidates used to lean in and prevail over the populist right.

In 2024, though, the party took a pounding on immigration. According to election polling conducted by Navigator Research, a progressive public opinion project, immigration/border security was Donald Trump’s best issue—and Kamala Harris’s worst. The 20 percent gap among all voters grew to 42 percent among swing voters.

In 2025, after hesitating for too long, Democrats have finally begun to mobilize to confront Trump’s cruel mass deportation drive and militarization of Los Angeles. Although this pushback has contributed to a decline in Trump’s approval ratings on immigration, Democrats continue to face significant challenges. A recent poll sponsored by the Democratic group Way to Win and conducted in critical 2026 battleground districts found that Republicans have a net approval rating of -11 on immigration (43 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove), while Democrats are at -58 (19 percent approve, 77 percent disapprove).

What Went Wrong?

As Biden took office, a post-pandemic surge of migrants started arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. Sophisticated smuggling networks quickly overwhelmed an under-resourced asylum system. Over the next three years, illegal border crossings skyrocketed to record levels, averaging two million a year.

Republicans pounced. They blamed the situation on Biden’s early executive actions that rolled back Trump’s harsh policies, and branded it the “Biden border crisis.” When Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott began bussing newly arrived migrants from the border to cities such as New York, Chicago, and Denver, the backlash spread to Democratic strongholds.

The White House, unsure of how to get on top of the issue, initially downplayed it. The internal mantra: Every day immigration isn’t on the front page is a good day. The approach backfired. To voters, it smacked of indifference and incompetence. To Trump and the GOP, it created a huge narrative vacuum they were only too happy to fill.

Still, it is noteworthy that in year four, the Biden Administration did get the policy right. His team developed a tough and fair strategy: 1) asylum restrictions for illegal border crossers; 2) partnership with Mexico and other nations to disrupt smuggling and migration patterns; 3) expanded legal pathways to provide orderly alternatives to crossing the border illegally; and 4) increased removals of people ineligible for asylum.

Defying experts and critics who argue that no center-left government can humanely contain the force of accelerating global migration, their strategy worked. Between December 2023 and August 2024, illegal border crossings fell by 77 percent. By the end of the year, monthly levels dropped to below Trump’s in 2020—when the nation was in the midst of a global pandemic that virtually halted human movement. The expanded legal pathways helped decrease illegal border crossings from the four major sending nations—Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela—by 91 percent.

On the political front, new presidential nominee Kamala Harris did what the former nominee would not. She leaned in and consistently spoke out on border security. In her stump speeches, she defined herself as a law-and-order prosecutor and promised to sign a tough bipartisan border bill that Trump had tanked. At the border in Arizona, she delivered a major policy speech in which she detailed her plans to crack down on illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling, and promised to work with Republicans on legislation to secure the border and reform our broken immigration system. She even ran ads on border security and immigration.

It was too little, too late. Focusing on border security for the 107 days of the Harris presidential campaign could not compete with years of relentless attacks by Trump and the GOP, who falsely characterized Democrats as the party of open borders. Plus, Harris did herself no favors by failing to clearly explain her 2024 shifts away from her more liberal 2019 views on immigration, and by refusing to distance herself from President Biden on one of his most unpopular issues.

How Democrats Can Get It Right Going Forward

The immigration debate can be confusing. Activists on the right lean toward “Keep ’em all out and kick ’em all out.” Advocates on the left lean toward “Let ’em all in and let ’em all stay.” But neither side speaks to or for most voters. The vast majority of Americans support immigration but want it to be properly regulated. They want to encourage legal immigration and discourage illegal immigration. They want control and compassion. And while media-sponsored polls suggest a majority of Americans favor deporting immigrants who are here illegally, surveys that compel voters to choose reveal that voters strongly support the legalization of undocumented immigrants over mass deportation.

These findings inform what follows: an attempt at a narrative and policy approach for the party going forward, organized around four principles.

1. We are a nation of immigrants and we are a nation of laws, and the best way to be either is to be both.

Immigrants contribute to the strength, vitality, and dynamism of our communities, our economy, and our culture; America is also a sovereign nation whose government has the right and the duty to control our borders and decide who to admit. The best way to harmonize these two traditions is to overhaul our system to make legal immigration work and illegal immigration stop.

2. When it comes to illegal immigration, our goal shouldn’t be to live with it, but to end it.

In a free society, it is not realistically possible to completely eliminate illegal immigration, but the government can significantly reduce it through a combination of effective policies. To secure the border, we need to crack down on illegal border crossings, put smugglers in jail, and partner with Mexico and other allies to do both. To keep communities safe, we need to deport those in the country illegally who are convicted of serious crimes. To significantly reduce the size of the long-term undocumented population settled in America, we need to create pathways to legal status.

And, to protect workers, we need to sanction and, in egregious cases, jail employers who exploit undocumented workers. For example, a general contractor who seeks out vulnerable immigrant workers and then underpays them—or refuses to pay them at all—gains an unfair advantage when bidding for work. He is stealing from workers afraid to be deported, undercutting decent employers who treat their workers fairly, and undermining American workers who deserve to be paid a living wage. We need a level playing field, not crooks who game the system.

In addition, we need to professionalize immigration law enforcement. Enough with the one-size-fits-all punishment. The guy who commits the violent crime? Give him his day in court, and if he is found deportable, send him back. But the guy whose only offense is a lack of legal status that he’s likely to be eligible for? Send him to get help and make sure he gets right with the law. The punishment should fit the crime, and compliance with the law should be the goal.

As for migrants who cross the border illegally to apply for asylum, they should be quickly removed—unless they can meet a high bar in fast, fair, and final proceedings. The message, backed up by consequences, should be clear: The best chance for migrants who believe they qualify as refugees is to apply at designated centers—Safe Mobility Offices—located nearer their home countries, not at the U.S.-Mexico border.

And, if we as a nation decide we need more immigrants to fill certain jobs, or if we as a nation decide we want to accept a certain group of refugees, the answer isn’t more illegal immigration; it’s more legal immigration.

3. When it comes to legal immigration, we need to overhaul our policies to serve our interests and reflect our values.

It’s time to modernize the legal immigration system. Our current policies—last updated 35 years ago—are a rigid and byzantine patchwork. They no longer meet the needs of today’s fast-paced world. We need to: 1) attract needed workers, admit close family members, and welcome select refugees; and 2) make the system both orderly and flexible so it operates within clear boundaries and adjusts to changing conditions.

For example, we need to overhaul the employment visa system to respond to labor shortages and protect American workers. To do so, we should fast-track the issuance of seasonal and long-term visas, but only to vetted employers who meet high standards. Unscrupulous bottom-feeders who exploit immigrant workers to undercut their law-abiding competitors need not apply. Further, we need to give individual states the option, within limits, to admit more immigrant workers if they can demonstrate labor shortages.

To regulate and operate the new visa system, we need to create a bipartisan independent commission composed of labor economists and demographers—akin to the Federal Reserve, but for immigration admissions instead of for interest rates. These experts should have the authority to adjust legal immigration levels up and down as economic conditions change; protect workers in job categories pressured by too much competition; and address proven labor shortages in particular industries and geographic areas.

Let’s do the right thing and resettle a select number of refugees. But let’s require those who are admitted to apply far from the border and, if selected, to secure a sponsor. And let’s support local communities working to welcome newly arrived refugees and immigrants. Dealing with rapid demographic changes can be hard. But local leaders know what they need, and block grants provided by the federal government will make it easier—and fairer—for all.

4. It is time to formally recognize longtime law-abiding undocumented immigrants as the Americans they already are.

Our immigration system has been broken for so long that 11 million immigrants—nearly a quarter of all immigrants in America—live and work here with no path to legal status. They constitute 5 percent of our workforce. Two out of three live in households with relatives who are citizens or have legal status. Most have been here for 10, 15, or even 20 years.

We see them every day. They harvest fruits and vegetables and care for children and seniors. Their kids play sports, and their families go to church. Undocumented youth, often called Dreamers, grow up to be doctors, nurses, teachers, and first responders.

These people are not criminals; they are Americans in all but paperwork. Yet they all live under the threat of Trump’s mass deportation machine. Trump’s border czar promised that the Trump Administration would prioritize the “worst of the worst,” but his masked agents are targeting longtime immigrants with American spouses, American children, and no criminal records. The much better solution—one strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans—is to create a fair process for eligible immigrants to apply for and, if qualified, gain permanent resident status.

Taken together, these four principles backed by commonsense policies deliver what the American people are demanding: that we put immigration on a legal footing.

• The goal: Make legal immigration work for America and illegal immigration stop.
• The proposal: Secure the border; deport adjudicated public safety threats; make legal immigration flexible and fair; curb asylum abuse; admit refugees selectively and through an orderly process; create a process for longtime undocumented immigrants to come forward to get right with the law; and make sure the entire system is fair to American workers, employers, and communities.
• The call: Democrats are ready and willing to work together with Republicans to build a twenty-first century immigration system worthy of our tradition as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.

A Reminder: Democrats Used to Win on Immigration

Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama each faced huge immigration challenges. Each espoused balanced policies that combined strong enforcement and generous legal channels. Neither was perfect; finding the sweet spot can be elusive in a debate buffeted by such wicked crosscurrents. But both neutralized the nativist right, survived criticism from the activist left, and exited office with high approval ratings.

It can be done.

Going forward, Democrats have to run toward and not from this fight. They must stand for policy solutions that can work with voters and work when implemented. They must lean in and talk about immigration as if it’s a priority for the American people, because it is. And they must defend immigration as if it’s foundational to the American experiment, because it is.

Defend Immigrants to Defend Democracy

Marielena Hincapié

In his opener, Frank Sharry dusts off a framework for immigration policy we both used in 2013 and recycles it in a bid to staunch the bleeding of Democratic approval points. The problem is, it’s 2025. The Trump Administration has deported immigrants based purely on allegations and without hearings. It has attempted to revoke the green cards or visas of students simply because they exercised their First Amendment rights, and is targeting more students across college campuses. It is wrongfully detaining U.S. citizens and their undocumented spouses. In 2013, the immigration policy debate was about immigrants; today, it’s about due process, free speech, and the Constitution. It’s our democracy that’s at stake, not just the fate of immigrants. The framework Democrats need is one that defends the idea of America.

I do miss 2013, a time when most voters supported immigration reform and leaders from both parties came together to find solutions. I understand Frank Sharry’s yearning for those days; I yearn for them, too.

However, the terms of the immigration debate were different in that era. Immigrant rights advocates wanted the legalization of our undocumented community members. Hard-line Republicans wanted border security and interior enforcement. Businesses wanted an expanded guest worker program. The possibility of a “grand bargain” between these parties produced the framework Sharry is referring to. Even in that era, the bargain was never struck: Congress failed to act on immigration. Still, the endgame on immigration had to do with immigration.

Today, extremists demagoguing the immigration issue have a different goal altogether: to undermine our democracy and who we are as a country. Donald Trump’s focus on deporting “bad hombres” is a page in a bigger anti-democracy playbook. The President and his allies aim to foment public hate for immigrants, and then to leverage it to radically restrict legal immigration, weaken democracy, and establish white minority rule.

So today, how the Democrats respond on immigration is actually a test of their mettle to defend not just immigrants, but democracy itself. Will the party uphold democratic values, or will it march to the authoritarian drumbeat?

For several decades, Democrats have played defense. They have allowed Republicans to define the debate as “open borders” versus “law and order.” The result: Democrats backed a crackdown on undocumented immigrants to appease the right. This strategy was called “enforcement first.” But it failed because there was no appeasing the right. “Enforcement first” became “enforcement only.” In return, Democrats got nothing. Even when they had a governing trifecta, they could not even enact the Dream Act, despite widespread public support. Meanwhile, extremists on the right blocked most executive actions and continually moved the goalposts further to the right. Clearly, no matter how much Democrats tighten enforcement, Republicans will always demand more. And the truth is that enforcement alone cannot solve the structural causes of migration or neutralize Republican attacks, especially now that the party is controlled by the MAGA movement.

Democrats must move beyond the false dichotomy of “open borders” versus “law and order” and advance a vision of immigration that is pragmatic and rooted in the American ideal of fairness. Yes, it should include enforcement. A fair immigration system means making enforcement proportional and just. The current system is punitive and arbitrary, treating all undocumented immigrants as lawbreakers regardless of their circumstances. By framing enforcement within the principle of proportionality, the Democratic Party can neutralize claims that they are “soft” on immigration while advancing a more just and effective system.

As the Trump Administration lays bare its true goals and says the silent part out loud, Democrats must articulate their own framework that acknowledges migration as a global phenomenon; creates safe, humane, and orderly legal avenues for people to migrate; and advances short-term defensive strategies and long-term structural solutions. If that feels hard, consider that we’ve been here before: We’ve taken a nation from anti-immigrant to welcoming in the last century. We can do it again.

The Historical Danger of Restrictionist Policies

To understand 2025, we need to understand 1925. That was the first full year in which the United States essentially shut its door to immigrants—the capstone victory of the eugenics movement. The door would remain largely closed until 1965.

Building on the exclusion of Chinese immigrants in 1882, the eugenicists developed a three-step campaign. They won the Literacy Act in 1917 to restrict “undesirable” migrants. They then obtained a one-year stopgap measure to meet the “emergency” of postwar immigration, especially the impending influx of Polish Jews, in the form of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. Finally, they secured passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which created racial and national origin quotas to severely restrict immigration. The eugenics movement claimed that Asians, Russians, Poles, Italians, the Irish, Jews, Catholics, and others were bringing disease, crime, and insanity to our shores and threatening the Nordic stock. The movement wanted, as one prominent eugenicist put it, to curb the “floods of aliens” poisoning “the blood and the morale” of the country.

Sound familiar? It’s the same playbook. These are the underpinnings of today’s “great replacement theory.” Authoritarian regimes worldwide have successfully weaponized immigration to undermine democracy by stoking racial fear of Black and brown migrants and refugees to divide working-class people.

Let’s be clear: The Trump Administration and the extremists in the Republican Party are not merely reacting to an increase in migration. They are using it as a political weapon to reshape America’s demographic and civic landscape. This is less about policy than power—who gets to decide who belongs and is worthy of becoming American. Authoritarianism thrives on isolation, and the MAGA movement has given voters a false sense of community. By pointing the finger at migrants, the movement distracts the electorate from the root causes of Americans’ and aspiring Americans’ real pain: an extractive economy that is not working for most of us.

Now is not the time to accommodate restrictionist frameworks that have only ever expanded the undocumented population rather than reducing it and have done nothing to address the genuine needs of all working-class people—white, Black, brown, Indigenous, U.S.-born, and immigrant alike.

This moment calls for building community. Policymakers should meet with working people across the country to authentically understand their economic anxieties and other pain points. They should pause, listen, learn, and develop new policy solutions to help address those valid concerns. The discriminatory policies of 1924 survived for four decades before a mighty civil rights movement created the conditions for them to be repealed. We must empower communities to plant those seeds now.

A Defensive-Offense Strategy for the Short Term

Recognizing the political reality of a MAGA-controlled federal government, the Democratic Party, in the short term, must adopt a defensive-offense strategy that leverages every tool to defend immigrants who are part of our families, schools, workplaces, houses of worship, communities, and economies. This includes:

• Documenting harms and shaping the narrative: We live in an interdependent society, and immigration policies impact us all. Democrats should hold field hearings and use district offices to collect testimonies from families affected by detentions, deportations, and family separation. This is an opportunity to hear from the broad array of people impacted by immigration raids, including U.S. citizens, employers, educators, pediatricians, and more. In doing so, policymakers can broadcast the human impact and economic devastation of the Administration’s policies.
• State and local resistance: As local leaders, city officials are closest to the harm being inflicted by the federal government. They can hold hearings and enact resolutions recognizing the essential role immigrants play in their communities. Democratic governors and attorneys general must continue to take the lead in suing the federal government over unconstitutional immigration crackdowns and communicating why those policies impact us all. State and local governments should fund legal services for immigrants and other necessary protections.
• Using legislative minority power: Given their trifecta, Republicans are likely to move forward with extremist measures that Trump favors. The Democratic Party should unite in demanding that any restrictive bills include legalization for Dreamers, farmworkers, essential workers, and mixed-status families. These immigrant communities should know that this relief will be costly, but that it might be the only opportunity for a while. And where the Democrats can’t successfully influence legislation, they should strategically use procedural tools like the filibuster, unanimous consent holds, and extended debates to slow down harmful legislation.

A Bold Vision for the Long Term

While responding to threats in the short term, those who want to safeguard democracy and rebuild the United States must put forward a proactive, long-term strategy that acknowledges migration as a global reality to adapt to, rather than a crisis to be solved or a war to be won. This includes:

1. Freedom to stay: Investing in the economic, educational, and climate resilience of countries people are fleeing so that migration is a choice, not a necessity. Not everyone wants to migrate to the United States and leave their loved ones, culture, and homeland behind. The current Administration’s cruel decisions to freeze foreign aid, shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development, and make other drastic changes will ironically cause more migration worldwide, as poverty will increase and climate adaptation will not be possible without U.S. financial support.
2. Legal avenues: Creating safe, humane, and orderly opportunities for people who want or need to move permanently to the United States, whether for safety and freedom, to be reunited with loved ones, or for work or education. Similarly, we need more circular migration, where workers have portable work visas (so they are not tied to one employer, which can lead to exploitation) and earn premium wages with full employment, labor, and civil rights. In this way, we can meet U.S. labor needs without depressing labor conditions for U.S. workers.
3. State-level solutions: If the federal government ceases to be representative and democratic, we need to think creatively about how states can provide work authorization or even citizenship to migrants living within their borders while ensuring they have full mobility and rights under federal law.
4. A whole-of-government approach to immigration: Because immigration is an economic, humanitarian, and geopolitical issue, there should be an executive-level office to coordinate federal agencies and state and local governments receiving new migrants.

I agree with Sharry that we need an independent commission for immigration. It must convene state and local governments, labor unions, business leaders, and civil society to shape an adaptable migration system that is responsive to dynamic and evolving community needs. This is an opportunity to rethink hemispheric and regional management of migrant flows.

Give Democrats a Defibrillator

We are now standing at the edge of an abyss. We cannot predict the future, but what I do know is this: How those of us who believe in an equitable, inclusive, multiracial democracy respond now will shape the country’s path forward.

The federal legislative strategies of the past have not worked. The current immigration system is failing nearly everyone. Some parts must be reformed; others are beyond repair and must be built anew. In an interconnected world, our prosperity and resilience will depend on how boldly we reimagine and manage migration. This is a moment for moral imagination and the courage to act—a time to create a twenty-first century immigration system that serves all of us, native- and foreign-born alike. It will require hard conversations and tough choices, but those choices must be made for the collective “we.” Because, in the end, this is about all of us. We must be an inclusive democracy, or we will be no democracy at all.

Frank Sharry Responds:

Marielena Hincapié is right that the extremism under Trump 2.0 is unlike anything we have ever witnessed. Trump’s masked agents are arresting people with legal status off of street corners for legally protected speech. He is separating families by deporting those with no criminal record. He is attempting to unilaterally change the constitutional definition of citizenship. And without a hint of due process, he is sending people—many of whom seem to be totally innocent—to a prison in El Salvador notorious for torture. I wholeheartedly support Hincapié’s call for Democrats to stand up for basic rights and immigrant families at this moment of truth for the rule of law.

But if we are to claw back our democracy from the authoritarians bent on ending it, Democrats will have to retake the House of Representatives in 2026 and the White House in 2028. And if Democrats want to accomplish big things, they will also have to compete for and win back the Senate. To do all three, candidates will have to say more on immigration and border security than “Trump is extreme.” The challenge is formidable. On immigration, voter trust has shifted from favoring Democrats by +11 percent in 2017 to favoring Republicans by +22 percent in January 2025.

One way to do better in the future is to be honest about the past. Democrats and immigrant advocates faced unprecedented challenges stemming from the situation at the border over the past four years, and collectively, we failed. Voters—and not just the MAGA base—were understandably upset by record arrivals and scenes of chaos. It was perfectly reasonable for them to expect their leaders to get the situation under control. Sure, in the last half of year four, Biden Administration officials finally did crack the code, bringing down illegal border crossings significantly. But this remarkable policy success came too late to make a difference politically. And in the meantime, most activists fought border security measures tooth and nail.

As a longtime immigrant advocate, I understand the coalitional pressure to go along to get along, as well as the tendency, fueled by confirmation bias, to believe progressive policy positions are politically viable even when they are not. In the early 2020s, for example, I associated deterrence measures with Trump’s cruelty, implying that none would work. I supported an end to Title 42—the COVID-era public health measure that authorized the immediate expulsion of border crossers—without insisting on a workable plan to reform and resource our overwhelmed asylum system. I also lobbied for legalization in 2021 without persuading colleagues to put asylum and border reforms on the table to help seal the deal. I did all this convinced that my preferred policy outcomes could fit into the political space available. I was wrong.

In 2023, I walked away from the immigrant advocacy world and joined the campaign world. I consulted for the UK’s Labour Party on migration and asylum. I worked on immigration policy for the Biden and Harris presidential campaigns. I saw from the inside just how challenging it is for center-left parties to define themselves on an issue shamelessly exploited by right-wing populists. Labour got it right, outpolled the Conservative Party on immigration and asylum, and won. Democrats got it wrong, got their clocks cleaned on immigration and the border, and lost.

These experiences inform my recommendations to Democrats. Tinkering around the edges won’t cut it. A wholesale rebrand is needed. Candidates—from conservative-leaning Democrats in red districts to progressive ones in blue strongholds—need to come together to construct a unified narrative and a common set of policy proposals. The bullseye is not the sweet spot within the Democratic coalition, but the sweet spot within a much larger swath of gettable voters. If Democrats hit it, they will define themselves as the party of order and generosity; control and compassion; secure borders and legal pathways.

This both/and approach appeals to progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Veronica Escobar, as well as centrists such as Senator Ruben Gallego and Representative Tom Suozzi. All support an approach that integrates effective border security and targeted immigration enforcement with expanded pathways to legal status and legal immigration.

And so I return to the narrative and policy ideas that I detailed earlier:

• State clearly that we are a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws and that the best way to harmonize these traditions is to make legal immigration work and illegal immigration stop.
• Stake out a specific set of reform proposals to secure the border, deport public safety threats with humanity and due process, curb asylum abuse, make legal immigration flexible and fair, admit select refugees through an orderly process, and create a process for longtime undocumented immigrants to apply for status. This combination delivers what voters want: to make immigration legal, controlled, and orderly. If it takes multiple bills to accomplish these objectives, so be it.
• Be ready to answer tough questions: What is the Democratic plan for securing the border, and why would we trust you? Are Democrats serious about deporting public safety threats? How should we make legal immigration work for America? What do we do about employers who exploit immigrant workers to undermine American workers? What do we do about undocumented immigrants in our communities? How can we help communities experiencing rapid demographic change? How do we craft immigration policies that are fair to Americans?
• Call on Republicans to put partisanship aside and work together to build a twenty-first century immigration system worthy of our tradition as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. While they may show up to do their part someday, hold them accountable for their obstruction in the meantime.

Track Record: Pragmatists vs. Purists

Democratic leaders often struggle to navigate the world of pro-immigrant advocacy. To a large extent, “the groups” are divided into two main camps: purists and pragmatists (my terms). Purists reject distinctions between “good” and “bad” immigrants, regard border security concerns as racist, and advocate for the decriminalization of immigration. Their appeals are largely moral and directed at Democrats; purists offer little evidence of a strategy to shift broader public opinion. Pragmatists, with whom I align, believe Democrats build lasting support for immigration by respecting national sovereignty and public sentiment. Over time, this approach improves the chances for legislation that manages immigration effectively, secures legal status and paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and expands legal immigration.

Over the past two decades, both strategies have been tested.

2005-14: Pragmatists Lead

• In 2006 and 2013, Senate Democrats passed bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bills, both of which would have expanded legal immigration and created pathways to citizenship for millions. Both were blocked by House Republican majorities.
• In 2012, President Obama established Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), protecting 800,000 Dreamers—a policy now threatened by Republican-appointed judges. In 2014, he expanded DACA and launched a similar program for parents of American children—initiatives blocked by Republican-appointed judges.
• In 2014, Obama implemented a major shift in enforcement priorities, replacing indiscriminate deportations with a focus on criminals, national security threats, and recent border crossers.

Recent Years: Purists Ascendant

• In 2019, purists declared “comprehensive immigration reform” dead, arguing it relied on border militarization and criminalization of immigrants.
• During the 2020 presidential primaries, purists cheered when leading candidates for the Democratic nomination veered left, embracing the idea of decriminalizing illegal border crossings. They scored additional successes through the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Forces, securing Democratic support for a more progressive agenda on immigration that included the rollback of asylum restrictions, a 100-day deportation moratorium, and delinking a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants from increased border security.
• In Biden’s first year, as many of these recommendations were implemented, border crossings surged, and public backlash grew. Advocates pushed for even looser restrictions, deepening divisions within the Democratic Party. Trump and Republicans exploited these vulnerabilities and made immigration and border security a top-tier issue in 2024.

For Democrats who face voters—especially those Democrats who want to ignore immigration in hopes it will go away—it’s time. It’s time to win this argument. It’s time to denounce Trump’s overreach, engage voters with practical solutions, communicate with compassion and conviction, and cultivate party unity. It’s time for the Democratic Party to restore public trust, win critical elections, and build an immigration system that works for all.

Marielena Hincapié Responds:

President Trump has deployed troops to Los Angeles, trampling on people’s constitutional right to protest. Masked immigration enforcement agents are snatching people off the streets, terrorizing entire communities. Federal agents stationed in immigration courts are detaining people who are just trying to comply with the law. Against that backdrop, Frank Sharry counsels Democrats to undertake a “wholesale rebrand” of their immigration message, as if the party has a communications problem. But this feeble advice is out of touch with the moment. Democrats have a democracy problem. Rebranding is simply not enough.

The MAGA movement isn’t using the immigration issue to change outcomes for immigrants. Trump’s endgame is to use immigration policy to undermine democracy for all of us. This historic moment requires Democrats not to merely rebrand, but to reimagine. Rebranding alone won’t stop authoritarianism, restore voter trust, or deliver the future we deserve. It will only recycle the failures that got us to this point. It’s not enough to out-message Trumpism. The Democratic Party must challenge the fundamental framework that made Trumpism possible—and, ultimately, uproot and replace it.

One of the central tenets of this framework is “enforcement first.” Republicans have demanded this for more than three decades, and Democrats have given in, investing in a formidable deportation machine to create optics of toughness in the hopes of getting reform in exchange. Sharry wants Democrats to return to this approach. I want the party to depart from it altogether and find a new starting point.

The Enforcement-First Logic Has Failed Us

The “enforcement-first” approach plays defense within a restrictionist paradigm, and time has shown that it simply doesn’t work. We’ve consistently invested in enforcement while giving people no viable legal options to gain entry to the United States. So-called “reasonable” enforcement policies—like the 287(g) policies created under Clinton’s 1996 immigration law and the Secure Communities program that was greatly expanded under Obama—only undermined communities’ trust in law enforcement, making everyone less safe, and corroded trust in government among immigrants and advocates. A new, alternative framework would be rooted in the ideals of democracy. It would include enforcement, to be sure—what is called “proportional enforcement.” More on that in a second.

As for Sharry’s framing of “pragmatists vs. purists,” I leave him to be the referee of intramural politics within the immigrant rights movement. No movement can be simplified in those terms. I prefer to keep my eyes on the bigger scoreboard in the fight for our nation: those in favor of American fairness vs. those in favor of restrictionism. And that score is clear. Whenever Democrats have played into restrictionists’ hands, they have lost. Since 1996, Democrats have backed a crackdown on immigrants. What did we get in return for all that enforcement? Only congressional inaction. Yes, Obama used executive authority to create DACA and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans. But Republicans blocked the latter in court, as they’ve tried to do with DACA and many other major immigration-related executive actions that Obama and Biden attempted. Biden put forth a legislative vision, but beyond the border, his Administration never truly prioritized immigration. The result? Voters perceived immigration as out of control under the Democrats, and the door was left wide open for Trump’s return.

What Leadership Requires in This Moment

If we take from this the lesson that Democrats need a “rebrand,” we would only be lining the pockets of high-paid strategic communications consultants. The real lesson is that playing defense by backing a crackdown on immigrants was a strategic misstep. The Trump Administration is now deploying the enforcement-first narrative—just on steroids—to justify deporting permanent residents, punishing students for exercising their First Amendment rights, and sending asylum seekers to notorious prisons abroad.

Exhibit A: the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a lawfully present immigrant who the Administration alleges is a terrorist and gang member without providing evidence. Despite a Supreme Court order, the Administration for months explicitly refused to correct what even it admitted was an “administrative error” in sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia is now facing criminal prosecution, and is one of at least four people whom courts have ordered returned to the country because they were wrongfully or improperly deported. The Trump Administration used the enforcement-first logic on steroids to devalue the rule of law and blatantly flout the judicial branch. The result: We were pushed to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

Democrats won’t bring us back from this brink by rebranding. They won’t outsmart authoritarians with slogans. They must offer a fundamentally different vision from the restrictionist one.

This doesn’t mean adopting a posture of resistance alone. We need leaders to stop chasing MAGA’s moving goalposts, reclaim the moral high ground, and advance a modernized immigration system that is grounded in interdependence and justice and that recognizes migration as a global and natural phenomenon. As I discussed previously, that includes:

• Freedom to stay: Help countries develop their economic, educational, and climate resilience, so that if residents leave they do so purely by choice. Climate disasters, war, poverty, xenophobia, and authoritarianism will keep driving migration. The only way to manage human movement is to foster conditions that help people stay in their homelands or to provide them with legal pathways to move in a safe, orderly, and humane way.
• Circular migration: Simply increasing the number of visas in existing programs, like H-2A and H-2B, isn’t enough. We need a new vision that includes portable visas, union rights, efforts to meet employers’ year-round needs, a clear path to naturalization for aspiring citizens, and workers’ ability to petition for their family members. And we must reinvest in schools and workforce development so that citizens, lawfully present students, and workers are prepared for the future and resilient as AI radically transforms the labor market.
• Legal pathways: Create systems that support family unity, employment, and education and are responsive to evolving needs. The number of visas should be adjusted at regular intervals with input from state and local stakeholders.

Proportionality: The Missing Principle in Enforcement

What about enforcement? Yes, it’s needed. But as I noted before, it must be proportional and just.

Defaulting to border crackdowns, detention, and deportation in the interior has failed. For Democrats, more of the same isn’t strategy—it’s capitulation. And it hasn’t solved the root causes of migration or neutralized political attacks.

Democrats should champion:

• Targeted enforcement: Instead of blanket deportations, prioritize removing those with serious violent convictions. Allow immigration judges discretion to weigh community ties, redemption, rehabilitation, and family reunification in their decisions.
• Proportional penalties: End permanent bans for minor infractions. Account for factors like years lived in the United States, family ties (especially to U.S. citizens or permanent resident spouses and children), long-term residency, and community contributions when determining whether to banish someone from the country they call home.
• Due process: Invest in hiring qualified immigration judges, adjudicators, lawyers, and other key staff to ensure the system is efficient, orderly, and fair. This will allow migrants to learn early on whether they qualify rather than lingering in legal limbo for years, which has been one of the major flaws of the current system. This investment needs to be balanced with guaranteed legal representation, especially for children, to help migrants navigate the complex proceedings that may result in lifetime exile from their adopted home. Everyone deserves a fair hearing and must have access to legal services to ensure we respect constitutional rights and do not erode democratic norms.
• Labor enforcement: Rebuild civil and labor rights agencies. Employer sanctions have failed—they punish workers, not abusive employers. Worker protections must be the cornerstone of a broader strategy to reduce the incentives for abusive employers to hire and exploit undocumented workers. Vigorous labor enforcement benefits everyone: workers, law-abiding employers, and the broader community.

Reclaiming the Language of Security and Belonging

Sharry suggests Democrats must project “order and generosity.” But in truth, his prescriptions offer neither. Order without justice is control. Generosity rooted in fear is not generosity—it’s appeasement.

Immigrants are not threats to be managed—we are part of the solution. Immigrants are parents, caretakers, teachers, students, farmworkers, small business owners, neighbors, and family members. When Democrats fail to say this, they surrender moral ground and reinforce harmful narratives.

Democrats don’t need to be the party of “border toughness.” They must be the party of democratic strength—and that includes welcoming new Americans with dignity.

A Call to Action, Not Accommodation

This is a time for all of us to pause and reflect. I appreciate Sharry’s willingness to do so. One of my own mistakes was being too siloed, focusing narrowly on immigrants’ rights rather than bridging my work more broadly to other movements and concerns. We must now emphasize how immigration affects everyone: U.S.-born and naturalized citizens, legal immigrants, workers, employers, educators, and communities. Our lives are interdependent.

MAGA’s strategy is to fracture that sense of collective belonging. Democrats cannot go MAGA-lite and expect to win. We need a transformational response.

We need to mobilize local leaders, amplify the voices of those impacted by extremist anti-immigrant and anti-democratic policies, and help millions of Americans reconnect to their own or their loved ones’ immigrant roots, so that they see immigrants not as strangers but as essential members of our shared history and future. We must develop policies to defend the vulnerable and articulate a proactive, long-term vision of who we are and what we stand for.

From Rebranding to Reckoning

On the eve of the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the United States, we stand at a crossroads between exclusion and renewal. The choices we make now will shape the country for the next two generations.

The question isn’t whether Democrats support order or compassion. It’s whether they’re bold enough to redefine both on their own terms. The answer isn’t a rebrand. It’s a reckoning with history, power, and what it truly means to be a nation of immigrants and a democracy worth fighting for.

This isn’t just about immigration. It’s about all of us.