Opinion: Promising reduced immigration will help at polls

As Democrats’ prospects in the 2022 mid-term elections dim, the party needs to revive itself with what was once a reliable constituency – Hispanic voters.

A Wall Street Journal poll taken in December found Hispanic voters split 37 percent to 37 percent “if the election were held today.” The Journal poll also showed that Hispanic voters mirror the overall voter pool. When asked how Biden is handling his responsibilities, 42 percent approved of the president’s job performance, and 54 percent disapproved – in line with the 41 percent approval and 57 percent disapproval among the broader voting public.

Since the Journal published its results, conditions in the country have worsened, more bad news for the flailing administration. As of late May, only divine intervention can save Democrats from electoral calamity when November rolls around.

Continued erosion in the Hispanic vote would leave Democrats’ chances of maintaining its slim margin in Congress at nil. Equis Labs, which studied the Latino electorate, found that in 2020 swings toward the GOP of 20 points occurred in parts of Florida’s Miami-Dade County, 12 points in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and double-digit swings in parts of the Northeast. In South Florida, the move was large enough to flip two congressional seats from Democrat to Republican.

Mark Zandi, Moody Analytics chief economist, wrote that, despite a booming jobs market, today’s political environment is among the toughest for incumbents that he’s ever surveyed. The consensus among political analysts like Zandi is that voters are out to punish incumbents with their Republican vote. If conventional wisdom is correct and if Hispanics continue to abandon Democrats, they’ll be the minority in the upcoming 118th Congress.

Hispanic voters’ shifting allegiance took the establishment media by surprise, but not other impartial, national scene observers. First, Hispanic voters have the same goals as other citizens – a stable economy, educational opportunities for their children and a good quality of life.

Second, and less noted by mainstream journalists, mass immigration, a hallmark of Democratic administrations that Biden has taken to record levels, harms Hispanics and other minorities more than any demographic. The immigrant who arrives today makes yesterday’s immigrants’ efforts to become established more challenging, particularly in his job search or for his school age children who will enroll in ever-more crowded classrooms.

The most important factors among Hispanics who are fleeing Democrats began during President Obama’s two terms, and both of which Biden is pursuing to the extreme. One is a refusal to vigorously carry out interior enforcement, including at the workplace. Weeding out illegal aliens from the job site would make more blue-collar jobs available to minority populations. Second, U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services data obtained through a Freedom of Information request revealed that, from 2009 to 2014, the agency issued 5.5 million new work permits to immigrants, beyond the 1.1 million legal immigrants and 700,000 guest workers admitted to the U.S. each year. Moreover, Biden has begun to give the arriving migrants, as well as Ukrainian refugees and Afghan evacuees, work authorization.

Voters who identify as Hispanic will decide if they want to continue with unprecedented record immigration under Democratic leadership that will adversely affect most every aspect of their lives, or if they wish to support sustainable immigration levels that include border and interior enforcement.

For now, multiple polls indicate that voters will support candidates that promise to reduce immigration and increase immigration enforcement, a welcome change from Biden and his lieutenants’ sovereignty-ending agenda.

Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at:

[email protected]