What if Democrats Just Change the Conversation on Immigration? (And Ignore Our Big, Recent, Throbbing Failure)

Joe Biden? Never heard of him

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The center-left Dweeberati (said with affection) is talking about immigration. This is probably partly because it’s looking like the Biden presidential museum will have a wing called “Immigration: Who Fucked Up and Why”, and partly because basically every center-left party in the world is currently getting hammered on immigration by the Blood, Soil, and Nostalgia For A Time That Never Was Party. Voters don’t trust Democrats on immigration even though they also don’t seem to love Trump’s tactic of having masked dudes show up at Home Depot blasting rap rock and throwing people into vans.

Josh Barro thinks Democrats should get over their squeamishness about enforcing immigration law. Matt Bai thinks Democrats need to say something on immigration other than “Trump bad”. And Matt Yglesias think Democrats should turn over a new leaf and craft an immigration policy actually on purpose. All of these takes suggest — correctly, I think — that Democrats need a reboot. We need to say “We fucked up — here’s our plan to fuck up substantially less badly in the future.”

This makes sense, because admitting a mistake is usually a first step towards rebuilding trust. Before you can convince people that you won’t do the bad thing again, you need to show that you know what the bad thing was. This is why people in 12 step programs track down people they’ve wronged and say “I will no longer [sleep with/vomit on/steal the identity of] your [sister/grandmother/beloved pet] while high on [meth/airplane glue/the stuff inside of a glow stick mixed with Flintstones chewables].” Acknowledging that you fucked up is key to convincing people that you’ll do better.

UNLESS — hear me out — there’s a quick fix that skips all that mopey groveling. Because, sure…you could engage in self-reflection that ends in a sincere pledge to reform. OR you could jump backwards through a wormhole and cheerfully announce “New Awesome Me has arrived!” while accusing anyone talking about Old You of living in the past. It’s like what Don Draper said: “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.” And that guy must know something, because spent a whole decade drowning in money and tail despite being drunk, selfish, needlessly confrontational, kinda-racist, and away from his job and family with no explanation 70 percent of the time.

Here’s what I’m talking about: I think that Democrats can craft a positive, forward-looking message on immigration that starts a new conversation without dwelling on the past. It would tell a story that happens to be true, which is nifty, because I prefer political narratives that aren’t a towering skyscraper of bullshit whenever possible.

The narrative goes like this: “America is rich, safe, and vibrant because we’ve always attracted the smartest, hardest-working people from around the world. We need an immigration system that attracts the best and the brightest for years to come.”

There’s a ton of subtext packed into those two short sentences. So, let me unpack it.

“America is rich, safe, and vibrant…”

America fucking rules. We have a quality of life that many people envy, which is why our immigration debate matters: People from around the world want to come here. I hate the far left/far right impulse to portray America as a failed society; we have problems, but if you list our problems next to other countries’ problems or next to our problems from the past, we’re doing remarkably well. Our economy has flaws but we’re actually quite rich, we have social divisions but we remain the most successful multicultural project there ever was, and we face international challenges but our military happens to make the 1960s Boston Celtics look like a bunch of impotent dorks. “We suck” is a bad political message, and I think that Democrats should start from the position that America is a great place that’s worth defending.

“…because we’ve always attracted the smartest, hardest-working people from around the world.”

Immigration represents change, and you can’t blame people for fearing change; a fear of change is basically the first think life evolved after the ability to poop. But in a way, immigration isn’t change — it’s how America has always done things. We’ve always had immigrants, there’s always been friction between natives and new arrivals that sometimes went as far as guys in top hats trying to murder each other, but even so, we’ve been extremely successful. And immigration was a big part of our success; we’ve always had hardscrabble strivers and Nobel-level geniuses who pick up the slack for the soft, over-educated dandies that become the norm once a family has been here three generations or more.

This part of the sales pitch also makes it clear that we don’t just want any immigrants — we want the good ones. We’re going to pick the people we want and not do this boarding-a-bus-in-Italy style, which is to say: Whoever shoves their way to the front gets in. This clause also tells people that we’re seeking an immigration system that will benefit people who are already here by select for skills and other traits. You know that “we’re putting together a team” montage that’s in every heist movie? This is that — we’re putting together a highly skilled team of experts, preferably set to up-tempo music in the Daft Punk/Dust Brothers oeuvre.

“We need an immigration system…”

The key word here is “system” — this is a tacit acknowledgement that our recent immigration policy has been a free-for-all. Democrats have spent too much time defending people who exploit the loopholes in our system, which has degraded the notion that there’s any system at all. What’s the point of having laws if whenever we try to enforce the law, some liberal will jump out of the woodwork and argue that, actually, enforcing laws is racist? Arguing for an purposeful, thoughtful, actually-designed-by-somebody system puts Democrats on the side of law and order and moves us away from rationalizing chaos.

“…that attracts the best and the brightest for years to come.”

Once again, this passage emphasizes that we’re going to choose people who make America stronger. I’m repeating myself for emphasis, because “we won’t just admit any dickweed” truly is the primary message.

But the “years to come” part matters, too. It makes the policy forward-looking, which is good since the mangled wreckage of Biden’s immigration policy is right behind us. But forward-looking messages are good, anyway — voters want to know what you’re going to do for them. This message implies that we need to do this, and it says that we’ll do it in a way that’s consistent with the pro-growth abundance claptrap that will probably comprise another big part of the Democratic platform.

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What doesn’t my two-sentence immigration elevator pitch say? It doesn’t say anything about what happens to illegal immigrants who are already here. That’s intentional — I think Democrats should direct out focus towards future legal immigrants, not current illegal immigrants. I think there’s little to say on the topic of the 14 million-ish people who are here illegally that’s both satisfying and honest. Trump has gone with the satisfying/dishonest message of “everyone must go”, which won’t happen because enforcement is too costly and when you get to the tough cases — otherwise-law-abiding people who have been here a long time — Americans don’t want those people deported. But a path to citizenship — which I think is better policy — is unsatisfying, because basically says “You broke the law and got away with it…nice job.” The American people might accept a path to citizenship but I doubt they’ll ever be jazzed about it, and Democrats need to get out of the business of stumping for law breakers.

A functional legal immigration system is probably the best long-term fix to the illegal immigration problem anyway. People mostly come here for jobs; the thing that altered immigration trends more than anything else in recent years was the Great Recession of 2008. An immigration system that produces legal immigration flows that match our labor needs would reduce the incentive to come illegally. And combining a labor-responsive system with policies like E-verify — the worker legality verification system that’s been part of many of the immigration bills that have died like goldfish for the past 20 years — would probably greatly reduce illegal immigration. And that would make enforcement easier and reduce the salience of the tricky “what about people who are already here?” question.

Joe Biden is…well he’s not dead, but if death was the dentist, then Joe Biden is in the waiting room reading Golf Digest. He’s definitely not president anymore, and I’m going to make a bold prediction and call a second term “unlikely”. It makes sense for Democrats to put Biden’s policy in the past and start fresh. And as long as we’re starting fresh, I think we should adopt a positive framing that looks to the future. Because, sure: Our recent turn in the policy cockpit may have been a haphazard pulling of levers that led to a cavalcade of unintended consequences, but who can remember that far back? You’re talking about 2024 — that’s basically the Ice Age. What matters is the future, and the broad-based legal immigration reform that could be part of it.

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