Sweden and Italy have turned to fascist and fascist-adjacent governments in recent weeks. Americans - unbelievably - are still considering whether or not to vote for Donald Fucking Trump in 2024. At the root of this movement is an insufficient policy agenda, both nationally and internationally, to deal with immigration.
As Martin Longman points out, immigration actually declines when a country is experiencing hard economic times. Immigration to the US fell off after 2008. This time, however, we are seeing global instability create migrant flows all around the world. Wars, famines and oppressive regimes have people on the move.
One of the stupidest own goals of the Democratic primary cycle in 2020 was "open borders." It was only held by a few candidates, but no one wanted to tell Julian Castro what a stupid idea it was. The usual sort of "Hate has no home here" lawn sign people sort of jumped on open borders as an anti-Trump position, without realizing that they were energizing exactly the sort of backlash to immigration that gave Trump power in the first place.
Immigrants are a net good for a developed country. We can not only absorb immigrants, we actively need them. But the idea of an unregulated influx of migrants alienates a substantial portion of the population. Countries - by literal definition - have borders and have the right to determine rules of citizenship.
I'm not for one minute suggesting that the GOP is right about immigration or that they have anything approaching a plan. Plainly, they are depending on racist demagoguery to rescue a floundering midterm strategy. They don't want a solution.
Still, Democrats need to come up with one that they can place before voters. Obama tried enforcement first, with the hopes that Republicans would then come to the table to normalize other issues. That's not going to happen.
The vicious cycle is that Democrats need a larger majority to pass legislation but not having legislation will prevent them from having a larger majority.
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