The Democratic presidential primary moving past Iowa and New Hampshire into the more diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina could have served as a launching pad for meaningful immigration discussions at Democratic debates, touching on issues from the Supreme Court’s imminent decision that could end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and separate hundreds of thousands of families, to the “public charge” rule change, which went into effect on Monday.
Instead, there was just a brief immigration discussion during last week’s Nevada debate, something repeated during Tuesday’s debate in South Carolina. “Shame. We are about to lose [our] damn DACA and there is zero debate on this issue?” tweeted RAICES leader Erika Andiola. “Another debate without a substantial discussion on immigration policy—which just so happens to be a top campaign priority of President Trump,” tweeted BuzzFeed News’ Hamed Aleaziz. Not just a top campaign priority, but a defining issue affecting millions of families who deserve more than just a few minutes during these national debates.
As Andiola referenced, missing from South Carolina’s debate was the pressing urgency around the DACA program, which the Supreme Court is expected to rule on any day now. Trump officials have been salivating at the thought of deporting these young people, with the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Matthew Albence, confirming DACA recipients will be targeted should the justices side with the administration. Mass deportation agents have already been preparing for the ruling they want, with CNN reporting that ICE has reopened the “long-closed” cases of over a dozen DACA recipients.
Missing from the debate was the administration’s implementation of its public charge rule change, which the Supreme Court allowed to go into effect on Monday and makes it easier to block green cards for working families who might access public services, like nutrition programs. “But the consequences are serious, even for people who wouldn’t be considered a public charge under the law,” Miami Herald’s Monique O. Madan writes from Florida, where over 100,000 U.S.-born kids could lose benefits they’re entitled to. “Experts say the new regulation is expected to have a significant ‘chilling effect’ on people who don’t actually fall into the categories, because they think they would be at risk of being a public charge when they’re actually not.”
Also missing from debates have been substantive discussions of issues that the administration has more successfully hidden from U.S. public view and criticism because they’re happening outside our border. There’s the inhumane and illegal program forcing tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait out their U.S. immigration court dates in Mexico, resulting in at least 816 migrants being assaulted, raped, or murdered, in addition to further family separation. In addition to this obliteration of the U.S. asylum system, there should be substantive debate on the U.S. steadily taking a sledgehammer to our refugee program by slashing admissions to a record low.
The debates should also be an opportunity to more expansively discuss candidates’ plans regarding out-of-control deportation agents and mass detention conditions with a national audience, both issues that have worsened under this administration. It was just a few weeks ago that ICE moved to further weaken detention standards, including a decision that would allow officers to hog-tie people in their custody. When it comes to Customs and Border Protection, officials have ignored CDC recommendations to give detained kids flu vaccinations. It’s not just a matter of reversing harmful Trump administration policy; it’s a matter of overhauling this system to make sure another child never dies in immigration custody again.
Immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice recently urged Democratic candidates to lean in on the issue of immigration, saying “To state the obvious, Trump and his administration and campaign are running for reelection on xenophobia—as Jonathan Blitzer phrased it in his recent New Yorker profile of Stephen Miller, the ‘obsession with restricting immigration and punishing immigrants has become the defining characteristic of the Trump White House, to the extent that campaigning and governing on the issue are no longer distinguishable.’ Yet Democrats on the debate stage—and up and down the ballot—need not fear the issue of immigration and certainly should not cede it to Trump or allow it to go unaddressed.”
“Trump wants to talk about brown and black immigrants because he doesn’t want to talk about his tax cuts for the wealthy, his attacks on social security, healthcare and education, and his inaction on climate change, gun violence and more,” the group continued. “He divides to distract. He says ‘look over here at the other’ so we don’t look at what he’s doing to fill the pockets of his cronies while picking ours. We need to come together to solve real challenges, including immigration, not let him tweet and insult and divide us so we don’t.”
Of course, immigration wasn’t the only major topic largely avoided during Tuesday’s debate—“the only times abortion was mentioned came during Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s smackdowns of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg … of course there was no question on the climate crisis,” Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson wrote—and there’s plenty of blame for this to spread around, since the questions usually come from the network. But at the same time, how many people would really be that upset if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren ignored a question about their favorite quote and instead used that time to substantively tell the audience how they could protect DACA recipients and their families on day one?
“It is a shame that immigration was, once again, not debated tonight,” RAICES Action, which is calling on all candidates to support the Migrant Justice Platform, said in a statement received by Daily Kos. “Thousands of people have been denied asylum, thousands of families have been separated, and many are in deplorable detention conditions. DACA recipients might lose their DACA this year, and white supremacists are shaping immigration policy. We need a real conversation about this critical issue.”