The Major Political Transformation Flying Under the Radar at the DNC

On the third night of the Democratic National Convention four years ago, immigration was front and center. Americans heard a series of personal stories about how Trump-era policies had scrambled immigrants’ and their families’ lives.

An 11-year-old girl read a letter to then-President Donald Trump; the Trump administration had deported her mother two years before. An undocumented mother recounted how she crossed the border illegally to seek better medical care for her baby daughter — “When we got to the river, I raised her above the water and we crossed,” she said on national TV. She wasn’t the first undocumented immigrant to address the DNC, but she was the first non-DREAMer — more controversially, someone who crossed the border as an adult.

Four years later, the DNC sounds a lot different, reflecting how public opinion toward immigration in general has soured as concerns over how secure the border is have risen. Gone are the heartfelt testimonies from undocumented immigrants, the repudiation of Trump-era policies, and the calls for better treatment of migrants and expansion of asylum protections. Instead, Wednesday evening’s speakers embraced tougher policies for asylum seekers, praised President Joe Biden’s attempts to negotiate a bipartisan border security bill, and conceded the changed reality of immigration politics since the pandemic’s dawn.

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In past party conventions, Democrats made significant attempts to highlight the plight of young immigrants and immigrant families — be they families split apart because of immigration policy, young DREAMers struggling and succeeding in America despite not having documentation, or activists working toward immigration reform.

In 2012, for example, Benita Veliz, a DREAMer from San Antonio, Texas, became the first undocumented person to address a national party’s political convention — telling millions of viewers how she graduated as a top student and earned a double major in college before nearly being deported over a traffic violation. A DREAMer, she praised the Obama plan to roll out deportation protections in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Four years later, another DREAMer would join first lady Michelle Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders as keynote speakers during Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s convention. Astrid Silva would tell her story of coming to the US as a 4-year-old with her mother, climbing into a raft to cross the Rio Grande, with just “a little doll.”

And 2020 was all about contrasts with Trump, and the human suffering he had caused during his presidency.

Wednesday night, speakers balanced two messages: that Democrats are not the same flavor of anti-immigrant as Republicans — they value diversity and believe in the humane treatment of migrants — but they understand the need for reform and bolstered security. {snip}

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Public sentiment is now turning sharply against all kinds of immigration. {snip}

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{snip} Gone are the Obama- and Clinton-era days of casting the Democratic Party as the unequivocal pro-immigrant party. The differences in the convention platforms make that clear as well. The 2024 party platform supports quicker deportations of economic migrants and stricter asylum rules — including the ability to stop processing those asylum claims. {snip}

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