AUSTIN, Texas — Republicans and Democrats are pivoting their immigration strategies as polls show a narrowing gap in the national Texas race and the flow of migrants across the Mexican border slows.
Republicans have recently focused on widespread and unproven allegations about widespread voting by immigrants living in the country illegally, which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has repeatedly criticized as part of a grander Democratic plan to “fix” the United States into a “one-party state.”
Meanwhile, a Democratic Senate candidate said the Republican approach was “all hats and no substance.”
And both parties have claimed credit for the decline in border encounters.
Paxton His office announced on Wednesday The governor of Texas has set up a hotline for Texans to report voter fraud. Although repeated investigations have shown that voter fraud is an extremely rare phenomenon, Governor Paxton and many state Republicans argue that it is a clear and immediate threat. In a statement, the governor warned that “the foreign citizen population in Texas has grown significantly, and we are seeing partisan efforts to illegally weaponize our voter registration and voting process to manipulate the outcome of our elections.”
The comments come after the attorney general last week raided Democratic activists and candidates in South Texas, which Democrats and Latino rights groups have called intimidation.
The move comes after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that his office has removed more than 1 million people from the state's voter rolls in an effort to “protect voting rights and crack down on illegal voting.”
While Abbott framed the move as an important step to maintain election integrity, the move, and this number of expulsions, is fairly routine.
Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt told The New York Times: Lose 1 million voters Moving off the roll was the norm in states where “10 percent of the roll may move on a two-year cycle.”
But it's part of a broader election strategy for Governor Abbott, who argued on NewsNation on Tuesday that Texas can solve its border problems on its own but is being thwarted by national Democrats.
in Republican cliché Abbott warned, without evidence dating back to President Trump, of a looming “caravan” that could reverse the decline come election time, a group he described as endangering the US.
“Let's assume that Texas succeeds in reducing illegal immigration into the state by 100 percent. Then every terrorist, every murderer, every rapist would pass through New Mexico, Arizona and California.”
Abbott accused President Biden of “stepping in and doing our bidding” after Operation Lone Star forced migrants out of Texas. Immigration experts 'skeptical'The Texas Tribune reported.
Slipping at an intersection Started in JuneAfter President Biden issued the executive order, Banning asylum applications and entry whenever the number of migrants apprehended between ports of entry exceeds the threshold of 2,500 per week.
The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection praised Biden's restrictive measures. To the Texas Tribune “It will have a major impact on our ability to impose penalties on those who cross the border illegally.”
But migrants crossing the border were already on the decline when Biden's executive order was announced, and other analysts point to high-level agreements the U.S. has with Mexico to prevent migrants from reaching the border from the Mexican side.
“Much of this problem is the result of Mexican actions to stop migrants from reaching the border in the first place,” Aaron Reichlin Melnick, policy director for the American Immigration Council, told the Tribune.
Migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border in July, the last month for which Customs and Border Protection released figures. It was the lowest level From July 2020.
It's a change that both campaigns have claimed credit for, citing the restrictive policies they supported until Biden's withdrawal. The policies of his government This led to a reduction in pedestrian crossings. NewsNation Interview TuesdayAbbott acknowledged that border crossings have fallen 85 percent this year and said the drop meant he could no longer send migrants to northern cities.
But analysis by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) suggests both sides are conflating the short-term effects of increased enforcement — which tends to result in fewer border crossings as migrants reconsider their options — with a sustained, longer-term recovery.
“Each of these policies will push the numbers down for a few months, but then they start to recover and bounce back quickly,” said Adam Isaksson of WOLA. NPR in JuneJulia Gelatt of the Migration Policy Institute spoke to PBS about VP Harris' future strategy: Addressing the “root causes” Migration patterns will take a long time to change, if they change at all.
“Even great economic growth will not curb migration in the way countries would hope,” she said.
Harris herself has tended to attack Republicans on the border and has largely avoided taking credit for it, a sentiment echoed by Texas Democrats. Move Right She spoke about immigration policy during her speech at the Democratic National Convention this month. The New York Times reported that she I've mostly avoided it Talking about restrictive measures under a Biden-Harris administration could spark a fight within the party over those measures, but instead they have focused on accusing Republicans of indifference to border security.
“I believe we can reform our broken immigration system while living up to our proud tradition as a nation of immigrants,” she said in her convention speech. “We can create a path to citizenship and secure our border.”
Decision Desk HQ notes that both former President Trump and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz remain the favorites to win Texas, but the margins are narrowing in polls.
A survey of 1,365 state residents conducted in early August by the University of Houston School of Public Policy found Harris just five points ahead of Trump and Cruz just over two points ahead of Rep. Collin Allred (D-N.Y.).
Allred, meanwhile, has sought to denounce the Republican approach as empty politics.
In an interview with the El Paso Times on Wednesday, Allred criticized Cruz, who had said the day before: Harris said: “risk[ing] “Accepting millions of illegal immigrants undermines national security,” he said, using immigrants for political gain without contributing to solving the immigration problem.
“We're going to have a senator who wants to secure our borders, who wants to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and who wants our border communities to thrive,” he said.
At the Republican National Convention, Cruz Immigrant Crossing This is an “invasion,” and it has become common parlance among Texas Republicans.
“Not figuratively, but literally, an invasion. 11.5 million people have crossed the border illegally under Joe Biden's administration,” he said. CBS fact checkers claimed: This figure is an exaggeration The numbers incorrectly confuse all encounters with successful entries.
“You look into the eyes of the young boys and girls who have been brutally treated by the drug cartels and it's hard to forget,” Cruz said. Speaking at an election event Mid-August.
In his speech, Senator Cruz also blamed Biden administration policies for the more than 100,000 Americans who have died from overdoses, about 70% of which were caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is primarily manufactured overseas and imported.
“Kamala Harris and Collin Allred can't defend that. They don't have an answer,” Cruz said. “Their answer is they want more of it.”
“Illegal immigrants commit crimes every day,” he added.
Most of the fentanyl importers Are a U.S. citizenAccording to a 2022 report from the libertarian Cato Institute: It was also repeatedly found Immigrant crime rates are much lower than the average American.
Allred, meanwhile, echoed Harris's lead, repeatedly pointing out Cruz's vote against a bipartisan border bill that failed in the Senate in May.
“A bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate that no state would benefit more than Texas.” He said Longview News Journal (Wednesday)
“10,000 migrants a day is a crisis,” he said, but added that the “asylum system is not designed to accommodate these numbers, nor is it an alternative to the legal immigration system.”“
Allred told the News Journal that Cruz has opposed immigration reform since 2013, when then-President Obama was leading the effort, and continued his efforts, including helping to defeat the bill in May.
The bipartisan bill is the latest in a series of restrictive border laws enacted in Washington over the decades that many experts say are responsible for the current dysfunction, The Hill reported. The bill failed because Trump opposed it, describing it as “codification.”[ying] “Joe Biden's Open Borders”
Allred, who grew up in the Texas border city of Brownsville, has tried on the campaign trail to portray Cruz as someone not interested in solutions.
“We don't have time for politics here,” Allred said. Advertisement in early August From the border. “That's all you're going to get from Ted Cruz.”
Allred added that Cruz “has accomplished nothing. He prefers playing politics at the border than actually solving problems. Because Ted Cruz only cares about Ted Cruz.”
In an interview with the El Paso Times, Allred pointed to Harris' “root causes” strategy on migration in Central America's Northern Triangle, an approach she argues has been effective in helping Colombia recover from two decades of war and turmoil.
“We can use some of the institution-building and work that has worked in other conflict zones around the world to put these countries in a better position,” he said. “It can be done, and we've seen it can be done.”
