One of the top issues in this presidential election is immigration—though it is much more important for Republican voters than for Democrats, according to the Pew Research Center. Immigration policy encompasses all those who have already immigrated to the U.S. from all over the world, and those who might arrive in the future, but attention is often focused on the border with Mexico. 

Tufts Now reached out to two faculty members with expertise in the area to understand why immigration is an issue for the campaigns and voters, and what the implications might be for immigrants under a Donald Trump or Kamala Harris presidency.

Deborah Schildkraut, the John Richard Skuse, Class of 1941, Professor of Political Science, is the author of, most recently, States of Belonging: Immigration Policies, Attitudes, and Inclusion; one aspect of her research examines how the changing ethnic composition of the United States affects public opinion. Helen Marrow, a professor in the Department of Sociology, is an editor of The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965 and teaches an undergraduate seminar on the public opinion, politics, and media of immigration.

Why is immigration an important issue this election cycle? 

Deborah Schildkraut: People respond to the information environment that they’re in. If the information environment is spending a lot of time talking about immigration, people are going to be more likely to think immigration is a problem. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems with immigration that should be addressed. There are, but the extent to which it’s on people’s radars corresponds to how much the candidates are talking about it, and how much media is talking about it. 

Helen Marrow: Immigration is almost never American voters’ top priority in the leadup to national elections. But it is what we call a wedge issue—it’s very easily manipulated by political and media entrepreneurs to raise voters’ racial and economic anxieties and catch their attention. Similarly, media outlets—even centrist and mainstream ones—know their viewership numbers and ratings will go up when they talk about it, especially if they frame it as a “crisis” instead of an ordinary and continuous facet of human life. 

Given that most immigration that Americans hear about is on the border with Mexico, will the focus on immigration cause a rise in Latino voters favoring Democrats?

Schildkraut: I think it’s important to be wary of assuming that any rhetoric from Republicans that demonizes immigrants will lead Latino voters to be more supportive of Democrats. That’s not always true. It’s also often not true that immigration is going to be the most important issue for Latino voters.

Why might anti-immigration rhetoric push some Latino voters to support Republicans?

Schildkraut: One theory is that when people belong to a group that is being maligned, people in that group can use different identity management strategies. One way is to try to distance yourself from the group that’s being maligned. A lot of Latino voters are not immigrants, so they may resent being treated as immigrants. That might make them want to create more distance psychologically between themselves and immigrants. 

Some Latino people prioritize seeing themselves as American or seeing themselves as white. There’s some research that shows that the more that Hispanic people do that, they’re also more likely to support Trump and to support restrictive immigration policies. 

It shows that we need to recognize the complex heterogeneity among voters on all kinds of issues, but especially with respect to how they respond to immigration being made a central issue in the election.

Who are Trump and Harris trying to appeal to when talking about immigration?

Schildkraut: I think for Trump, he’s appealing to his base. What’s been remarkable is just how stable his level of support seems to be. It’s been at a ceiling for a long time, so he needs to get his base to turn out. Making people angry about issues like immigration motivates turnout, which is really important for him. 

I think for Harris, it might be a little different. When she talks about immigration, it’s about appealing to people who are movable in their preferences, who might otherwise stay home or be on the fence. I suspect that regardless of her own ideas about policy solutions, the campaign would prefer not to focus on immigration, because they want to appeal both to people who are interested in a law-and-order approach and to people who prefer a more welcoming approach.

The issue is very complicated and a presidential campaign doesn’t lend itself well to the nuance that it demands. Many of her comments about immigration therefore focus on governing styles and her willingness to compromise across the aisle to try to pass reforms. While that may in fact be true for her, it also allows her to shift the focus a bit. 

What might be the consequences for immigrants of a Trump or Harris election in November? 

Marrow: The consequences of a second Trump presidency are pretty clear, since we saw what happened during his first term. Trump and his immigration advisors made total restriction a centerpiece of their agenda. They came out of the gate quickly, banning anyone from several Muslim-majority countries from entering in January 2017. They went on to target undocumented immigrants, including by widening interior enforcement priorities to include anyone who lacks official legal status, not merely people who also have criminal records for other infractions.  

They also targeted other groups, including asylum-seekers, refugees, and people who have what we call “discretionary” or “temporary” status to live and work in the U.S. For example, they not only dramatically reduced the numbers of refugees admitted into the country, but also reduced the amount of federal funding going toward refugee resettlement agencies and initiatives. 

They actively encouraged the separation of small children from their parents during the asylum process, and later even started sending asylum-seekers back to “remain in Mexico” while they await the verdicts on their cases. And they cancelled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and suspended the designation of Temporary Protected Status for nationals from certain foreign countries. 

In fact, the list of executive orders and policy initiatives is so long that these are only a few of the better-known examples. But since some of them were eventually blocked by or stalled in the courts, I suspect we would see a second Trump administration try to bring them back again. 

I also suspect a second Trump administration would continue its prior practice of quietly understaffing the federal immigration courts, which has lengthened backlogs there. It could even start targeting other groups of immigrants, too, including ones who arrive here legally through family reunification categories, as well as temporary “non-immigrants” like students on F visas, highly-skilled workers on H-1 visas, and tourists. 

How would things look different if Harris were elected president?

Marrow: I have comparatively less to say about the consequences of a Harris victory. Democratic politicians have locked themselves into a cycle of “enforcement-only” politics over the last few decades, so I suspect we could see a few of the same things I just laid out for a Trump presidency, such as continued rhetoric about needing to “get tough” on undocumented immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, and a continuation of the “remain in Mexico” policy, which routinely violates both U.S. and international asylum law by sending asylum-seekers abroad while they await verdicts on their cases here. 

But, like the Biden administration before it, a Harris presidency would probably try to temper those kind of policies with making incremental increases to the numbers of refugee admissions, preserving policies like DACA and TPS, and narrowing enforcement priorities back mainly onto immigrants who have serious criminal records. Symbolically, a Harris presidency would likely even try to reframe immigrants and refugees in a more celebratory light, even as it tries to balance this with a “law-and-order” approach to the southern border. After all, Harris herself is the child of immigrants from India and Jamaica.