A post-election progressive argument for immigration limits

December 6, 2024

Note: NumbersUSA is a nonpartisan organization. We are moderates, conservatives & liberals working together to empower voters to achieve a sensible immigration policy.

Immigration cost the Democratic Party dearly this year. Alexander Bolton of The Hill reports:

“The final New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters in the seven battleground states found immigration ranked nearly as highly as abortion as voters’ top concern, with both trailing the economy.

“And the Times/Siena poll of likely voters in the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in August found voters trusted Trump more than Vice President Harris on the issue by a margin of 51 percent to 46 percent.”

A Democratic Senator told The Hill: “We destroyed ourselves on the immigration issue in ways that were entirely predictable and entirely manageable.”

So what now? It wasn’t so long ago that Blue Dog Democrats earned some of the best immigration-reduction grades in Congress. Barbara Jordan, NumbersUSA’s spiritual godmother herself, was a Democratic icon. But today’s Democratic Party need not look to the past for inspiration.

The Social Democratic Party of Denmark has been winning elections for a decade now by embracing progressive arguments for lower, sustainable, and economically-just immigration. As we’ve discussed above, mass immigration is a reverse-Robin-Hood redistribution of wealth that hurts workers. Immigration moderation is a natural fit for a party that intends to honor its historic ties to labor (note: the Democratic Party has been losing working class voters of all races as it has moved towards a more absolutist position on immigration expansion).

“It is no coincidence that the era of lowest immigration to this country, between the Thirties and Sixties, coincided with the greatest expansion of labour unions, the New Deal, and the Great Society,” says Lee Fang in his article, “The Progressive Case Against Immigration” (UnHerd). To those expansionists who would dismiss the benefits of lower immigration in the mid-20th century due to the prevailing racial attitudes of the time, Fang advises:

“{R}acist beliefs of the past should not be weaponised to dishonestly argue against race-neutral immigration laws of the present. Migration levels can be cut across the board and a merit-based system need not have any ethnic component. Border security should not take race or ethnicity into account.”