Is a Progressive Approach to Immigration Regulation and Restriction Possible?

Denmark provides a very interesting example of a progressive party winning rather than losing ground against fascists wielding popular outrage at uncontrolled mass immigration… by seriously and substantially restricting immigration, even while leaning into other progressive goals and programs that decrease inequality, building stronger families and communities, and providing a more secure social safety net for its citizens.

I urge a full read of the linked article before reading the rest of this post: you simply won’t have sufficient context without that backgrounding. My gift link above should allow you to listen to the article if you choose: if not, please let me know in comments.

Now, personally, I strongly support immigration for several reasons: offsetting our declining demographic trends in population and age, workforce enhancement and wage diversification to aid in re-shoring and friend-shoring critical manufacturing sectors, enrichment of our culture by interaction with that of others, respecting human rights and our treaty obligations, the fact of inevitable growth of immigration as we continue to experience climate- and conflict-influenced migration, and the noble universality of the American experiment all influence my own perspective that immigration is a net positive force in our society. But then I am of a class – white and male, post-graduate educated, protected by an arcane professional guild, and relatively affluent – which directly experience few if any of the deleterious effects of mass migration, which are by and large quite marginal macroeconomic effects on wages, housing, employment, etc., but are deeply felt and quite economically salient for those in society experiencing the most precarity.

What lessons might the Danish left’s approach hold for progressives here in America for pushing back the growing power of a fascist MAGA? Plenty. But the main one is that unless we maintain democratic control of government, we lose it all. Preserving our democracy and the rule of law are far more important goals than maintaining our ideological consistency and moral high-ground on the rights of immigrants and refugees. I find very convincing the simple fact that we lose the ability to build the kind of progressive society we want when we are defeated by fascists in the democratic process. So we had best do whatever it takes to fight for those voters who are – for some good reasons – fed up with what they perceive as wholly uncontrolled immigration to the United States and, rightly or wrongly, lay blame for that with the left.

Democrats will continue to lose elections to wildly overstated, alarmist, racist, and scapegoating campaigns from the far right unless we adopt smart policies that result in substantially restricting immigration and increasing the salience of the positive effects of immigration while reducing the salience of negative impacts on our economy and security – especially among citizens in the working class where those negative impacts are felt the strongest. This will be one of the most difficult realignments undertaken by Democrats in response to MAGA and Trump – and it is the most important and impactful adjustment necessary to realign our party to recapture national majorities in coming years, IMO. Our economic policies are far more popular than theirs, but the anxiety and alarm over immigration just sweep away that electoral advantage.

We must stop telling voters that if they oppose unrestricted immigration or are uncomfortable with the current level of immigration they are automatically and necessarily racists or xenophobics. Especially since we now know that even many recent immigrants favor greater restrictions on immigration. Rapid immigration inflows are pretty much always unpopular with the host populace: therefore acknowledging that unpopularity and addressing its causes must be at the base of any progressive vision of a nation’s future in any democracy.

The closing paragraphs of the NYT article I linked to above lays out the argument fairly succinctly:

It’s understandable why dreams of mass migration are so hard for some progressives to abandon. The promise of the United States as a beacon for (as Emma Lazarus famously put it) the world’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” remains a stirring one. It may be the most noble American creed of all. We are a nation of immigrants, and we derive enormous benefits from that status. But even during peak periods of immigration, the United States has admitted only a tiny fraction of the people who would prefer to live here than in their home countries. Global polling by Gallup estimates that nearly one billion of the globe’s eight billion people would like to migrate, and the United States is their most desired destination. The question has always been what small percentage of would-be Americans this country will choose to accept.

There can be an answer that is both consistent with progressive values and politically sustainable. It was not so different from the answer that many Democrats, including Barack Obama, offered not long ago. It combined a hardheaded approach to border security and deportation with a celebration of immigrants and an effort to expand pathways to citizenship. It welcomed true political refugees. It acknowledged that the country would need immigrants as our own workers aged. It rejected both anti-immigrant racism and the false idea that immigration restrictions were inherently racist. All these policies aligned progressives with public opinion. Only a minority of voters supports the extreme views of Trump. But when forced to choose between radically more immigration and radically less, they will choose less. And if radically more immigration has already happened, some voters will turn into right-wing populists who vote against social programs.

Supporters of mass migration often claim that it is inevitable, stemming from some combination of demography, globalization and climate change. Yet like most arguments for historical inevitability, this one is more wishful than accurate. Countries can exert substantial control over their borders. Japan has long done so. Denmark has recently done so. Biden tightened policy in his last year in office, and border traffic plummeted. Trump has pushed it even lower. If anything, modern technology, such as employment-verification systems, can make enforcement easier than in the past. When immigration advocates say that controlling borders is impossible, they are adopting an anti-government nihilism inconsistent with larger goals of progressivism.

Trump’s cruel approach to immigration will create an opportunity for Democrats, much as it did during his first term. If they can fashion a moderate approach, and not only in the final months of an election campaign, they will improve their chances of winning back many of the voters they have lost. But doing so will require real change, not merely different marketing. Much of the Brahmin’s left post-election analysis remains tied to the magical idea that working-class voters are simply wrong about mass migration and can be won over with clever narratives rather than substantive policy changes.

These working-class voters implicitly recognize an important truth: A restrained approach to immigration is ultimately progressive because it makes possible the kind of society that progressives want. It fosters a sense of community and neighborliness, while prioritizing the values and interests of vulnerable Americans. Recognizing this connection can help the political left emerge from the wilderness where it now finds itself.

We Democrats are going to have to engage seriously in crafting new policies and new messaging to communicate new and genuinely more restrictive goals for immigration if we want to deprive the fascist right of the fuel with which they seek to burn down our way of life.

That conversation with voters should be guided by honesty with American voters: we have to acknowledge our errors in the past; we have to build upon our best traditions and intentions; we have to point out the benefits of immigration, and seek to maximize those benefits; and we have to recognize the pain and dislocation immigration causes for many, and seek to ameliorate those harms on those most impacted with effective policies. But most importantly, it has to actually reduce the number of immigrants and refugees we allow, and decide how to filter those most deserving and most beneficial to our nation from all those clamoring to find refuge or home in America in a rational, humane, and democratic manner. We must carefully regulate those who are here as our guests while they integrate or wait to return home, with reasonable and swift consequences for individual bad behavior. We should also strongly support greatly expanded foreign aid efforts to help those whom we cannot welcome to our shores as a major tradeoff and to reduce the need to allow in refugees.

Denmark demonstrates that a strong immigration policy that responds to citizens’ concerns is a necessity for maintaining momentum toward a more progressive future in a democratic nation. We Democrats had best set down our pride, get off our high horse, and get to work on an immigration policy that an overwhelming majority of Americans will support.