As the Democratic Party tries to find its way on immigration, some of its longtime leaders on immigrant rights are leaving Congress or on their way out. Sen. Dick Durbin is headed for retirement. Former Sen. Bob Menendez resigned. Rep. Raúl Grijalva died.
But Democrats say there are plenty of champions for immigrant rights still in Congress, from newer members to others who are becoming more vocal.
“There are lots of people in the House and Senate engaged in immigration right now, and not just myself,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen said. “There are constantly new people, new voices, coupled with people who have been working on these issues for a long time.”
The Democratic Party has struggled to define itself on immigration. After a difficult election cycle, some members have moved rightward on the issue, and the party has fumbled through strategies to move forward. Losing stalwart immigrant rights supporters like Durbin, who has spent years pushing for paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, could mean the party moves further right on the issue. But Democrats and outside operatives say that other lawmakers, especially in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, are ready to take up the mantle.
“It is a signature issue for us,” said Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the caucus’ chair. “We’re not just about that [only]; we’re concerned about other issues. But in many ways we are joined at the hip with the issue of immigration. I don’t think much will be resolved unless the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is right at the center of it.”
The CHC is able to wield influence in part because it has 43 members. While it takes individual lawmakers years in Congress to build the kind of connections that can actually influence policy, Espaillat noted that CHC’s size gives its members power.
The CHC has been involved in oversight visits to detention centers, the most recent being in New Jersey where Espaillat and Rep. Nydia Velázquez spoke to almost two dozen detainees. In April, Reps. Robert Garcia and Maxwell Frost were part of a delegation of Democrats that travelled to El Salvador to demand the release of a Maryland man who was imprisoned in the country shortly after he was deported from the United States.
Rep. Delia Ramirez, a congresswoman from Illinois, has also emerged as a top voice opposing Trump’s mass deportation agenda, particularly family separations. She has been vocal about her personal experience as the wife of an undocumented immigrant and lamented how Trump’s agenda intimately impacts her family.
The Democratic Party is still far from reaching a full consensus on how to talk about or address immigration, but the level of interest is high, advocates say.
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the advocacy group America’s Voice, said that in the past, “We could count in one hand” who the immigration “champions” were. Now, there may not be senior members who own the issue in the same way, but there are more members who are interested in general, she said.
“It’s going to take time, as with every process, in terms of having the access and the power and the influence, but I’m hopeful, because, again, we’ve seen such growth in terms of the numbers of … members of Congress that are engaged in this issue,” she said.
Another long-time advocate said this is just how the issue normally ebbs and flows.
“It’s the nature of Congress and the House and the Senate that champions leave, retire, die, move on, and then new folks have to come up and take their place. That’s just the way it’s always been,” said Douglas Rivlin, a longtime aide to former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, who was a leading advocate for immigrant rights during his tenure in congress.
“It takes a little bit of time sometimes for the new leaders to emerge, but they always do,” he said.
Others said the changing conversation is more important than the changing advocates. Democrats, even within the CHC, have yet to agree on a way forward. Some, like Espaillat, have focused on sympathetic issues, like helping undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as kids. Others focus on resisting Trump’s agenda at any cost. Still, others have gone out of their way to support Republican-backed, enforcement-heavy legislation, like the Laken Riley Act.
Rep. Veronica Escobar said it’s time to be realistic.
“If I weren’t hopeful, I’d be in the wrong job,” Escobar said. “I am a realist, though, and I understand, especially with this Congress and with this group of Republicans, Donald Trump has to bless whatever it is that they’re working on.”
She said she wants “to score practical, incremental wins.”
But with Trump in office, immigration advocates in Congress are unlikely to see any major victories until the political tides turn.
“It seems like an uphill battle, and one that’s not going to pay off with victory anytime soon, but you gotta fight it,” Rivlin said. “It does take some time for your influence to grow.”
He also noted that, especially with how they use the media, even young members can keep advocacy going.
Cárdenas said it’s important now to figure out how to utilize those who want to show up for the cause.
“We have many leaders in Congress, how can we harness that talent, that energy, that influence, to actually get us on a path to where we need to go when it comes to this issue?” she said. “How do they show up so that they can help us chart a path out of this mess that we’ve gotten into?”
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Casey Murray and Tinashe Chingarande are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.