Before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, Republicans in Congress were already hard at work fulfilling the president’s campaign promises.
Some Arizona Democrats were aghast that their own party leaders had a hand in one of those accomplishments.
In the U.S. House, Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton helped pass the Laken Riley Act, a GOP-backed measure that directs federal immigration enforcement to detain and deport those without legal status who are charged with theft or certain violent crimes.
Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego did the same in the Senate — Gallego even cosponsored the measure.
“Arizonans know the real-life consequences of today’s border crisis,” the freshmen senator said in a statement. “We must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law.”
More than 200 Arizona Democrats signed a letter stating they were “deeply disappointed” in party leaders like Gallego. They warned the measure will eliminate due process for migrants simply accused, not convicted, of crimes.
And some saw Democratic votes for the measure as a betrayal of the Latino community that helped Gallego to victory in a state Trump won by six points.
Gallego is having none of it.
“They’re welcome to give me advice and everything else like that,” Gallego told KJZZ in February, days after Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law.
“But don’t come and try to lie to me and say that that’s where the Latino voter is,” he added. “Because that’s not the case.”
Working-class Latinos
In multiple interviews following votes on the Laken Riley Act, Gallego told reporters he — not his critics — has his finger on the pulse of the Latino community, particularly working-class Latinos and their views on immigration, the border and border security.
Those are the views Gallego says guide him at the outset of his six-year term in the Senate.
“They do want immigration reform. They do think that people that have been here, and have roots in the community and are working and don't have any criminal record, should have a right to become U.S. citizens,” Gallego said. “But they also do not believe that you should be able to come to the border as easily as has happened in the past.”
That sentiment is held not just by Latino voters, Gallego says, but by Latino immigrants without legal status.
“I heard it [from] unauthorized people, undocumented people, illegal, whatever word you want to use, said that they did not feel at all in any way any type of affinity with these recent migrants that came,” he said.
“They don't feel like they have any connection to this new wave of immigrants that's coming over,” Gallego added, “even if they are from the same country.”
Luis Acosta says that’s exactly how his own parents feel.
The 34-year-old Democratic political consultant is a Dreamer – he was brought to Arizona from Mexico with his parents as a young child. His father, who is a construction worker, and his mother, who clean houses, remain in the U.S. without legal status.
But they view the circumstances of their own border crossing differently from those of a new generation of migrants.
“It’s definitely a situation where I think [issues at the southern border] just turned into something that I think got out of control really fast,” Acosta said. “And a lot of people, including those on the ground who are still undocumented, who’ve probably been here for 10-plus years, 20-plus years, 30-plus years in some cases, just kind of were caught off guard by.”
Latinos like Acosta’s parents also have strong feelings about migrants who commit crimes, like the Venezuelan immigrant who killed the Georgia nursing student for whom the Laken Riley Act is named.
“It casts a bad name on all of us, even though we’ve done nothing wrong except for coming here without permission,” Acosta said. “And it just makes you take a step back and really try to understand the fact that, hey, you know what, something should be done.”
“If you're coming to this country and you're not willing to put your best foot forward, and you're not willing to abide by the rules to the best of your ability in order to make a better life for yourself here … then what are you actually doing here?” he added. “I think that sentiment is shared widely amongst the immigrant community, and that’s just the reality.”
‘A potpourri of ideological views’
While it’s true that Latino voters do tend to support more permissive immigration laws – and favor some sort of comprehensive reform that includes a path to citizenship – University of Arizona professor Samara Klar says lawmakers shouldn’t ignore the community’s concerns about issues at the southern border.
“There is a great deal of concern among Latinos in Arizona about border security and about, you know, weapons coming across the border and drugs coming across the border, and even illegal immigration,” said Klar, who spent years polling Arizona voters.
For example, the 2024 ballot in Arizona included a GOP-backed measure to give state and local law enforcement the authority to enforce federal immigration laws.
Democrats and Latino advocacy groups warned it would lead to racial profiling.
Yet Klar says more than half of Latino voters she polled ahead of the election supported the measure.
Klar says Arizona Latinos are no different than the state’s broader electorate — “a potpourri of ideological views” impossible to represent while also aligning oneself with one political party or another on every single issue.
Gallego’s support of the Laken Riley Act is the natural extension of candidate voters backed last fall, Klar says.
“What Ruben Gallego did well in 2024 is he took seriously the issues that Arizonans were taking seriously,” Klar said. “Gallego is a pro-choice Democrat but he also really made a fairly tough stance on the border. He, like Mark Kelly before him, these are Democrats who are not afraid to speak plainly about the U.S.-Mexico border issue.”
“I think it’s largely because they see the polling and they know that this is a concern for their constituents,” she added.
Gallego says Democrats, both in Arizona and nationally, are listening to the wrong people.
“The Democratic Party when it comes to immigration reform and border security has been influenced by organizations that are completely out of touch with where your middle-of-the-road Latino voter is when it comes to border security and immigration,” he said.
Representing a border state will mean sometimes supporting, and sometimes opposing, Trump’s agenda, Gallego said.
“I did hear on the campaign trail, ‘we want border security,’” he said. “What I did not hear on the campaign trail is, ‘I want mass deportations.’ What I did not hear on the campaign trail was, ‘I want to end birthright citizenship.’”
For Gallego, it’s all part of an effort to regain Americans' trust when it comes to border security and immigration issues.
That’s a crucial step he says Democrats must take before a conversation about comprehensive immigration reform — and with it, a pathway to citizenship for immigrants without legal status — can take place.
“We can’t have it all,” Gallego said. “We can’t have hundreds of thousands of people coming and seeking asylum at the border and then turn around and also ask the American public, we want you to legalize people who have been here forever.”
