South Carolinian Ross Huges might just be representative of the typical Republican voter. He’s fed up with the state of the country overall but cited problems at the U.S.-Mexico border as his top issue, despite living nearly 2,000 miles away.
Huges said he does not love former President Donald Trump like many others, but at least thinks Trump would “put the country first.”
“I’m done and frustrated, the last three years have been a pain,” Huges said.
Huges, who moved recently from North Carolina, spoke to a reporter while visiting Seacoast Church in Mount Pleasant on a Sunday morning in February. He was with his 19-year-old son who was about to cast his first vote in the state’s critical GOP primary.
Huges said there are many issues he cares about and would like to see change after the upcoming elections in November.
“Do you want me to go get my list?” He said while laughing. Then he made clear his biggest issue is people coming across the U.S. border illegally.
“Any issues, yes, shut the border down, so we quit being invaded,” Huges said. “They are sending armies down to our country.”
Since the 2016 presidential election, immigration has become one of the central issues and concerns for many voters of any political party. But when it comes to supporting immigration policies from border security to immigrants’ legal options, their approaches differ.
And the difference between people living in California and hardline voters from red states could not be more stark.
More than half of California registered voters who took a poll published by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies think the U.S. borders are not secure in preventing people from entering the country with no legal documentation. But some of these voters don’t agree with these approaches.
Mohammed Yousuf, who works in the international terminal at the Los Angeles Airport, said he always votes “blue” because he loves immigrants.
He said he thinks the economic crisis is one of the main issues that needs to be taken care of by the president right now and that the country needs more options for the presidential candidates that can positively impact the economy.
As for immigration, he thinks it’s among the most important issues.
“[The country] should have more people here because immigrants are the powerhouse of the country,” he said. “They should be welcomed here.” He said that as an immigrant himself, who came from the United Kingdom, he would always like the idea of allowing people in the U.S. from other places who are “workers contributing to grow this country.”
“It is not about Democrats or Republicans, I would always prefer more immigrants here because [the country] needs more skilled people,” he said.
These divided views are thanks in part to messaging from both political parties. Nathan Gonzales, an editor and publisher of the nonpartisan political analysis firm Inside Elections, said that one of the reasons immigration is a top issue is because “it falls under a broader umbrella, a message that Republicans are trying to make about security.”
“Republicans are going to talk about security whether that is security at the southern border or urban crime,” Gonzales said. “They want to hold Democrats responsible at all levels for any violence, chaos that is happening.”
Sending public messages about “armies” of immigrants coming through the Southern border from “jails and mental institutions,” running away from criminal cases and making allegations about U.S. citizens being at risk of losing their culture and safety because of it, Republicans are increasing voters’ concerns and doubts about this issue and on how Democrats are handling it, he said.
The candidates themselves are also offering vastly different perspectives.
President Biden has been trying to provide more temporary legal status and work permits to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. while securing the border by supporting Senate proposals that would set daily limits on border-crossing asylum seekers, a policy that was turned down by Republicans.
The Biden campaign has also painted Trump as using cruel language and racist rhetoric. “I will not demonize immigrants saying they ‘poison the blood of our country’ as he said in his own words. I will not separate families,” Biden said in the State of the Union Address, referring to Trump.
At a recent speech in Wisconsin, Trump revved up the crowd on the topic.
“The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals, they are human.’ I said, no they’re not humans, they’re animals,” Trump said at the beginning of April after speaking about criminal cases involving immigrant suspects and warning people that chaos would consume America if he does not win the presidential election.
Gonzales, who has analyzed and followed the U.S. elections closely for more than 16 years, explained that immigration as a stand-alone issue may not resonate as well among voters, but due to the broader picture painted by Republicans, especially since Trump’s administration, it has gained some traction.
Many Democratic voters and immigration advocacy groups have pressured Biden to take steps to protect undocumented immigrants while simultaneously executing actions to reduce illegal border crossings.
Even though it looks like new immigration policy propositions are making it to headlines every week, according to immigration lawyer Gustavo Mora, not much has changed.
“It is very easy to blame the other for all the problems we have in our country,” Mora said. “Immigrants and immigration have always been the scapegoat ever since I’ve been in this field of practice.”
Mora said that many politicians use this issue as a reason to justify their policies, specifically Republicans who blame “the invasion of immigrants coming into the United States and destroying our country when as a matter of fact, immigrants commit less crime than native-born citizens of the U.S.,” he said. According to data released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, this is true.
Republicans are not the only ones to blame, Democrats also use immigration as one of the main concerns to appeal to people’s votes. “As much as they like to give promises about what they will do to immigration, nothing ever gets done, whether that is their fault or not,” Mora said.
Congress is under divided control, with Republicans narrowly holding the House majority and Democrats in charge in the Senate.
Cenk Uygur is the founder of the news outlet The Young Turks. He is a naturalized citizen who came from Turkey to the U.S. when he was a child. In October last year, he decided to run for president as a Democrat against Biden but later ended his presidential primary bid because of the Constitution’s natural-born citizen clause, which requires candidates to be U.S. natural-born citizens to hold the office of president or vice president. To keep running for president, he would need to enter a legal battle to gain ballot access across the country — which would cost him money he does not have.
“They want you to die for the country but not lead it,” Uygur said as he mentioned the Democratic Party did not want to be associated with him despite saying they support immigrants. Uygur said that as he participated in both liberal and conservative television interviews, viewers would ask why he couldn’t run for president.
“A beautiful thing happened, they would say ‘Are you a 100% citizen or are you not a 100% citizen, I think you are… would he be less loyal to us because he was born in another country? It is discriminatory,’ but the system sent a very clear message,” Uygur said. “You are not equal, you are not fully American and you should be.”
While most Republican voters are in line with Trump’s immigration policy ideas, some Republicans want to see a new way to deal with the crisis.
Loretta Smith is a registered Republican and retired artist who thinks immigration is a complicated issue. Smith was at a rally in Irmo, South Carolina, organized by former Gov. Nikki Haley during the GOP primary. Smith told a reporter she used to work at an insurance company where she witnessed people who were not in the country legally using Social Security numbers that belonged to others.
“That’s a problem. We need to come up with some ideas to help these people that are coming over,” she said. She added that some of them come because they live in places that are “awful to them.”
“I understand why people want to come here and I don’t think we just need to flatly turn people away,” Smith said. She said she lives surrounded by farms and that most of the workers are migrants. “When I look out, I am thankful for them because they’re picking products that we can’t get people here to do.”
On the other hand, even though Trump has used such harsh rhetoric for some immigrants, there are people from these communities who support him.
Manuel Guerra is a Latino living in the city of Los Angeles who said he would choose Trump over Biden in the presidential elections. “I know he is a racist, but he was a good president,” he said.
Guerra said that it is not fair to assume all immigrants come from Mexico when there are people coming from all over the world.
“[Many people] always have it against Latinos, they always blame that we are the ones doing bad things but half of them are working here not making troubles,” Guerra said.
Most immigrants, regardless of their home country or how long they have been here, said they come to the U.S. looking for more financial opportunities for themselves and their families, according to a 2023 survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times and KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation and an independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.
Los Angeles resident Maria Pineda, a Latina Democrat who retired from working at a hair salon, said she believes immigrants should receive support since they are coming to help the economy and enrich diversity.
“From all of those people who have come, some of them are doing bad things, but many of them also come to change their lives,” Pineda said. “I think we should receive support to fight against that.”