Inaction could be costly this election year: Some organizations that helped win important Democrats in 2018 and 2020 have no plans to knock on doors or call voters this mid-season because they are so furious at the party’s position on immigration.
Among them are Lucha, an Arizona advocacy group believed to have helped secure victories for Ms. Cinema and Mr. Kelly, the first Democratic senators to represent the state in decades.
“For these incredible efforts and incredible activity, we have achieved very minimal results,” said Thomas Robles, its co-executive director. “Democrats fall into the same trap – lack of political will and courage.”
In Laredo, a city of about 261,000 people, where shops and parks in the center seem to merge with the border, the struggle for the nation’s immigration is personal. Members of the non-partisan Wall Without Borders coalition were quick to point out that they had successfully repulsed four attempts by the Democratic and Republican administrations to build a wall in the region.
But the Laredo Democrats, united in their fight against the wall, are divided over support for Mr Cuelar and Mrs Cisneros and their approaches to immigration. Mr Cuelar continues to follow in the footsteps of the Obama administration, which relies on an aggressive border control strategy designed to win Republican support for the path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
His supporters are willing to join the same philosophy – or at least accept it. “He’s a lot more conservative than I’d prefer,” said Melissa R. Cigarroa, president of the Rio Grande International Research Center. “But he doesn’t stop working for the community.”
But Ms Cisneros’s supporters say the emphasis on border security has not helped create legal avenues for citizenship. They also say they do not oppose the “we against them” Republican approach, which puts asylum seekers and migrants at risk. “Cisneros comes from this country to help families,” said Juan Livas, an immigration activist and co-founder of the Laredo Immigrant Alliance.
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