As the debate veers to the right, a Latino senator emerges as a defender of migrants

2024-05-01 06:38:02

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden had a question.

“Is it true?” Biden asked Senator Alex Padilla, referring to the fact that regarding 25% of American students — from kindergarten to high school — are Latino. Padilla said the question arose while he was waiting with the president in a library room in Culver City, California, before an event in February.

It was exactly the kind of opportunity Padilla hoped to get under the Democratic president. Biden was weighing his re-election campaign, the executive’s immigration initiatives and what to do regarding a southern border that has been marked by historic numbers of illegal crossings throughout his tenure.

Padilla wanted to make sure that Biden also took into account the potential of the country’s migrants. “Mr. President, do you know what I call those students?” Padilla recalled saying. “They are the workforce of tomorrow.”

That was just one of many times Padilla, who at 51 is now California’s oldest senator, has seized the opportunity – from face-to-face moments with the president to regular calls with senior White House officials. and sometimes through direct criticism – to put their mark on the Democratic Party’s approach to immigration.

The son of Mexican migrants and the first Latino to represent his state in the Senate, Padilla has emerged as a tenacious figure at a time when Democrats are increasingly focused on border security and the country’s stance toward migrants is uncertain.

Illegal immigration is seen as a growing political crisis for Democrats, following authorities both at the border and in cities across the country have struggled to deal with recent surges in migrants. The party may also be losing the support of Hispanic voters in a climate of disenchantment with Biden. But Padilla, in a series of interviews with The Associated Press, expressed a deep reserve of optimism regarding his party’s ability to win support from and for migrant communities.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be reluctant to talk regarding immigration. Do it,” Padilla said. “Because, first of all, it is the morally right thing to do. Number two, it is key to the strength, security and future of our country.”

The senator has tried to get his fellow Democrats to adhere to that position, even at a time when immigration policy is becoming increasingly toxic. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has said that migrants entering the United States illegally are “poisoning the blood” of the country and has accused Biden of allowing a “bloodbath” at the southern border. Biden, for his part, has at times leaned to the right in both the policies and the language he is willing to use, as illegal border crossings have become a vulnerable point for his presidential bid. re-election.

Such was the case when Biden, during his State of the Union address, entered into an unforeseen debate with the Republican representative of Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and referred to a Venezuelan accused of killing a nursing student in Georgia as “ illegal,” a term anathema to migrant rights advocates.

After the speech, Padilla commented on what happened with Congressman Tony Cárdenas in the apartment they both share in Washington. Padilla and Cárdenas, who have known each other since their early days in Los Angeles politics, now form an unlikely political couple when they are away from California and their families. Padilla stands out from many in the Capitol because of his height and usually speaks in a measured tone, while the shorter Cárdenas is known for becoming heated and speaking loudly in debates.

“Normally, when he says one or two sentences, I have already said 20,” says Cárdenas. “He says more or less the same thing as me, but much more calmly, much more methodically.”

And that night, according to Cárdenas, their conversation revolved around how they wanted politicians to avoid labeling migrants as “illegal” because that diminishes their dignity.

Padilla told him he would call the White House.

“He’s the kind of guy who steps in and steps up, and he’s tactical regarding it,” Cardenas said.

It’s a difficult role to play, especially as Democrats try to shore up what is seen as a weakness in border security in the battleground states that will determine control of the White House and Congress.

Even in California, Republicans have become emboldened on immigration as they try to reassert their relevance at the state level, said Mark Meuser, a lawyer who lost the 2022 Senate and Secretary of State elections once morest Padilla. California in 2018. Leading California Democrats like Padilla, Meuser asserted, “are pushing toward the extreme limits of their party.”

Padilla has urged the president and his fellow Democrats to maintain that border control measures must be accompanied by reforms for migrants already living in the country. Padilla expressed frustration that some Democrats, including Biden, did not make changes on immigration – such as granting citizenship to those who came to the United States illegally as children – a top priority during negotiations. on border security that took place with Senate Republicans this year.

During these negotiations, Padilla emerged as the leader of the leftist opposition in Congress. He asked Biden to speak alone to warn him once morest the changes, spoke forcefully at rallies in defense of the rights of migrants and organized a call with senior advisors from the White House and the Hispanic caucus in Congress. Padilla, along with four other Democratic-aligned senators, ultimately voted once morest the approval of the bipartisan package on border issues, which guaranteed its failure, as Republicans also rejected it.

“It’s a lone voice, but it’s a brave voice in the Senate,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, who heads the immigration advocacy organization America’s Voice.

It has been a rapid rise for Padilla, who has just entered his fourth year in Congress, and it comes as no surprise to those who have known him from his days in California politics.

“What he has always done brilliantly is be able to carry himself well, bring people together, be a constructive agent,” said John A. Pérez, who was speaker of the California Assembly when Padilla was in the state Senate. “With Alex you don’t get criticism without an alternative.”

Padilla was also known as a determined and effective negotiator. While on the Los Angeles City Council, Padilla negotiated a state agreement with then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to send more funds to local governments. What was supposed to be a one-day meeting turned into a non-stop ten-day negotiation in Sacramento. Padilla soon exhausted his wardrobe and ended up washing his socks in the sink, said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who worked with Padilla in the League of Cities. They got the commitments they wanted.

Now that Padilla is involved in the debate over immigration policy, Madrid said that “never has politics demanded more border security and less immigration reform.”

But he admitted that he might be proven wrong: “If there is one person in Washington who might make that deal happen, it would be Alex Padilla.”

And, for Padilla, that is the main reason why he entered politics.

When he graduated in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994, the dream of his father, a cook, and his mother, a domestic worker, came true. But he soon found himself immersed in politics when the state’s attention focused on Proposition 187, a ballot measure passed in 1994 that deprived migrants who entered the country illegally of education, health care and other non-emergency services.

Its supporters dubbed it the “Save Our State” initiative. Padilla still remembers the campaign commercials.

“Trying to place the blame for a declining economy on the hardest working people I know was offensive and an outrage,” he said.

Now he sees parallels between the California of the 1990s, which approved a measure at the ballot box that was later invalidated in federal court, and the country today: demographic changes, economic uncertainty and political opportunists who use migrants as “scapegoats.” .

But he also encouraged the state’s Latinos to get involved in politics. For Padilla, it is no coincidence that California, the state with the largest migrant population, now has the largest economy in the country and is a stronghold for Democrats.

One of Padilla’s first jobs in politics was managing the state assembly campaign of Tony Cárdenas, who is a decade older than Padilla and grew up a few blocks from him in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.

The campaign began as an unlikely bet for two political neophytes who were striving to get the region to elect a Latino for the first time. Cárdenas remembers that Padilla worked so hard on the campaign that one night he fell asleep standing up while they were meeting.

“At that time, people laughed at us in the offices,” Padilla said. Still, Cárdenas won.

Padilla continued his career working for the late Senator Dianne Feinstein and managing other local campaigns until, at age 26, he ran for the Los Angeles City Council. He rose quickly on the council, of which he became president at the age of 28. And for two days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he oversaw the emergency response while then-Mayor James Hahn was in Washington, on the other side of the country. Padilla gave interviews in English and Spanish to reassure the city’s population.

But before he was elected to his first office, he faced skepticism regarding his age. Cárdenas indicated that Padilla’s candidacy for the position of councilor only took off when he closed a debate by resorting to a phrase widely used in the punished community of the San Fernando Valley: “Don’t get angry.” Do not give up.

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