Putting the Hispanic Pro-Open Borders Myth To Rest

Some people never update their political assumptions.

Nov 30, 2024

Ever since I got into politics nearly two decades ago, it was always assumed that Hispanics could be counted on to be loyal boosters of open borders.

Democrats saw Hispanics as integral footsoldiers in their “rainbow coalition” that would face off against the perceived threat of “white supremacy” and usher in a permanent Democratic majority by virtue of their demographic weight. For Republicans, Hispanics looked like a new voter bloc to tap into based on the assumption that they were “natural conservatives” owing to their perceived devotion to family values, social conservatism, and entrepreneurship. Since the end of the Cold War, neither of the two parties even dared to push for immigration restriction measures.

Conventional wisdom dictated that pushing for heavy-handed measures against migrants would provoke a backlash from Hispanic voters at the polls. Republicans were especially gun shy about advocating for strict immigration policies all the way from the administration of Ronald Reagan to the failed presidential run of Mitt Romney in 2012.

Following Romney’s loss in 2012, Republicans published a so-called “autopsy” highlighting what they needed to do to stay politically relevant. In the Growth and Opportunity Project report, Republicans reached the conclusion that supporting amnesty was a necessary precondition to obtaining increased Hispanic support. “We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform [euphemism for mass amnesty],” the report outlined. “If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.”

The main takeaway was that for the Republican Party to remain competitive in an increasingly non-white America was that the party had to downplay any mention of immigration restriction and focus on campaigns to woo the rapidly growing Hispanic electorate.

However, the arrival of Donald Trump onto the political scene threw the bipartisan conventional wisdom about immigration out the window. At the height of the 2016 presidential cycle, the main assumption was Trump‘s unapologetic support for immigration restriction would completely tank his support among Hispanics and allow Democrats to hold a vice grip on this constituency similar to how they dominate the black vote.

Such doomsday scenarios never came to pass. Hillary Clinton was able to acquire 66% of the Hispanic vote, the average amount Democrats have historically picked up, in 2016. There was no implosion of the Hispanic vote for Trump in 2016. In fact, Trump increased his Hispanic support in 2020, when he received 38% of the Hispanic vote. During his historic presidential comeback in 2024, Trump picked up a record-breaking 46% of support from Hispanic voters, per a poll conducted by Edson Research. This figure represented the highest percentage of the national Hispanic vote that a Republican presidential candidate has obtained in modern history.

The pro-Trump shift in the Hispanic vote was largely driven by Hispanic men pulling the lever for Trump in record numbers. According to the Edson Research poll, 55% of Hispanic men voted for Trump. On the other hand, 38% of Hispanic women backed Trump.

Many pundits were left scratching their heads at how Hispanics could possibly support a candidate in Trump who supports mass deportations and other heavy-handed immigration restriction measures. A careful look at Hispanic political behavior would show that conventional assumptions about Hispanics were baseless.

Often forgotten in American history is that Hispanics have not always been permanent members of a non-white coalition. For example, a significant number of Hispanics are of white Spaniard extraction or at least have significant white European blood coursing through their veins.

Back when the 1930 U.S. Census categorized “Mexican American” as a racial group, Hispanic leaders loudly protested and had pushed for Mexican Americans to be re-classified as whites in the next census. The most prominent Hispanic organization of that epoch was the pro-assimilationist League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). LULAC’s mission at the time was focused on getting Hispanic migrants to assimilate and become a part of the U.S.’s pan-European culture. LULAC was critical of the Census’ move to declassify Mexicans as white was part of an effort to “discriminate between the Mexicans themselves and other members of the white race, when in truth and fact we are not only a part and parcel but as well the sum and substance of the white race.”

Unlike contemporary Hispanic ethnic grievance groups, LULAC’s early years were marked by their leaders' emphasis on their Spanish roots. LULAC stressed the importance of patriotism and was not keen on immigration advocacy for the sake of promoting diversity.

On the labor front, farmworker union activist Cesar Chavez steadfastly defended Hispanic American workers from illegal alien scab labor coming from Mexico. Chavez’s United Farm Workers Union was able to cobble together a multi-ethnic coalition of farmworkers who opposed the agricultural industry’s use of illegal aliens to break strikes and lower wages. Through its efforts, the UFW transformed into a de facto copy of the defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in dropping the hammer on illegal immigration.

Chavez’s activism became a thing of legend, and his name has been plastered across the American Southwest. This same spirit of fighting mass migration lives on in the political proclivities of significant segments of the Hispanic population. At the height of the COVID-19 hysteria, Hispanics put immigration as one of their lowest voting priorities. Curiously, a poll The Washington Post conducted alongside the University of Maryland poll discovered that 69% of Hispanics supported the government clamping down immigration during the first stage of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020.

Several polls in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election showed increasing numbers of Hispanics being in favor of the construction of a border wall. According to a poll conducted by Axios-Ipsos Latino and Noticias Telemundo, Hispanics who signaled they are in favor of building a border wall and deporting all illegal aliens had increased by at least 10 points since 2021. Similarly, an Axios Vibes survey by The Harris Poll published in April discovered that 45% of Hispanics polled were supportive of the mass deportation of illegal aliens.

All things considered, the media got it wrong about Hispanics. They’re not a rabidly pro-open borders constituency. In many respects, they’re re-aligning in a similar fashion to their Catholic counterparts — Irish, Italians, Poles, etc. — who reliably voted for Democrats in previous decades.

Right-wing movements would be wise to pick up on this trend and abandon the “Hispandering” strategies of yore and embrace more muscular nationalist policies that consist of cracking down on immigration. That, and not groveling to Open Borders Inc., is the key to making steady gains with Hispanics.

NEXT: 5 Myths About Hispanic Voters

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