Although it is obvious that the alleged senility of President Biden and the judicial vicissitudes of former President Trump are the dominant and daily issues of this year’s North American presidential elections, it is also evident that the big underlying issue is immigration policy. And this immigration issue has a specific physical space, the 3,100 or so kilometers of the border that separates the United States from Mexico, from Monument 258 northwest of Tijuana to the mouth of the river called Grande by the Americans in the Gulf of Mexico, Bravo. by the Mexicans.
Four North American states have a border with Mexico, including the two most populated in the country, California, with Democratic hegemony, and Texas, with Republican hegemony. The other two border states, Arizona and New Mexico, are politically competitive and will be fiercely contested between now and the presidential election date (November 5).
In the 2016 campaign, candidate Trump promised to build a beautiful wall – the adjective is his – along the entire border, which would also be paid for by Mexico. Some sections were made during his mandate, without of course a single peso contributed by Mexico and with financing dispensed in dribs and drabs by the North American Congress. However, what eight years ago was a manageable issue has today become a real drama. In the last two fiscal years (2022 and 2023), there have been two million detentions at the border and some 142,000 deportations in the last year. It is estimated that some 5,000 people cross the border irregularly every day and it does not seem that the Mexican Government, chaired by the populist politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), is doing everything it can to contain this dramatic avalanche.
There have been various legislative initiatives to resolve or at least alleviate this situation, but the extreme political polarization has made any type of compromise difficult to date. All that was left was for the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to make the continuity of military aid to Ukraine dependent on a new framework regarding immigration policy. Obviously, former President Trump is not contributing to an eventual pact and has urged Republican senators and congressmen not to give any thought to any proposal on the matter coming from the White House. He does not want to give his presumed electoral rival such a significant advantage on an issue in which the polls favor, even if generically, the Republicans.
And in all this, what is the positioning of the Hispanic, or Latino, vote according to the North American census denomination? Well, only two obvious things can be pointed out, firstly, that it is transcendental and, secondly, that it is not monolithic. The 18.4% that Hispanics represent on a national scale contrasts with percentages close to 40% in the aforementioned California and Texas, which are also so politically diverse, but it ranges in proportions ranging from 25% to 45%. in states like Colorado, Nevada, Arizona or New Mexico, all of them very competitive electorally. As has been demonstrated for some time now in Florida, with strong Venezuelan immigration, a strong inclination of the Hispanic vote towards the Democratic Party in all cases and situations should not be taken for granted, far from it.
In short, the southern border is going to be at the center of the presidential campaign and, if the situation continues to deteriorate, it is an asset that will be used intensively by former President Trump.
