Incendiary rhetoric, immigration surge drive votes among Coloradans in election — but not always to Trump

Cynthia Hawkins and Bill Christopher both depict themselves as moderates whose vote preferences this year are being steered, at least in part, by worries over immigration.

But it’s not driving their votes the same way.

Instead, their shared concerns about the sheer number of new arrivals to the country in recent years, along with the resulting strains on local budgets and services, are cleaved by the incendiary rhetoric surrounding one of the most divisive issues at play in the November election.

Immigration policy and border security have proven to be key issues, both for candidates and the electorate — and especially those on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Nationwide, and in some of Colorado’s closely contested congressional races, it may prove pivotal to who wins on Nov. 5. 

In the Voter Voices survey conducted in recent months by news outlets across Colorado, including The Denver Post, most self-identified conservatives listed immigration among their top three voting issues, with few liberals ranking it high. But moderates also frequently brought up immigration concerns.

Hawkins, a respondent who lives in Jefferson County, said she’s not opposed to immigration as a whole, but she is against “the flood that’s been coming over the border.” She added that she’s worried about the possibility of increased taxes going toward supporting migrants in metro Denver.

It cements her vote for former President Donald Trump, again the Republican nominee in the presidential race.

“We’ve had so many illegal immigrants come into the country,” Hawkins said in an interview. “It’s costing our communities, the hospitals and the schools.” 

Christopher, who lives in Westminster, likewise worried about the stress that the influx of people has put on local governments. As a former city manager of Westminster, he knows firsthand the challenges local governments face in meeting community needs. 

But he’s also “appalled” by Trump’s characterization of migrants in speeches and on the campaign trail, noting that he doesn’t need to go far back in his own family history to find his Irish immigrant roots. He’s voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

The country needs a more orderly system to process immigrants that helps new arrivals and keep services from being overwhelmed, he said — even if that means turning some people away. He also supports Harris’ plan to create a pathway to citizenship.

“I feel for the people who find themselves in this position,” Christopher said. “Hopefully, over time, we can solve most of this, but it’s going to be slow, it’s going to be expensive and it’s going to take away from other things local government — whether it’s county or city — could be doing.”

Among candidates, every Republican running for Congress who responded to The Post’s candidate questionnaire listed immigration or the southern border as a top issue if elected.

And at the top of the ticket, there may be no bigger chasm between the major presidential candidates. 

Trump vows mass deportations

Trump has vowed to pursue mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He held what will almost certainly be Colorado’s only presidential rally in Aurora earlier this month — not because the state is likely to be in play electorally, but because of a viral video from the late summer showing members of a Venezuelan gang toting firearms in an apartment hallway there.

He cited it as an example of the racist claim that an “invasion” is happening in Colorado. He also promised to invoke a centuries-old law last used to create Japanese internment camps during World War II, including one in Colorado, to “expel the savage gangs” in Aurora and elsewhere.

Harris, by contrast, has given the issue less attention. When she has, she’s focused specifically on border security. She backs a plan to increase the number of border agents and to hone in on illegal smuggling.

Instead of mass deportations of undocumented people, her campaign website talks about “an earned pathway to citizenship.” Much of her framework echoes the give-and-take of a bipartisan border bill that was scuttled by Republicans earlier this year in Congress, in part at Trump’s urging.

How the two candidates would handle immigration would have nation-changing consequences — from the size and scope of immigration enforcement to the economic impact of immigrants and the very makeup of Colorado’s cities, towns and neighborhoods.

There are about 47.8 million foreign-born people in the United States — more than three-fourths of whom are here legally, according to a recent Pew Research report. About 23.4 million are naturalized U.S. citizens, 11.5 million are legal permanent residents and 2 million are temporary lawful residents. The remaining 11 million are unauthorized immigrants.

In Colorado, about 170,000 residents were estimated to be undocumented in a separate 2022 Pew report, or about 3% of the state’s population. About 340,000 people reported living in mixed-status households in which at least one person was undocumented. That number encompassed 90,000 children whose homes included people who weren’t documented. 

For Lisa Martinez, a University of Denver sociology professor and co-founder of its Center for Immigration Policy and Research, the sheer scope of trying to remove that many people — and ripping apart that many homes — is mind-boggling.

“I don’t think people quite understand the ramifications of what it would mean to implement a mass-deportation policy — and the ramifications of what it would mean for ourselves,” Martinez said in an interview. “Not just migrant communities, but ourselves.”

Trump told Time magazine in the spring that he would aim to deport 15 million to 20 million people — more than the estimated number of total undocumented immigrants in the country. His advisors have described to the New York Times “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” to hold people awaiting deportation.

While the projected number of deportations is new and substantially higher than the number of people deported during Trump’s first administration, they aren’t new ideas, Martinez noted. Trump’s first administration oversaw what was effectively a travel ban from many countries with substantial Muslim populations as well as a policy of criminal prosecution for immigrants crossing the border illegally that led to government agents separating parents from their children.

Trump often cites instances of violent crime committed by undocumented immigrants, including shootings, assaults and thefts allegedly committed by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in Aurora. However, research shows immigrant populations commit crime at lower rates than the population at large.

Border encounters rose under Biden

The total number of border encounters between authorities and people crossing unlawfully has skyrocketed under President Joe Biden’s administration after years of relative stability, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security statistics. Many have been able to stay in the U.S. temporarily by seeking asylum.

In the 2021 fiscal year, the department reported nearly 2 million border encounters, a figure that rose to nearly 2.8 million in 2022 and 3.2 million in 2023 — with the vast majority occurring at the southern border. In the current fiscal year, encounters have dropped sharply since a peak last December. The numbers include repeat encounters with some individuals.

In 2019, the peak of migrant encounters under the Trump administration, the department reported just more than 1.1 million encounters total.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican whose state spans much of the U.S.-Mexico border, responded to the surge there by putting migrants on buses and sending them to Democratic-led cities, including Denver. The sudden unplanned arrivals heaped stress on the city’s budget, school district and hospitals as officials sought to meet the needs of nearly 43,000 migrants who arrived since late 2022; some have stayed, while others continued on to other cities.

Such impact has propelled immigration into the forefront of many voters’ minds — and raised the issue’s profile for candidates, too.

“We have to aggressively target those individuals who are illegally in our communities, committing crimes, and those are the folks that we have to deport,” said Gabe Evans, a Republican state legislator who’s running against U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, during a debate this month. 

Seth Masket, a University of Denver political scientist, said immigration was “arguably the central issue of the campaign” — specifically the Trump campaign.

Anti-immigration policy has animated Trump’s political career, starting with his campaign announcement in 2015, when he demonized Mexican immigrants as “rapists.” If anything, his characterizations since then have only grown sharper. In an October interview, he referred to immigrants as bringing “bad genes” into the country. 

“He’s going to explicitly racist territory here,” Masket said. “And, with other things, it doesn’t seem to be harming him to do so. He gets some criticism from Democrats, he gets some criticism in the media, but, if anything, his polling numbers are going up.”

Masket contrasted it with how Democrats have broadly talked about immigration. Harris, a daughter of immigrants, described “our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants” in her speech accepting the Democratic nomination — even as she noted the need to “reform our broken immigration system.”

While immigration dominates the presidential race, it’s also playing into local races, including the congressional races that could determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rudy Gonzales, the president and CEO of Denver-based nonprofit Servicios de La Raza, said the Latino community had mobilized to speak with voters in both English and Spanish about the upcoming election. The immigration issue is especially pertinent in the 8th Congressional District race between Caraveo and Evans and the 3rd Congressional District race between Democratic candidate Adam Frisch and GOP favorite Jeff Hurd, among others, Gonzales said. 

Gonzales relayed his worries about the possible consequences of a Trump win.

“There’s a lot of fear that a Trump presidency may be viable,” Gonzales said. “That’s not just in the immigrant community; that is in our (Latino) community.”