I met with a Tennessee city government’s mayor and city council several years ago to talk about migrants, legal and illegal, in their city.
The related issues and problems were mounting. Schools were having to hire Spanish-speaking teachers, as many of the kids couldn’t speak English. The town was dealing with an increasing number of migrant-related vehicular accidents. Some migrants were committing crimes. A neighborhood complaint: A migrant would rent a place to live, and then be joined by a number of others in the same house or apartment.
The city budget was under significant pressure. As a start, leaders were considering an ordinance restricting the number of people who could live in a single dwelling. They wondered about news media reaction, in Tennessee and nationally. They wanted to know what I thought, and if I could help them explain their position if they decided to act.
“These are substantial issues, and they can be explained,” I said. “If you take a reasonable position and explain it reasonably, reasonable people will understand, even those who may not fully agree.”
However, I told them, it was more than likely, in fact, a certainty, that there would be those in the press who’d immediately identify it racism and bigotry. Could it be explained? Yes. Would reasonable people understand the problems? Yes. Would that make a difference with those who would hammer them? No. The only question to consider was, could they stand the heat?
The next day they gave their answer: It was no.
Whether that would be the answer today is an open question. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump did well with Hispanic and Latino voters, who historically vote Democrat: “From Pennsylvania to Florida to Texas, areas with high numbers of Hispanics often had little in common on Election Day other than backing Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris for president,” said the Associated Press in a Nov. 9 election analysis.
Trump benefited from a major jump in support from Latino voters, said the BBC: “Among Latinos, a key part of the Democratic voter base for decades, Trump benefited from a mammoth 14 percentage-point bump compared to the 2020 election, according to exit polls.”
These things weren’t supposed to be. Trump ran promising the mass deportation of migrants who’d entered the U.S., many illegally, under President Joe Biden. Democrats were thought have the inside track on big margins among Hispanics and Latinos. But no.
Juan Pronao, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said, “(Latino) men certainly responded to the populist message of the president and focused primarily on economic issues, inflation, wages and even support of immigration reform.”
And Arturo Garino, the former mayor of Nogales, Arizona, was blunt in a June 2024 interview: “I don’t think what this administration is doing is right – letting all these people just come across,” Garino told NBC News. “I’m a Democrat, and I’m pretty pissed off.”
Many Americans of all persuasions in areas previously unaffected by Biden immigration policies had the issue delivered home to them when border state governors began busing migrants to Democratic sanctuary cities and states.
A Tennessee lawmaker, State Rep. Todd Warner, who represents Marshall County and parts of Williamson County, wants to expand on that idea. He’s introduced legislation in the state’s General Assembly that would require law enforcement to send migrants illegally in the country to U.S. sanctuary cities, rather than deporting them to another country, Fox News reports.
Most migrants are not troublemakers or criminals, but enough are to make a difference. Also, 1.7 million are “gotaways,” meaning they were unencountered by U.S. border authorities. It’s a larger population than Alaska and Wyoming combined, and it’s unknown why they’re here, or what they’re doing.
The election shows the national mood is changing. Now, a new, but old, presidential sheriff is in town. Hispanics and Latinos have shown their votes aren’t tied exclusively to ethnicity or immigration, and many American cities are dealing with the budgetary realities of thousands of migrants placed in their communities.
That doesn’t mean the Tennessee town’s answer still wouldn’t be no about a migrant-related ordinance – but the leaders would think about it a lot longer and harder.
George Korda is a political analyst for WATE-TV, hosts “State Your Case” from noon to 2 p.m. Sundays on WOKI-FM Newstalk 98.7 and is president of Korda Communications, a public relations and communications consulting firm.
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