Will voters reward Biden’s tougher immigration stance? The view from a swing district.

Willie Ortega didn’t vote in 2020. Now with immigration top of mind, the Colorado veteran, who leans Democratic, is mulling a vote for Donald Trump.

President Joe Biden last week made it harder to access asylum – perhaps his toughest border action to date. Mr. Ortega knows this. But he still thinks Mr. Trump has the “discipline” to secure the southern border against illegal crossings and drugs. 

The United States is “one of the most powerful nations in the world. And why can’t you do that?” says Mr. Ortega, whose grandparents came from Mexico. He pauses on the sidewalk in downtown Greeley. 

Democrats, he says, seem “afraid to offend people” by taking more of a stand on border security.

Ahead of the 2024 election, immigration remains a top concern for many Americans. That holds true in Colorado, where 6 in 10 voters say the recent influx of Central and South American migrants to the state is a “crisis” or “major problem.” And based on voter interviews this week, such concerns also resonate in Mr. Ortega’s 8th Congressional District – home of a competitive race that could reshape Congress on Election Day. Candidates here, where around 39% of residents are Latino, are promoting their own varied immigration stories as part of their campaigns. 

Five months to November, adjustments like Mr. Biden’s new policy may not move the needle for most voters. But it’s clear that ongoing challenges of border management hit close to home in this interior blue state, without an easy resolution in sight. 

In the end, voter decisions will reflect a partisan lens – and “who can push the messaging harder,” says Kyle Saunders, professor of political science at Colorado State University.

A toss-up district 

In 2020, Mr. Biden beat Mr. Trump in Colorado by 13.5 percentage points. But in the area of the new 8th Congressional District, drawn up in 2021 due to Colorado’s population growth, the Democrat’s lead narrowed to under 5 percentage points.

“There’s definitely a world in which Trump could carry this district in 2024,” says Erin Covey, analyst with The Cook Political Report. To her, this possibility raises the question of whether the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Yadira Caraveo, can “outrun Biden.” The Cook Political Report ranks the 8th District as a toss-up race that leans Democratic.

As other border measures have failed to gain GOP votes in Congress, the first-term congresswoman, trained as a pediatrician and the daughter of immigrants from Mexico, drafted her own immigration package focused on expanding resources to receiving cities and funding law enforcement. Though Dr. Caraveo was “pleased” to see executive action on the border last week, she thinks it fell short, reports Colorado Public Radio. 

“I’ve said repeatedly the President needs to take further action on this issue,” she told the outlet. “Republicans in Congress have demonstrated time and time again they are more interested in using immigration as a political tool than they are in working with the President to solve it as a matter of national security.” A spokesperson for the congresswoman says her team could not accommodate an interview request. 

Running in this month’s Republican primary in the district, state Rep. Gabe Evans, a veteran and former police officer whose grandparents emigrated from Mexico, laments the lapse of Trump policies that expelled migrants and forced them to wait in Mexico. He also criticizes state restrictions limiting local law enforcement coordination with the federal government regarding immigrants suspected of crimes.

“Secure the border – that’s Step 1. For everything, that’s Step 1. Because a deportation means nothing if they just come right back,” says the Trump-endorsed candidate. “After creating the issue ... now all of a sudden, he’s interested in fixing it,” Mr. Evans says of President Biden.

The campaign of the other Republican in the primary, former state lawmaker Janak Joshi, did not respond to interview requests. Originally from India, he supports mass deportations of people living in the U.S. without authorization. 

Facing ire over record-high illegal immigration, President Biden last week justified his new southern border policies in light of “Congress’s failure to update an immigration and asylum system that is simply broken.” 

The changes don’t physically “close” the border. Instead, the government has further limited access to asylum for migrants who enter illegally. This is triggered when Border Patrol apprehensions – often a proxy for illegal crossings – reach a daily average of 2,500 or more, which they have for most of Biden’s presidency. 

A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted after the executive action was announced found that 70% of voters nationally support the policy.

In theory, the new rule makes it easier for the government to deport more people, faster – and initial reporting suggests this has begun. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which carries out deportations, did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

Immigration’s local impact 

Conservatives, meanwhile, like Mr. Evans, have panned the policy as too little, too late. 

“I just think it’s a political stunt, because the borders are still open,” says Joe Petrocco, an unaffiliated former Republican in Brighton. Seated in a break room at Petrocco Farms, a large, family-owned produce farm where he serves as vice president, he raises population growth and shrinking rural areas.

“I have just concerns about our cities getting too big and our infrastructure not being able to manage,” says the farmer.

Some 20 miles south, Denver has tracked the arrival of more than 42,000 migrants since late 2022, though not all have stayed. Over the past two years, the Colorado capital and state have spent at least $100 million on migrant shelter, education, and other services such as health care. Many Coloradans are moved to help, even offering their homes. But many others harbor public safety and spending concerns tied to the new immigrants, who are sometimes federally barred from work permits, at least initially.

“To just mass-move them in here just is not a way our economy’s going to work,” says Ernest Kemm, a Republican in Commerce City who refurbishes homes. “We’re having to foot that bill.”

Frustration over federal inaction is also increasingly shared on the left. But voters like Erin Bauer, a Democrat who works at a software company, see the June 4 executive action as modest progress. 

“When parties can’t come together, I’m glad that someone can step up and make an effort,” she says, exiting her gym in Johnstown. “You have to work together to solve those problems. And when people aren’t willing to do that, someone else has to step in, and that’s what [President Biden] did.” 

Immigrant rights groups are challenging the legality of the new policies in a lawsuit filed Wednesday. The plaintiffs cite the right to seek asylum under U.S. law – even if a migrant enters the country illegally between ports of entry. That matters to unaffiliated voter Jourdan Lamb, an addiction counselor who leans left. 

Making it harder to apply for asylum? “That’s not liberal,” says Ms. Lamb, watching her son splash through sprinklers at a park in Northglenn. “I think the United States has more than enough resources to be taking care of other people that need it.”