Why California Sen. Alex Padilla broke from Democrats to block immigration, border bill

Sen. Alex Padilla didn’t love bucking his party last week when he joined most Republicans in refusing to pass a bipartisan immigration and border security bill.

“It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t easy, but it was the right thing to do,” he said Thursday.

Padilla said “too much of it was going back to failed Trump policies” on immigration, including the former president’s attempts to raise the standard for migrants to qualify for asylum and allow for border closures under certain circumstances.

The freshman Democratic senator said he was most concerned by what was missing from the package: protections for undocumented residents.

“This was the first time I can recall that Democrats almost unified behind anything (related to immigration or border policy) without fighting for protections for Dreamers or farmworkers or other long-term undocumented members of our community,” he said.

Padilla made the remarks Thursday during a virtual conversation with Tani Cantil-Sakauye, president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. The event was originally slated for downtown Sacramento but was moved online. The PPIC said the change was made “out of an abundance of caution” but did not elaborate further on security threats.

“This can’t be the Democratic platform now,” Padilla said of his party colleagues’ willingness to exclude Dreamers, or residents protected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, from the package, which was negotiated by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-CT, Kyrsten Sinema, I-AZ, and James Lankford, R-OK.

“This can’t be the starting point for the next round of negotiations when it comes to border and immigration.”

The bill needed 60 votes to pass and, without support from Republicans who said it did not do enough to secure the border, would have likely failed even without Padilla peeling off. But his opposition solidifies Padilla’s standing as a fierce advocate for migrants and people living in the United States without legal status.

He often speaks about his experience as the son of Mexican immigrants who worked as a cook and a housecleaner in the San Fernando Valley, and the responsibility he feels representing the state with the largest number of Dreamers in the country.

In a fervid speech he gave before voting against the bill last week, Padilla spoke of an increase in “hateful rhetoric,” pointing to remarks from former President Donald Trump – echoing words by Adolf Hitler – that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the county.

“Every time political leaders villianize immigrants, communities like mine feel the effects,” Padilla said on the Senate floor. “Just ask any Latino kid who’s been told to go back to where they came from. Ask anyone speaking Spanish in America who’s been told to speak English. Ask any Asian American who was harassed during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

His vote also illustrates a break with an election-year shift among Democrats, including President Joe Biden, to embrace tighter border security.

California’s other Democratic senator, Laphonza Butler, also voted against the bill, saying in a statement that it “failed to provide comprehensive solutions for critical communities—DACA recipients, farmworkers, and long-term U.S. residents. While there are elements of this bill I support, including funding for our border communities and efforts to prevent the flow of fentanyl, this measure simply misses the mark.”

Padilla opposed a similar version of the bill, which was brought up in February as part of a deal to secure aid for Ukraine and Israel.

He told Cantil-Sakauye his vision for federal immigration reform includes making it easier for people to obtain legal status, which he said would reduce the number of people who enter illegally. He also argued it would help the U.S. economy.

“I talk to employers that are desperate for more workers,” he said, suggesting more work visas be extended to migrants who want to work. “It’s sort of a win-win-win. But some of these common-sense solutions are not feasible right now because of the political climate that we’re in” and rhetoric from Trump.

Behind closed doors, Republicans tell Padilla they agree that modernizing the country’s immigration system would reduce illegal immigration. But he said there’s one big hurdle to getting it done: the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee.

“As long as the Trump factor is out there politically, it’s not going to happen,” he said.