Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro said Saturday that the Biden administration has failed to demonstrate a strategy for addressing immigration, allowing itself to be pummeled over the issue heading into the 2024 election.
Castro waged an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, framed in part around progressive priorities like eliminating per-country visa limits and creating pathways to citizenship for people living in the country undocumented.
While those ideas didn’t help him gain traction in the presidential primary, Castro said his party has since avoided tough conversations about which ideas it does want to pursue on immigration.
“The Biden administration basically doesn’t want to touch the issue. A lot of Democrats don’t want to touch the issue,” Castro said on a panel at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin.
At the same time Republicans have made the issue their primary focus.
Republicans who control the U.S. House, for example, approved a package of stringent border security measures in May, after tense debates among members of their own party.
“You can’t allow the vacuum on the Democratic side to continue, where they’re just beating you up on that issue all the time, and you’re not putting forward a robust argument in your favor,” Castro said. “That’s basically what’s happened during these last two and a half years.”
Saturday’s panel featured Julián Castro, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) and their mother, Rosie Castro, a longtime civil rights leader who served briefly on the San Antonio City Council this year.
While Congress is nowhere near any kind of agreement on immigration reform, Joaquin Castro said the president has acted unilaterally on some efforts to aid migrants, like expanding Temporary Protective Status for Venezuelans.
At another Texas Tribune Festival event Saturday, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) pointed to other White House immigration moves that haven’t been as popular with the president’s own party but could satisfy some of the administration’s critics if they were more aware of the changes.
The return to immigration enforcement under Title 8, for example, means migrants who arrive at the U.S. border are presumed ineligible for asylum and ramps up consequences for unlawful entry.
“Under this administration, in the last four months, border crossings have been cut down by 70% because of the reintroduction of Title 8, no matter how you feel about it,” said Gutierrez, an immigration lawyer who is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
Joaquin Castro said the White House’s plan to focus instead on its economic policies hasn’t resonated with voters.
“Poll after poll has shown that Americans aren’t aware enough about what he’s done, and the things that he has accomplished,” Castro said. “So there’s a vast challenge ahead in [Biden’s reelection] campaign to go and do that.”
He also wants the president to talk more about the rise of “anti-Democratic” efforts by Republicans, such as President Donald Trump’s work to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“You’ve got to remind the country what’s at stake and what happens if the other guy wins,” Castro said.
2024 Texas Senate race
Asked when Democrats could expect to see a Castro on the ballot for higher office, Joaquin Castro declined to say.
He said his party’s best shot at “turning Texas blue” is in the midterm of a Republican’s presidency, as opposed to 2024, when Gutierrez is among several Democrats running to challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Houston).
Though he hopes one of those Democrats unseats Cruz next year, Castro said major Democratic gains “will likely happen when you have the next Republican president in their first midterm.”
Castro declined to say whether he planned to run the next time such an opportunity arises.
“If I’m a Texas Democrat, I think that’s where everybody should go all in,” he said. “That’s when you should have a very strong slate of your best candidates that are running for everything.”
