As long as white America remains skeptical of immigrants, moving to the left on immigration is likely to hurt the democrats

Last week, President Obama announced new executive action to stop the deportation of undocumented immigrants that have been in the country for more than five years. This step has raised criticisms from Republicans who are against undocumented immigration and from some Democrats for not going far enough. Zoltan Hajnal looks at the Democratic Party’s immigration problem, writing that while Latinos and Asian Americans are an important voting group for the party, their support for immigration reform is outweighed by many whites’ concerns over immigration. He argues that as long as whites are a majority in America and remain skeptical of immigrants, advocating for immigrants’ rights will hurt the Democrats’ election chances.