Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego launched a new immigration plan Monday as he looks to maintain his high-profile voice as a key messenger on the issue — and as a rising star in the Democratic Party.
Gallego suggests ramping up border security by hiring more agents and investing in port infrastructure and drug detection technology, while reforming the asylum system by speeding up the process and treating migrants with “dignity and respect.” The Arizona senator also argues that lawmakers must expand legal pathways for immigrants who are fueling the economy across key industries, including in agriculture, health care and construction.
The plan also says that undocumented immigrants — including Dreamers and spouses of U.S. citizens who have long been living in the country and contributing to the U.S. economy — should have a pathway to citizenship. Gallego also includes ideas for addressing root causes of migration by ensuring other countries also work to resettle asylum seekers and take steps to combat regional instability, drug cartels and economic crises.
“We don’t have to choose between border security and immigration reform. We can and should do both,” Gallego says in a video that will be released later Monday, according to a transcript first shared with POLITICO. “We need to secure the southern border, reform our asylum system, expand legal pathways to citizenship, protect Dreamers and tackle the reasons why people leave their homes in the first place.”
Democrats have long struggled to cut through GOP messaging on immigration, a challenge that peaked in the 2024 presidential race. Since President Donald Trump’s return to power, Democratic leaders have debated when and how to wade into the fight — and what message might resonate best with voters.
Gallego broke with most Democrats by voting in January for the Laken Riley Act, a now-enacted GOP-authored bill that expanded the circumstances under which authorities are required to hold undocumented immigrants accused of crimes. He told POLITICO at the time that his vote represented “working-class Latinos from Arizona.”
“I’m here to bring some more real truth about what people are thinking,” he said, calling some of the immigration advocacy groups that opposed the bill “largely out of touch with where your average Latino is.”
The approach laid out in Gallego’s plan — a message that tackles both border security and fixes to a broken immigration system — is one Democrats are increasingly zeroing in on, especially as polls show some weaknesses in Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda.
The Arizona senator, who eked out a two-point Senate victory in Arizona last year even as former Vice President Kamala Harris fell to Trump, argues that he has credibility as a border-state lawmaker and has seen the immigration system’s “dysfunction firsthand.”
The Democrats’ move also comes on the heels of his weekend stop in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania, which has already sparked speculation that he’s interested in a future presidential bid.
When NBC asked him there about a potential run for the White House, the Arizona Democrat said, “Has it ever crossed my mind? Fucking of course, I’m an elected official, it crosses my mind. Am I thinking about it right now? Absolutely not.”
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