As a freshman senator in a swing state won by President Trump, Ruben Gallego is walking a legislative tightrope, especially when it comes to his views on immigration.
With one of his first acts as a U.S. Senator, Gallego challenged the notion that Democrats can't give up an inch when it comes to Republican proposals on immigration.
Last month, the Arizona senator co-sponsored and voted for the Laken Riley Act. Fellow Democrats Sen. Mark Kelly and Rep. Greg Stanton, who are also from Arizona, voted for the bill as well.
Their votes highlighted a rift within the Democratic Party.
More than 200 Arizona Democrats signed a letter stating they were "deeply disappointed" in party leaders like Gallego for backing the GOP-backed measure that directs federal immigration enforcement to detain and deport those without legal status who are charged with theft or certain violent crimes.
They warned the measure will eliminate due process for migrants simply accused, not convicted, of crimes. And some saw Democratic votes for the measure as a betrayal of the Latino community that helped Gallego to victory in a state Trump won by six points.
Gallego is having none of it.
"They're welcome to give me advice and everything else like that," Gallego said in an interview with NPR earlier this month, a few days after Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law.
"But don't come and try to lie to me and say that that's where the Latino voter is," he added. "Because that's not the case."
Focus on working-class Latinos
Following his vote on the Laken Riley Act, Gallego argued that he – not his critics – has his finger on the pulse of the Latino community, particularly working-class Latinos and their views on immigration, the border and border security.
"It's usually white liberals that are talking to liberal Latinos, and they are essentially saying that's what working-class Latinos feel and think about immigration," Gallego said in an interview with NPR, "When in reality, they don't."
Gallego said that while he was campaigning for the U.S. Senate he spoke to Latino voters across his state with nuanced views on immigration.
"They do want immigration reform. They do think that people that have been here, and have roots in the community and are working and don't have any criminal record, should have a right to become U.S. citizens," Gallego said. "But they also do not believe that you should be able to come to the border as easily as has happened in the past."
That sentiment is held not just by Latino voters, Gallego says, but by Latino immigrants without legal status.
"I heard it [from] unauthorized people, undocumented people, illegal, whatever word you want to use, [they] said that they did not feel at all in any way any type of affinity with these recent migrants that came," he said.
"They don't feel like they have any connection to this new wave of immigrants that's coming over," Gallego added, "even if they are from the same country."
Luis Acosta says that's exactly how his own parents feel.
The 34-year-old Democratic political consultant is a Dreamer – protected, for now, from deportation under an Obama-era program for people who were brought here as children. Acosta was brought to Arizona from Mexico with his parents as a young child. His father, a construction worker, and mother, who clean houses, remain in the U.S. without legal status.
But they view the circumstances of their own border crossing differently from those of a new generation of migrants.
"It's definitely a situation where I think [issues at the southern border] just turned into something that I think got out of control really fast," Acosta said. "And a lot of people, including those on the ground who are still undocumented, who've probably been here for 10-plus years, 20-plus years, 30-plus years in some cases, just kind of were caught off guard by."
Latinos like Acosta's parents also say migrants who commit violent crimes cast "a bad name on all of us," he said.
The Laken Riley Act was named after a Georgia nursing student who was killed by a Venezuelan immigrant in the U.S. without legal status. He'd previously had several run-ins with law enforcement in Georgia and New York. Republicans argue the law, had it been in place at the time, would have enabled his deportation and prevented Riley's murder.
"If you're coming to this country and you're not willing to put your best foot forward, and you're not willing to abide by the rules to the best of your ability in order to make a better life for yourself here… then what are you actually doing here?" Acosta said. "I think that sentiment is shared widely amongst the immigrant community, and that's just the reality."
'A potpourri of ideological views'
While many Latino voters do tend to support more permissive immigration laws – and favor some sort of comprehensive reform that includes a path to citizenship – University of Arizona professor Samara Klar says lawmakers shouldn't ignore the community's concerns about issues at the southern border.
"There is a great deal of concern among Latinos in Arizona about border security and about, you know, weapons coming across the border and drugs coming across the border, and even illegal immigration," said Klar, who spent years polling Arizona voters.
For example, the 2024 ballot in Arizona included a GOP-backed measure to give state and local law enforcement the authority to enforce federal immigration laws.
Many Democrats and Latino advocacy groups warned it would lead to racial profiling.
Yet Klar says more than half of Latino voters she spoke to ahead of the election supported the measure.
Klar says Arizona Latinos are no different than the state's broader electorate, which she describes as "a potpourri of ideological views" impossible to represent while also aligning oneself with one political party or another on every single issue.
Gallego's support of the Laken Riley Act is the natural extension of the candidate who voters backed last fall, Klar says.
"What Ruben Gallego did well in 2024 is he took seriously the issues that Arizonans were taking seriously," Klar said. "He, like Mark Kelly before him, these are Democrats who are not afraid to speak plainly about the U.S.-Mexico border issue."
"I think it's largely because they see the polling and they know that this is a concern for their constituents," she added.
Acosta says those views stand in contrast to a position staked out by many Latino organizations, from the Arizona capitol to the halls of Congress.
"It's, I think, a strong-held belief that giving any footing to anything that might be negatively impacting the community is gonna be the crack that breaks the dam, right?" he said. "And so from their perspective, I think it's more so hold the line."
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