Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was wrangling votes for a massive budget bill Wednesday when House Democratic leaders gathered their caucus on the U.S. Capitol steps.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and other lawmakers denounced provisions in the bill that would leave 12 million people uninsured while handing tax breaks to the wealthy. They have attempted to adopt a tough posture against the sweeping legislation and rebrand it as “One Big, Ugly Bill.”

One big thrust of the bill wasn’t mentioned, however: the $170 billion that Republicans want to use on mass deportation and border walls.

After taking a drubbing in the November election, Democratic leaders in Congress have been notably quiet about the bill’s efforts to turbocharge Trump’s immigration crackdown. That has frustrated some rank-and-file Democrats and advocates for immigrants, who say that whatever polling advantage Republicans had on the issue is dwindling as fast as ICE raids multiply.

“The election made them nervous on immigration, and they haven’t quite recovered yet,” said an Democratic immigration activist and former congressional staffer, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about party leadership. “We need more polling and research to show them, frankly, because it’s becoming extremely unpopular.”

The photo op on the House steps had something in common with Jeffries’s statement last month about the passage of the House version of the budget, as well as a press conference that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave Tuesday about the Senate version.

None of them mentioned immigration.

The leaders’ offices did not respond to requests for comment, but some political observers think the reason for the silence is clear enough. Many consultants believe that Democrats lost in November because President Donald Trump successfully controlled the narrative by demonizing immigrants.

In other contexts, especially when members of their caucuses have been personally threatened, congressional Democratic leaders have taken opportunities to speak out about immigration, like when Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was handcuffed at a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, or when first-term Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-New Jersey, was arrested outside an ICE jail.

During the budget bill fight, however, party leadership has focused their messaging on massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act plans, and tax breaks for the uberwealthy.

From one perspective, the Democrats’ messaging appears to have worked. Polls show that the budget bill is generally unpopular with Americans.

Yet there are some Democrats who believe that party leaders have missed an opportunity.

“Have we talked about it enough? No. That’s the honest truth,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill. “Part of the problem we have had about immigration is we don’t know how to talk about it. This is not about what you think about the border. Do you stand up for humanity or not?”

The White House still seems to believe that it has an advantage on the issue, as evidenced by Vice President JD Vance’s claims on social media this week that Medicaid cuts are “immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.”

 

Yet while polls have shown that immigration is a relatively good issue for Trump, that edge began to evaporate as his administration ramped up its immigration crackdown this spring. The shift has come as masked immigration officers throw people to the ground in videotaped encounters and the administration locks up more day laborers, farm workers, and line cooks who don’t have criminal records.

One Democratic pollster told The Intercept that he believes leadership is simply focusing on the most unpopular components of the bill, rather than actively avoiding immigration.

“If I was advising the Democrats, I would say first and foremost talk about the Medicaid cuts, because they are so deep,” said Matt Barreto, who worked for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign last year and Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020.

Yet the issue is not as clear-cut of a win for Republicans as Vance seems to think it is, Barreto said.

“Yes, maybe he is attempting to pull the focus back to immigration, and if he does that, I think that’s problematic for the administration,” Barreto said. “Why do you think the hotel workers and owners are coming out and saying, ‘Please stop deporting our staff, our workers’?”

One immigration advocate said he understood why Democratic leaders have settled on their current message. Still, he said that even in the minority, Democratic members of Congress wield power to push back against the Trump administration by inspecting ICE facilities, speaking out for detained immigrants, and conducting oversight.

“It is understandable, the focus on other pieces in terms of Medicaid and these other issues that impact people across the board. But I will say, more generally, it is incredibly needed for members of Congress to be focused on what’s going on on immigration,” said Jesse Franzblau, the associate director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Hours after the caucuswide press conference Wednesday, a smaller group of progressive Democrats held a media event of their own, along with advocates, attempting to spotlight the bill’s immigration provisions.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents a border district in El Paso, Texas, said there were far too many Americans who did not realize that the bill would dedicate $45 billion toward “supercharging” an immigration detention system dominated by for-profit companies.

“It is such an abomination that I think not enough people know about,” she said.

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