RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.: Between the parties, Latinos choosing ‘none of the above’

With a sizable chunk of Latino voters still undecided just a few weeks before the midterm elections, President Joe Biden has again failed Immigration Policy 101.

Let me suggest that those two things are related.

A new Axios-Ipsos Latino poll, in partnership with Noticias Telemundo, found that almost 25 percent of Latino voters haven’t made up their minds about whom they’ll vote for on Nov. 8. Inflation and crime are the top concerns for Latinos in the survey, but immigration is not far behind, at No. 3.

That’s a big surprise. Immigration usually polls far down the list, at No. 6 or No. 7, behind concerns such as jobs, the economy, education, crime and health care.

On immigration, many Latinos see Republicans as the party that causes problems. But we don’t see Democrats as the solution. According to the poll, 30 percent of Latinos believe neither party is good on immigration.

We can call that the Joe Biden effect. The president has bent over backward to prove that he is not soft on the border. When he’s not busy adopting the policies of President Donald Trump — after promising to end them — Biden is concocting ways to make those policies worse.

Recently, the administration announced that many asylum-seeking Venezuelan migrants will be expelled back to Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security claims these people crossed the border “illegally,” but that’s rubbish. The entire process of seeking asylum is 100 percent legal. Moreover, the Venezuelans are being removed under Title 42, a section of the U.S. Code put there by the Public Health Service Act of 1944 to prevent the spread of communicable diseases in the United States by keeping out foreigners.

In 2020, Trump used Title 42 to exclude migrants from Latin America under the pretense of protecting Americans from the coronavirus. While running for president, Biden promised to end the practice. Instead, as president, he has continued it. Now, Biden is going full Trump by invoking the provision to expel a specific group of migrants simply to protect Democrats from voter dissatisfaction during an election year.

It’s no wonder that, just a few weeks ago, the Pew Research Center found that more than half — 54 percent — of Latino voters disapprove of the job that Biden has done as president, while only 45 percent approve.

Yet, Latinos also disapprove of those Republican governors who toyed with desperate people when they bused migrants to other states, or to Washington, D.C., in a cruel publicity stunt.

In the Axios-Ipsos poll, 57 percent of Latinos said they opposed what the governors did.

The Latino vote — to the degree that there is any such thing — is complicated and steeped in nuance. The parties can salivate over it all they want, but they’ll probably never understand it.

For instance, while Latinos identify as Democrats over Republicans by nearly 2-to-1, those are often conservative Democrats. Many Latinos are now fleeing the Democratic Party after decades of being neglected, forgotten and taken for granted.

Yet, at the same time, Latinos are reluctant to embrace the Republican Party, which has baked into its brand a reflex to bash immigrants — most of whom are Latino. The Latinos I speak to every day don’t agree with GOP nativists that there is an “invasion” along the U.S.-Mexico border; rather, they think the country owes Latino immigrants a hearty “gracias” for doing jobs that Americans won’t do, from tarring roofs to picking peaches to working in slaughterhouses.

The Axios-Ipsos poll had another finding: Latinos are in the center of America’s political spectrum.

“Latino voters tend to be moderate,” Axios race and justice reporter Russell Contreras said on the podcast “Axios Today.” “Whether you’re talking about Mexican American voters in Texas or even some Latino voters in Florida, they’re a little bit more moderate than the major parties.”

Based in his native New Mexico, Contreras is a longtime friend and one of the best Latino journalists in the country. When he talks, I listen.

He says the parties could learn a lot from getting out of their bubbles and interacting directly with Latinos — even if some of those lessons are hard to take.

“If you engage with them … if you’re not just going out saying, ‘Go out and vote for my candidate,’ if you actually listen to them, you’re going to come up with a different worldview that may conflict with your current agenda,” Contreras said.

That’s right on the money. Here’s to both political parties seeing the world differently.

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, “Navarrette Nation,” is available through every podcast app.