Editorial Board
Democratic Candidates Need to Get Real on Immigration
Reversing Trump’s mistakes isn’t enough. The 2020 contenders need to explain how they’d fix a broken system.
Yes, but then what?
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Nearly every Democratic presidential candidate has fulsomely blasted President Donald Trump’s policies toward asylum-seekers. They’ve also pledged to provide a path to citizenship for the Dreamers — the 700,000 or so undocumented youths currently protected from deportation — and the larger undocumented population of 11 million.
What most of them haven’t done, however, is explain how they plan to fix an immigration system badly in need of reform. As the 2020 campaign intensifies, this should become an urgent priority.