On a recent cloudy Saturday in a constituent's manicured backyard, Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) spoke to several dozen supporters about his efforts to bring more sand to local beaches, reduce the lack of housing veterans and preventing gun violence.
In the crowd, Peggy Aveni whispered to her friend: “What about immigration?” When Levin began to answer questions, she immediately raised her hand.
“I am concerned about the issue of immigration,” Aveni told him. “I know Republicans have tried to stop anything from happening. So, will something happen before the elections?
With immigration at the center of the presidential election, the US-Mexico border has become an increasingly important political issue in the presidential election. In California, where the San Diego region is now one of the top destinations for arriving immigrants, a handful of competitive House races could help determine control of Congress.
A handful of California Republicans appear vulnerable in the November elections, including Reps. David Valadao of Hanford and Ken Calvert of Corona, and their defeat could help Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives.
But there are also Democrats – including Levin – who are clinging to their seats.
“Right now, the border is the number one issue affecting this district,” said Levin's Republican opponent, retired businessman Matt Gunderson. “The San Diego County line has become the epicenter of border crossings. Until we secure the border, all our other issues, in terms of public safety, public health and inflation, will fall by the wayside.”
Immigration is becoming a priority for Levin, whose maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Mexico with parents who had work permits.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Levin, an environmental attorney who has served in the 49th Congressional District since 2019, represents most of coastal northern San Diego County and parts of southern Orange County. His top priorities are fighting climate change, supporting veterans and protecting democracy, although immigration has been rising higher and higher on his list.
At the Encinitas campaign event, he told the crowd that the asylum system is broken. It has become easier for people to pay thousands of dollars to a cartel or get step-by-step instructions on social media than to enter through a legal route, he said.
He reminded them that Republicans, heeding former President Trump's demands, killed a bipartisan border security bill after months of negotiations. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and the conservative media have used the politically divisive issue of immigration as a cudgel to attack President Biden.
“We have a genuine crisis,” Levin said. “It's not necessarily what Fox News pretends to be. But it is unacceptable. It is unsustainable.”
Aveni, 70, who is an independent voter, said he supports Levin, but found his answer to his question evasive. She said she supports legal immigration.
“My friends in general, even the most liberal ones, understand that this is a big problem for Southern California,” he said. “I want something done, and it's a shame it took the Biden administration three years to get it done.”
In an interview after the event, Levin said his grandparents on his mother's side emigrated from Mexico with his parents, who had work permits. He said his experience might not have been possible today.
Republican Matt Gunderson, who is challenging Levin, says that until the border is secured, “all of our other issues, in terms of public safety, public health and inflation, will fall by the wayside.”
(Gunderson Campaign)
Levin said he wants to expand legal pathways to citizenship, particularly for so-called Dreamers and others who have lived in the United States for decades.
The failed border security deal marked the first time that a majority of Democrats supported immigration legislation that did not include a legalization component. Still, he said, it was a good-faith negotiation that included necessary funding for more border agents, asylum officers and immigration judges.
“It is true that it is a political issue,” he said, but “it is genuinely a national security concern that must be treated as such. To me, that prioritizes ranking it on the spectrum of the whole range of other things that voters might care about.”
At the White House three days after their meeting, Levin stood close to Biden, right behind Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, as the president announced his executive order limiting asylum at the border. The order raises the legal standard for asylum claims and blocks access for those who cross outside legal entry points. when their number averages more than 2,500 per day.
Asked how he felt about Biden relying on the same legal provision that Trump used to ban people from several Muslim-majority countries, Levin said he hopes Biden is using it “for very different purposes.” Historical arrival figures in recent years, he said, show that change is necessary.
But Gunderson, Levin's Republican rival, said the president's order came too late. The former car dealership owner, who ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2022, focused his campaign largely on affordability for the middle class.
The Biden administration dismantled Trump's border policies only to “creep back” as the election approached, Gunderson said.
“No recent 'come to Jesus' perspective is going to change what they've done for the last three and a half years,” he said.
Immigration is also influencing other California elections. In District 45, Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of Seal Beach faces Democratic challenger Derek Tran, an Army veteran and Orange County business owner whose parents were Vietnamese political refugees.
Recently, Tran faced criticism from Asian American community leaders for telling Punchbowl News that Steel “tries to keep saying she's a refugee,” even though she “came to this country for financial gain.” Her family fled communist North Korea for Seoul before she moved to the United States to attend college.
For his part, Steel has criticized Democrats for their handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, saying his constituents had arrived legally.
And in District 41, Calvert, the longest-serving Republican member of California's congressional delegation, faces Democrat Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor who helped prosecute the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
A redrawing of congressional maps split the once solidly Republican district in Riverside County. Although both candidates have advocated for securing the southern border, Rollins also supports a path to citizenship for certain immigrants and says those who arrive at the border should be treated humanely.
Dave Wasserman, senior editor and election analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said that while immigration has been one of Biden's weakest issues in approval polls, “polling Democrats have had some success in establishing independence of the White House on this issue.”
The problem has become a lightning rod in districts and states not only along the border, but also in suburbs further north because of the pressure the newcomers have placed on municipal budgets, Wasserman said. He pointed to Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who criticized the administration for being slow to respond to the issue, while criticizing Trump and Republicans for sabotaging the bipartisan compromise.
“Overall, undecided voters support narrowing the border or going further than Biden and Democrats have gone in the last three years,” Wasserman said. “While in 2016 the focus was on Trump's rhetoric about immigrants and immigration in a way that polarized Hispanic voters against him, now the focus has been on the humanitarian crisis stemming from a record number of crossings. “illegal.”
