Kevin Drum On Border Security: Progressive Extremism And Hispanic Attitudes

This is basically right:

Roughly speaking, I think Trump suckered Democrats into becoming extremists on border policy. It's fine for Democrats to oppose the wall—most Hispanics oppose it too—but progressives, goaded by Trump, have staked out a position that's often only a finger's width away from not having any border security at all. And that's something that most Hispanics don't support.
To put it simply, Hispanics are like the rest of us: They care about other people, but they care about themselves more. When it comes to immigrants who are already in the country, legally or not, they're in favor of giving them a road to citizenship. But they're not especially keen on allowing lots of new immigrants in who will compete with them for jobs and housing. Trump may be a buffoon, but at least some Hispanics have decided that they can put up with that if the alternative is risking a big increase in the rate of illegal immigration.
Added to that, of course, is the well-known fact that many Hispanics are fundamentally conservative to begin with: Family oriented, religious, against abortion, in favor of low taxes, opposed to defunding the police, etc. It's been common knowledge forever that Republicans could win a big share of the Hispanic vote if they'd just moderate their base, but it turns out there's another way: Get the Democrats to radicalize their base instead. It seems to have worked.

A few things: first, it was lefty radicalism/quasi-open-borders nonsense that prompted Trump's views. There are feedback effects there, of course. But let's get the order right. Second: I've been saying the same thing for maybe ten years (with lots of pushback from liberals and progs): if you adjust the Dems' views about the border to make them a bit more consistent, they're hard to distinguish from open borders. And: you just can't make sense of a lot of what they say without attributing to them a commitment to basically open borders. Conservatives, however, have a very above-board, sane position: Come on in legally--and welcome! But don't come in illegally. If you do, we'll kick you back out.