Mike Madrid

President Joe Biden’s recent executive actions on asylum and other border-security issues mark more than a shift to a more restrictive immigration policy. They’re also a rejection of the narrative that progressive advocacy groups and Latino Democrats have been pushing for years: that the best way to woo voters in the nation’s largest ethnic minority is to push for a permissive immigration system.

For 30 years, political consultants have been predicting that in the next presidential election, a growing Latino electorate in the United States will finally awaken, sway the outcome, and usher in a new era of Latino political power.And for 30 years, they have been wrong. The 2020 election may prove no different. Again and again, political analysts have underestimated the diversity among American Latinos. Key segments of the community—specifically Cubans and younger U.S.