WASHINGTON (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom looked straight into the camera and staked out a clear choice for his Democratic Party.
The governor positioned himself as not only a leader of the opposition to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, but a de facto champion of the immigrants now being rounded up in California and across the country. Many of them, he said in the video address, were not hardened criminals, but hard-working people scooped up at a Home Depot lot or a garment factory, and detained by masked agents assisted by National Guard troops.
It’s a politically charged position for the party to take, after watching voter discontent with illegal immigration fuel Trump's return to the White House. It leaves Democrats deciding how strongly to align with that message in the face of blistering criticism from Republicans who are pouring billions of dollars into supporting Trump’s strict immigration campaign.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Wednesday he's proud of Newsom, “he’s refusing to be intimidated by Donald Trump.”
From the streets of Los Angeles to the halls of Congress, the debate over Trump’s mass deportation agenda is forcing the U.S. to reckon with core values as a nation of immigrants, but also its long-standing practice of allowing migrants to live and work in the U.S. in a gray zone while not granting them full legal status. More than 11 million immigrants are in the U.S. without proper approval, with millions more having arrived with temporary protections.
As Trump’s administration promises to round up some 3,000 immigrants a day and deport 1 million a year, the political stakes are shifting in real time. The president rode to the White House with his promise of mass deportations — rally crowds echoed his campaign promise to “build the wall.” But Americans are watching as Trump deploys the National Guard and active U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, while pockets of demonstrations erupt in other cities nationwide, including after agents raided a meat processing plant in Omaha, Nebraska
Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, said the country’s mood appears to be somewhere between then-President Barack Obama’s assertion that America is “a nation of immigrants, we’re also a nation of laws” and Trump’s “more aggressive” deportation approach.
“Democrats still have some work to do to be consistently trustworthy messengers on the issue,” he said.
At the same time, he said, Trump’s actions as a “chaos agent” on immigration when there's already unrest over his trade wars and economic uncertainty, risk overreaching if the upheaval begins to sow havoc in the lives of Americans.
Republicans have been relentless in their attacks on Democrats, portraying the situation in Los Angeles, which has been largely confined to a small area downtown, in highly charged terms as “riots,” in a preview of campaign ads to come.
Police said more than 200 people were detained for failing to disperse on Tuesday, and 17 others for violating the 8 p.m. curfew over part of Los Angeles. Police arrested several more people for possessing a firearm, assaulting a police officer and other violations. Two people have been charged for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails toward police during LA protests.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Newsom should be “tarred and feathered” for his leadership in the state, which he called “a safe haven to violent criminal illegal aliens.”
At a private meeting of House Republicans this week with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the GOP’s campaign arm, framed the situation as Democrats supporting rioting and chaos while Republicans stand for law and order.
“Violent insurrectionists turned areas of Los Angeles into lawless hellscapes over the weekend,” wrote Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting it may be time to send in military troops.
“The American people elected Donald Trump and a Republican Congress to secure our border and deport violent illegal aliens. That’s exactly what the president is doing.”
But not all rank-and-file Republicans are on board with such a heavy-handed approach.
GOP Rep, David Valadao, who represents California's agriculture regions in the Central Valley, said on social media he remains “concerned about ongoing ICE operations throughout CA” and was urging the administration “to prioritize the removal of known criminals over the hardworking people who have lived peacefully in the Valley for years.”
Heading into the 2026 midterm election season, with control of the House and Senate at stake, it's a repeat of past political battles, as Congress has failed repeatedly to pass major immigration law changes.
The politics have shifted dramatically from the Obama era, when his administration took executive action to protect young immigrants known as Dreamers under the landmark Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Those days, lawmakers were considering proposals to beef up border security as part of a broader package that would also create legal pathways, including for citizenship, for immigrants who have lived in the country for years and paid taxes, some filling roles in jobs Americans won't always take.
With Trump’s return to the Oval Office, the debate has turned toward aggressively removing immigrants, including millions who were allowed to legally enter the U.S. during the Biden administration, as they await their immigration hearings and proceedings.
“This anniversary should be a reminder,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., at a Wednesday event at the U.S. Capitol championing DACA’s 13th year, even as protections are at risk under Trump’s administration. “Immigration has many faces.”
Despite their challenges in last year's election, Democrats feel more emboldened to resist Trump's actions than even just a few months ago, but the political conversation has nonetheless shifted in Trump's direction.
While Democrats are unified against Trump's big tax breaks bill, with its $150 billion for new detention facilities, deportation flights and 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, they talk more openly about beefing up border security and detaining the most dangerous criminal elements.
Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, points to the example of Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who won a special election in New York last year when he addressed potential changes to the immigration system head-on. At one point, he crashed a GOP opponent’s news conference with his own.
“Trump said he was going to go after the worst of the worst, but he has ignored the laws, ignored due process, ignored the courts — and the American people reject that,” she told The Associated Press.
“People want a president and a government that is going to fight for the issues that matter most to them, fight to move our country forward,” she said. “They want a Congress that is going to be a coequal branch of government and a check on this president.”
Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this story.
FILE - President Donald Trump talks with California Gov. Gavin Newsom after arriving on Air Force One at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
