MATTHEW YGLESIAS, MEET CAROL HUI

Matthew Yglesias believes that it's a mistake for Democrats to talk about immigration. G. Elliott Morris, the liberal poll nerd who ran FiveThirtyEight after Nate Silver's departure, disagrees. Yglesias made his case at the left-centrist Welcomefest yesterday. Morris quotes from Yglesias's speech:

I was talking to people who said, "You know, everybody knows that immigration is kinda Trump's strongest issue, why do you have so many people making bad press on this?" Well, you know, these guys are from safe seats, you know, so they do it, and people like it.

Morris writes:

When Yglesias delivered the quote above, he showed on screen a clipping of a PBS headline that read "More Democratic lawmakers visit El Salvador to see Abrego Garcia." The story is about four U.S. House Democrats who traveled to the country to try to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland dad wrongly deported to El Salvador in violation of a U.S. court order in April.

(The phrase "bad groups" in Yglesias's image refers to left-leaning activist organizations, whom left-centrists call "the Groups" -- a disparaging term because left-centrists believe that "the Groups" push Democrats too far left for the public's taste.)

Morris continues:

The claim Yglesias is making is that focusing on — or, to use his words, "raising the salience of" — immigration shifts public opinion (both on this issue and in general) toward Republicans. And in particular, he is arguing that Democrats "making headlines" about Kilmar Abrego Garcia hurt the party.

But as Morris notes, when some Democrats were talking about Abrego Garcia, Trump's poll numbers on immigration went down:

Morris says,

Trump's approval rating on immigration fell precipitously the day after media attention to the Abrego Garcia case peaked, on April 20. Then, as that attention fell, Trump's approval rating recovered.

I'd put it this way: Democrats in Congress were urged by party leaders to stop making an issue of Abrego Garcia and other detainees who've been renditioned and incarcerated without due process, and have largely backed away from the issue, and -- who could have foreseen this? -- Trump's immigration numbers have risen again.

There are two lessons to be learned from this. Here's one of them, from a Morris post on this subject written when Trump's immigration numbers were dropping:

Public opinion can change based on new information and engagement from party leaders! Trump's approval on immigration policy in general has fallen from about +10 last month to +5 today.

The other lesson is this: For many Americans, anecdotes are more important than data. Anecdotes are how millions of Americans form opinions.

Republicans know this. That's why they personalize issues whenever possible. Trans women in sports? Here's Riley Gaines, who was beaten tied (for fifth) with a trans swimmer in a collegiate match and has not only turned the outcome of that match into a career (speaking fee: $20,000 to $30,000) but has apparently made being a victim of the alleged trans menace her entire personality.

On the subject of immigration, Republicans have, among others, Laken Riley, who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant. She's talked about on Fox News incessantly; Republicans named a bill after her and got it through Congress. To millions of Americans, she's the reason that it's good to crack down on immigration.

But Americans -- even Trump voters -- have a different response when they think about immigrants who just want to work and live quiet lives. Yesterday, an immigrant named Carol Hui was released, to the great relief of her neighbors in Kennett, Missouri, a town Trump won in a landslide. Until her arrest, Hui worked as a waitress there.

The staff of John’s Waffle and Pancake House was elated. The diner, a morning mainstay in Kennett, rallied the community to bring attention to her story. Her co-workers organized a “Carol Day” fund-raiser, put petitions to free her on every table and swapped out the servers’ shirts with black-and-yellow T-shirts that read, “Bring Carol Home.”

... The public outrage and backlash to Ms. Hui’s arrest was remarkable in a town like Kennett, the seat of a rural county where 80 percent of voters supported Mr. Trump last November, and where many voters said they had supported his promises of mass deportations.

Or maybe the public outrage and backlash aren't so remarkable, because this keeps happening. It happened in Sackets Harbor, New York:

Three students will return to Sackets Harbor Central School after their community in northern New York called for authorities to release the family, arrested by federal agents in late March.

When the three children come back to Sackets Harbor Central School, they'll find signs and decorations celebrating their return — and the end of an ordeal that started in late March.

... Hundreds of people — kids, parents, teachers and neighbors — have called for federal authorities to bring the students and their mother back. And now, their call has been heeded.

... The children and their mother weren't charged with a crime; they were swept up during an operation to arrest a South African man accused of using his cell phone to share child pornography.

... local officials led calls to bring the family back home.

...The town is part of New York's 24th congressional district — rated by the Cook Partisan Voting Index as the most reliably Republican district in the state.

Near Tampa, Florida, community members rallied around a detained pastor named Maurilio Ambrocio. Among Ambrocio's supporters is his next-door neighbor, Greg Johns:

His eyes water as he recalls when Hurricane Milton hit last year. Ambrocio checked in on him immediately. “Do you need propane?” he asked. “Do you need water? What do you need? That’s the type of neighbor [he is]. This man is a part of the neighborhood.” Like many in this small rural community, Johns voted for President Trump last November. In fact, he did so at Ambrocio’s church, which doubles as a polling station. “I did.” He hesitates. “Because I was not happy with the direction the country was going.” He says he was hoping migrants in the country without papers and with criminal records would be targeted. But he says he never expected a pillar of the community like Maurilio Ambrocio would be taken away.

Why shouldn't Democrats talk about these people -- and then expand from the specific to the general, perhaps citing the Washington Examiner story in which ICE officials say that Stephen Miller explicitly told them to prioritize arrests of working immigrants over arrests of crimninals?

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'” the official recited.

One of the [ICE] officials in attendance stood up and stated that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House had publicly messaged about targeting criminal illegal immigrants, and therefore, ICE was targeting them, and not the general illegal immigration population.

“Miller said, ‘What do you mean you’re going after criminals?’ ..."

As for detainees who have been accused of being criminals with little or no evidence presented, Democrats could ask, "If these people are criminals, where are guns? Where are the drugs? Where's the money?" (I say this as a lifelong city dweller who's seen dozens of news stories about cops breaking up criminal gangs. There's invariably a press conference where the cops, and maybe the mayor, display seized guns, piles of cash, and bricks of heroin. Where are those stories now? Did Miller's agents find any guns or drugs when they arrested Abrego Garcia, or Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay makeup artist detained in March? If so, can we see the contraband?)

Yes, talk about this. Make it personal. Make it vivid. Question Trump's honesty. Ask why so many decent, hardworking immigrants are being rounded up. On immigration, public opinion is not firmly on Trump's side.

UPDATE: Riley Gaines story corrected.