WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 President Joe Biden had a question.
鈥淚s it true?鈥 Biden asked Sen. Alex Padilla, referencing the roughly 25% of U.S. students in kindergarten through high school who are Latino. Padilla said the question came as he was waiting with the president in a back room at a library in Culver City, California before an event in February.
It was exactly the kind of opening Padilla was hoping to get with the Democratic president. Biden was weighing his reelection campaign, and what to do about a southern border that has been marked by during his tenure.
Padilla wanted to make sure Biden also took into account the . 鈥淢r. President, do you know what I call them, those students?" Padilla recalled saying. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the workforce of tomorrow.鈥
It was just one of the many times Padilla, who at 52 years old is now the , has taken the opportunity 鈥 from face-to-face moments with the president to regular calls with top White House staff and sometimes outspoken criticism 鈥 to put his stamp on the Democratic Party's approach to immigration.
The son of Mexican immigrants and first Latino to represent his state in the Senate, Padilla has emerged as a persistent force at a time when Democrats are increasingly focused on border security and the country's posture toward immigrants is uncertain.
Illegal immigration is seen as a after authorities both at the border and in cities nationwide have struggled to handle recent surges. The party may also be losing favor with Hispanic voters amid disenchantment with Biden. But Padilla, in a series of interviews with The Associated Press, expressed a deep reserve of optimism about his party's ability to win support both from and for immigrant communities.
鈥淒on鈥檛 be afraid, don鈥檛 be reluctant to talk about immigration. Lean into it,鈥 Padilla said. 鈥淏ecause number one, it鈥檚 the morally right thing to do. Number two, it is key to the strength, the security and the future of our country.鈥
The senator has tried to anchor his fellow Democrats to that stance even as the politics of immigration grow increasingly toxic. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has said immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally are and accused Biden of allowing a 鈥渂loodbath鈥 at the southern border. Biden, meanwhile, has at times in both the policies and language he is willing to use as illegal border crossings become a vulnerability for his reelection bid.
Such was the case when Biden, during his State of the Union address, entered into an unscripted exchange with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia, and referred to a Venezuelan man accused of killing a nursing student in Georgia as an .
After the speech, Padilla discussed the moment with Rep. Tony C谩rdenas in the apartment they share in Washington. C谩rdenas said their conversation turned to how they wanted politicians to avoid labeling migrants as 鈥渋llegals鈥 because it deprived them of dignity.
Padilla told him he would call the White House.
鈥淗e鈥檚 is the kind of person who steps in and steps up, and, you know, he鈥檚 tactical about it,鈥 C谩rdenas said.
It's a difficult role to play, especially as Democrats try to shore up what鈥檚 seen as a weakness on border security in the battleground states that will determine control of the White House and Congress.
Even in California, Republicans have been emboldened on immigration as they try to reassert statewide relevance, said Mark Meuser, a lawyer who lost elections against Padilla for the Senate in 2022 and California Secretary of State in 2018. He argued top California Democrats like Padilla 鈥渁re driving hard towards the extreme edges of their party.鈥
Padilla has urged the president and fellow Democrats to hold firm to the position that border enforcement measures be paired with reforms for immigrants who are already in the country.
During Senate negotiations earlier this year over border policy, Padilla asserted himself as the from the left.
Padilla, along with four other Democratic-aligned senators, eventually , ensuring its failure as Republicans also rejected it.
鈥淗e is a lone voice but it is a courageous voice in the Senate,鈥 said Vanessa Cardenas, who leads the immigration advocacy organization America's Voice.
It鈥檚 been a quick ascent for Padilla, who is just beginning his fourth year in Congress. Yet for Padilla, it's the very reason he entered politics in the first place.
When he graduated in 1994 with an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was a dream fulfilled for his parents 鈥 his father a short order cook and his mother a house cleaner. But he was soon drawn into politics as the state鈥檚 attention turned to Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot measure that was approved to deny education, health care and other non-emergency services to immigrants who entered the country illegally.
It was branded by supporters as the Save Our State Initiative. Padilla still remembers the ads for the campaign.
鈥淭rying to try to blame a downward economy on the hardest working people that I know was offensive and an outrage,鈥 he said.
Now he sees parallels between California in the 1990s, which approved the ballot measure but then had it invalidated in federal court, and the wider country today: changing demographics, economic uncertainty and political opportunists 鈥渟capegoating鈥 immigrants.
Yet it also spurred the state鈥檚 Latinos to get involved politically. To Padilla, there's no coincidence that California, the state with the most immigrants, now boasts the nation's largest economy and is a stronghold for Democrats.
