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I need you badly, Mr. Biden told Hispanic voters last month at Phoenix. Given the opportunity to reach them, he showed the Univision anchor, Enrique Acevedo, a bust of farm union organizer Cesar Chavez. The president discussed the impact of his activism and noted that his granddaughter, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, is his reelection campaign manager.

Mr. Biden told Univision he sympathized with those entering America because they have no alternatives. Chavez, a third-generation American and Navy veteran, took a harder line on those who broke the law one that demonstrates the folly of painting the entire Latino voting block as backing unlimited migration.

In an excerpt of a 1974 interview unearthed by Fish Films Footage World, Chavez explained his opposition to unvetted people entering the country. His reasoning echoed another famed labor leader, Samuel Gompers, who was one of the loudest voices for The Immigration Act of 1924 which capped entry at two percent of each foreign countrys population.

Illegal border crossers, Chavez said, were an emergency with an awful lot of illegals coming in by the hundreds, by the thousands. He lamented that some of the schools are 100 percent illegals, and the citizen is out of a job because of he wetback, a slur now considered offensive.

As Mr. Trump does today, Chavez blamed the federal government for the unbelievable influx that, he reckoned, harmed unions and depressed wages. Was it an uncomfortable position to be against the illegal immigrants because they are from Mexico, the unidentified interviewer asked.

Oh, yeah, sure, Chavez replied. But were speaking of the legal ones. You know, we dont want Mexico to export its poverty to us, and then we pay. He noted that a lot of the farmworkers he represented were of Mexican descent themselves.

Those members of the United Farm Workers, Chavez said, were very uptight and very, very worried and very mad about the illegals coming to break their strikes and take away their jobs, their livelihood and so forth. Members, like their leader, saw this question of illegals is as important as any of the other problems facing the union.

In a letter to the San Francisco Examiner in 1974, Chavez opposed deporting the undocumented, but welcomed them to be admitted as legal residents. But around this time, he launched the Illegals Campaign, spending $80,000 a week on 300 people to patrol the border. Accounts found some of the vigilantes beating and robbing migrants despite Chavezs embrace of nonviolence.

Last week, an Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll found that numbers of Hispanic voters are as nuanced as Chavezs. Some 64 percent supported giving a president the authority to shut down the border if there are too many migrants trying to enter. Asked which candidate is good on immigration, Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden 29 to 22 percent.

Forty-two percent backed Mr. Trumps signature issue, a barrier with Mexico, while 38 percent would send all undocumented immigrants back home. Overall, Mr. Biden was viewed more favorably, 41 to 32 percent, but the pathway to expanding that lead isnt a straight run through an open border policy.

Last months New York Times/Siena College poll found that Hispanic voters favor Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden 46 percent to 40 percent. Its a stark change from 2020, when the Democrat more than doubled the then-incumbent Republicans share, 66 percent to 32 percent.

The reversal has shocked the White House. It assumed that Mr. Trumps hard line against illegal immigration would make him radioactive to Americans of Hispanic descent, as if the same issues crime, housing, and competition for jobs dont impact them as they do other citizens.

Mr. Biden has won the endorsement of Chavezs family, but on the issue of illegal crossings, Mr. Trump can lay claim to a portion of the labor leaders legacy, too. Dont be surprised if his bust keeps its place of honor in the Oval Office whoever is in the Oval Office next year.

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Biden Claims the Mantle of Cesar Chavez, While Ignoring the Labor Leader's Opposition to Illegal Immigration - The New York Sun