Larry Hogan has made stopping illegal immigration a big part of his bid for the Maryland Senate in 2024. If you listen to Angela Alsobrooks, his opponent, you might not hear the word “immigration” at all.
Hogan is the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland. He was governor of the state twice. Since he won the primary election on May 14, Hogan has been very vocal about his desire to stop illegal immigration, which has gotten a lot worse under Biden’s administration.
An open southern border is a humanitarian disaster that hurts our neighborhoods and causes chaos across the country, Hogan’s campaign told The Center Square in a statement. “Politicians have used this issue for years as a way to win elections instead of solving the problem.” “Enough is enough.”
Hogan has talked about “the border crisis” on Twitter more than once, and he blames both parties for not doing anything about it. Hogan went to Texas in April to see the southern border of the United States with Mexico. This is something that Republican candidates all over the country do when they want to attack Democrats on this topic.
With a Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) score of D+14, Hogan is speaking from a conservative point of view on border security in a state that leans Democratic. A lot of people who are not legal in the U.S. live in Maryland. The American Immigration Council says that about 275,000 of them are family members of illegal immigrants.
While Hogan has talked a lot about border security and immigration, his opponent, Angela Alsobrooks, hasn’t said much about either. Instead, she has talked about abortion, gun violence, and climate change as the most important topics in public and on social media.
When Prince George’s County Executive Alsobrooks has talked about immigration, she has focused on how she has helped “undocumented” immigrants and worked to keep them from being deported.
Alsobrooks’ campaign website says, “Angela was a vocal advocate and pushed to pass legislation allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.” It also says that she worked to stop police officers from working with federal officials to deport nonviolent offenders.
Alsobrooks has promised to “fervently support” a way for foreigners who are in the U.S. illegally to become citizens. This is a policy that Democrats have long supported, but Republicans have called “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. The “American Dream and Promise Act,” a bill that grew legal for children brought to the U.S. illegally, is used as an example on her website. This bill was passed by the House of Representatives in the 117th Congress, which was led by Democrats.
Hogan and Alsobrooks have very different ideas about the border. This is because Republicans want to use illegal immigration as a major issue in their campaigns, especially to attack the Biden administration. On the other hand, Democrats have said that Republicans are trying to use the matter as a political football and aren’t interested in finding a solution.
In February, these disagreements reached a peak when Senate Republicans voted to kill a bill that Democrats said would have improved border security to stop people from crossing illegally. Democrats said that former President Donald Trump, who was the GOP candidate for president in 2024, was telling other Republicans what to do by criticizing the bill. Republicans said that the bill would have given Alejandro Mayorkas, who was secretary of homeland security and was impeached by Republicans in the House because of the border problem, even more freedom to make decisions about border policy.
“This bill is a great present for Democrats and a grim wish for the GOP.” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “It clears the Democrats of the terrible job they’ve done on immigration and the border and puts the whole thing on the Republicans.”
Speaker of the Senate Chuck Schumer brought the bill back to the floor of the Senate on Thursday, but it failed by a vote of 43 to 50.
Polls show that Alsobrooks is ahead of Hogan by an average of 0.6% right now. We asked her campaign for a response, but they didn’t answer.