The Washington Post‘s Aaron Blake points to a Siena College poll released Monday which shows a majority of New York Democrats now sound a lot like GOP “immigration hawks.”

• 75 percent of New York Democrats said the recent influx of migrants to the state was at least a “somewhat serious” problem. Nearly half (47 percent) said it was a “very serious” problem.
• 53 percent of New York Democrats agreed with the statement that “New Yorkers have already done enough for new migrants and should now work to slow the flow of migrants to New York.”

Perhaps most strikingly, 35% say the influx of migrants over the past 20 years has been a “burden” on the state while only slightly more (37%) say it was a ” benefit.” Again, that’s not a poll of all New Yorkers which would include a bunch of more conservative people up north. This is a poll of New York Democrats.

Blake points out two more polls which show the party advantage on the issue of immigration has shifted dramatically since Donald Trump was in office. For instance, construction of the border wall was a minority issue during Trump’s term but now it’s got majority support.

Although the percentage of those supporting the building of the wall was mired in the 30s for much of Trump’s presidency, recent polls show it suddenly hitting majority support — 52-44 in the Quinnipiac poll and 57-40 in the Fox poll (including 27 percent of Democrats).

A Quinnipiac poll in early 2021 showed a majority of Americans approved of Biden halting construction of the wall. Quinnipiac’s polling during the Trump administration showed 6 in 10 Americans doubted the border wall actually would reduce crime or the flow of illegal drugs. Yet both polls suddenly find more support for the wall than at any point since at least the 2016 campaign.

What all of this adds up to is the biggest advantage for the GOP on immigration that the party has seen in 20 years.

Voters overwhelmingly say they trust Republicans to do a better job than Democrats dealing with border security, crime, the economy and immigration, a new national NBC News poll finds…

“On this survey after 20 or 30 years, Republicans dealing with the economy [versus Democrats], immigration and crime are all at their all-time highs,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted the poll alongside Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt and his team at Hart Research.

Last month Gallup also found the GOP had an edge on all of the issues people said were the most important, including immigration:

The recent poll also finds the Republican Party leading the Democrats as the party more Americans choose as better able to handle whatever problem they name as the most important facing the country. Forty-four percent say the Republican Party is better, while 36% name the Democratic Party and the rest say the parties are the same or have no preference. This is at a time when the economy, government/poor leadership and immigration lead Americans’ open-ended responses when asked to name the most important problem facing the country.

Democrats were able to capitalize on this issue during the Trump administration. Opposition to the border wall, family separation and other policies had leftists like AOC accusing the administration of running concentration camps along the border and keeping kids in cages. Here we are just a few years later and the immigration situation is undeniably worse but AOC has endorsed Biden and her criticism of the crisis is far more muted.

Meanwhile, the Democrats in charge of these blue cities, all of whom used to promote their cities as sanctuary cities, are now begging for relief. Democrats’ pro-immigration push was a bit too successful and now they are stuck having to defend the outcome. But ultimately there’s no solution to this problem that doesn’t involve trying to verbally and publicly discourage the tens of thousands of migrants who are arriving every week. Joe Biden himself is the person who needs to make this happen. Until he does, it’ll continue like this.

It’s a total free for all in Eagle Pass right now. Mass illegal crossing taking place for over an hour and a half. Almost 2 years to the day we saw 15,000+ Haitians under the bridge in Del Rio, we now have thousands of predominantly Venezuelans gathering under Eagle Pass bridge. pic.twitter.com/VkfUQnexGZ

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 20, 2023