Alabama Republican congressional candidate Caroleene Dobson visited San Elizario, Texas, on Thursday to raise concerns over the Biden Administration’s U.S.-Mexican border policies in a move that her Democratic opponent called a photo opportunity.

The visit, panned by Democratic opponent Shomari Figures, also put the spotlight on an issue that has polled well for Republicans nationally, but also has raised a question in the high stakes 2nd congressional contest on Nov. 5: Does immigration, as a policy priority, matter much to voters in a mostly rural and majority Black congressional district in southern Alabama?

Dobson said it’s an important policy that is directly related to all other matters of importance among voters in the 2nd district — health care, the economy, education and more. Figures, a former Biden and Obama official from Mobile, told AL.com on Thursday that it does not a top concern among voters within the district.

“I’ve traveled around this district for a year now and I’ve had thousands and thousands of conversations, and I can tell you that when I ask what their biggest concerns are facing their communities, I have literally heard zero times anyone say that immigration is the biggest concern,” Figures said. “Health care, absolutely. Safer communities, definitely. Education, jobs, and economic activity. But immigration? Literally, not a single one.”

Said Dobson, “If we secure our border and address illegal immigration, we can take a large step toward resolving all of the issues Shomari Figures mentions. If he cannot understand that simple connection, then he has no business serving in the U.S. Congress.”

Immigration warning

Dobson traveled about 1,200 miles to the west to visit the border city south of El Paso with Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is seeking re-election against a Democratic opponent in his district in a race considered safe for the GOP. Dobson, on Friday, then blasted Figures during an interview Friday on Fox & Friends for overlooking the border concerns that she said resonates in the 2nd district.

Dobson, an attorney from Montgomery who grew up in Monroe County, said Figures doesn’t understand that all the issues he highlighted as policy priorities “are all directly related to the border.”

She said that undocumented immigrants “fill our emergency rooms and classrooms without paying taxes or contributing to the costs. They take jobs that men and women in Alabama who need jobs should fill.”

Dobson also mentioned Antonio Rodas, the suspected drunk driver in a fatal April 28 crash that killed 19-year-old Adam Luker in Semmes. Rodas was driving 88 mph and going the wrong way at the time of the crash. He then attempted to flee to South America before he was arrested and held in jail without bond.

“These situations are terrifying,” Dobson said during the Fox & Friends interview. “We’ve felt the impacts in Alabama’s 2nd congressional district.”

Debating priorities

Figures said that Dobson is out-of-touch with the voters in the 2nd district, who are struggling with health care options due to a lack of expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, among other things.

He also said that Dobson’s visit to the border was nothing more than a photo opportunity.

“We need to allow (border patrol) to defend the border and secure the border and make sure what is coming across is not illicit and illegal weapons and drugs and let them do their jobs absent someone wanting to go down to take pictures,” Figures said.

Figures said that Dobson’s background is in Texas, where she graduated from Baylor University and practiced law in San Antonio.

“She only moved here a few years ago from Texas,” said Figures. “She knows what Texas looks like. This is literally a photo op. It’s not helpful to anything. Alabama is not a border state. If she wants to go to the border, then go to the border of Monroe and Conecuh counties and see the (lack of health care access) and where women can deliver a baby. Those are the borders we are concerned about. It’s about how many county borders do (the residents in District 2) have to cross to get to a hospital.”

Figures said he has been at the border in his prior capacities working in Washington, D.C. He said he helped draft legislation to get more drug intervention devices to safely scan drug packages without having border control agents encounter suspected fentanyl.

“We have been to the border to try and help,” Figures said, adding about Dobson, “and not going down there with a camera to say, ‘look at me trying to keep these brown people out of the country.’”

Dobson, during her Fox & Friends appearance, said she isn’t surprised Figures was “denying this is a problem. He was part of Biden’s transition team and helped put in policies that endangered our citizens.”

“Talk to city officials, business leaders,” Dobson said. “We are all concerned with the impacts of the open border policies.”

Partisan split

Some political scientists say Dobson’s focus on immigration isn’t a surprise given how the issue has polled well for Republicans in an almost exact opposite manner as how reproductive rights and abortion control are polling well for the Democrats heading into November.

A Gallup poll in July showed that 55% of Americans want immigration into the U.S. reduced, the highest percentage since 2001.

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“I do think immigration is probably the best issue Republicans have, so it won’t hurt Dobson to do this, but since Alabama is not a border state, I am not confident it’s going to move the needle much, especially in that district,” said Regina Wagner, a political science professor at the University of Alabama.

A Pew Research poll in early June showed a partisan split over the issue before Vice President Kamala Harris took over the top of the Democratic ticket. Roughly six-in-10 voters who support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump say there should be a national effort to deport undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., while just 11% of Biden supporters backed this view.

By contrast, 85% of Biden supporters say undocumented immigrants should be eligible to stay legally if certain requirements are met, including 56% who say this should include a path toward applying for citizenship. Only about a third (32%) of Trump supporters held a similar view, with only 15% saying there should be a way for them to apply for citizenship.

The partisan split was on display during both party nominating conventions. At the GOP convention in Milwaukee, attendees waved signs that said, “Mass Deportations Now” as Republican speakers warned how undocumented immigrants were stealing votes and jobs. At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, immigration and border control were much lower among the party’s priorities.

Statistics show a recent decline in illegal border crossings, reaching a 3-year low in June, according to a CBS report. The amount of drugs seized at the border are also dropping this year compared to the prior three fiscal years ending in September, according to U.S. Customs and Border Control records. Fentanyl seizures are also on the decline compared to a year ago, according to records.

Richard Ledet, the interim chair of the political science department at Troy University, agrees with Wagner that there is no harm for Dobson to visit the border and highlighting an issue that the GOP feels they are strongest on compared to Democrats “mainly due to the rhetoric and messaging they’ve crafted for years now.”

“The border issue certainly is something the GOP wants to focus on, even if their district is nowhere near a border,” Ledet said. “In part, this is a result of the nationalization of elections. It’s simply too easy for many voters, largely due to their own personal media consumption habits, to focus attention on a national level ‘spectacle’ instead of trying to figure out how to work together to solve problems closer to home.”

School trends

Jonathan Gray, a Republican Party consultant based in Mobile, said border concerns represent a “comprehensive platform” backed by Dobson and that the issue “is an issue in every district” due to the federal funding that goes into addressing it.

“The lack of federal money to invest into rural development and job retraining is the direct result of the money they are redirecting in the federal budget to spend at the border,” Gray said.

Gray, who is also involved with the Baldwin County School System, also noted that south Alabama schools are seeing a rise in the number of English Language learners – or those with limited English proficiency – in the public schools.

Those numbers, overall, remain fairly low in comparison to the overall student body in two of the largest school districts in the 2nd district.

Still, the overall number of English Language learners is rising in recent years.

According to the federal report card, Mobile County – the state’s largest school system – had 2,041 students with limited English proficiency in 2023, or 4% of the district’s total enrollment of 50,636 students that year. Of those 2,041 students, 1,428 or 70% were classified as Hispanic/Latino.

Those numbers represented an increase from 2019, when 1,414 students spoke limited English – only 2.6% of the district’s total. And of those, only 809 or 57% were Hispanic/Latino.

Similar statistics exist at Montgomery County Schools. In 2023, 2,573 or 9.8% of the county school district’s 26,242 students had limited English proficiency. Of those, 2,101 or 82% were Hispanic/Latino.

In 2019, the 1,815 or 6.3% of the student body had limited English proficiency. Of those, 1,454 or 80% were Hispanic/Latino.

Migration stagnation

Alabama, in general, is not considered a hot bed for undocumented immigration compared to other states.

In fact, the state almost lost one of its congressional seats last year due, in part, to a lack of domestic and international migration into the State of Alabama between 2010 and 2020.

The state, based on Census figures, faced the prospects of losing one of its seven congressional districts on the following: It had the nation’s second-highest death rate behind West Virginia and was one of five states attracting less than one foreign immigrant for every 1,000 residents. Other states, like Texas and Florida, saw a surge of immigration.

Since 2020, Alabama continues to lag toward the bottom of states in the rate of international migrants moving into the state.

Redistricting that occurred after the Census count ended up in federal court and upended the congressional districts in South Alabama. The U.S. Supreme Court unexpectedly ruled last June in Allen v. Milligan that Alabama’s Republican-drawn congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, setting in motion a redrawn map that has led to the Dobson-Figures clash.

The federal courts, with the backing of the U.S. Supreme Court, endorsed the creation of a second majority-minority district in the 2nd district. The other majority Black district is Alabama’s 7th congressional district represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell of Birmingham.

The 2nd district had been represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Barry Moore of Enterprise. But his hometown was redrawn into the 1st congressional district, and he decided to run against fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl during the March 5 GOP primary. Moore defeated Carl and is expected to easily win on Nov. 5, in a congressional district that is considered among the most conservative in the nation.

But all eyes are on the 2nd district, where Dobson and Figures are battling it out in a rare contested General Election for a congressional seat in Alabama with a lot at stake: Republicans hold a narrow majority in the U.S. House heading into the Nov. 5 election.