ST. LOUIS, Missouri — Hundreds of Democratic party officials from all over the country converged on St. Louis for the annual DNC Fall meetings on Thursday, organizing their campaign strategies and testing their messages ahead of the upcoming presidential election year.
While Democrats in the room declared unwavering support for President Joe Biden's re-election campaign, the president was undertaking a drastic policy reversal on his stance over immigration and border security. Biden's administration reversed his 2020 campaign position and began border wall construction in south Texas along the border with Mexico.
The president's flip-flop comes just days after Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker called Biden and the federal government out for "inaction" on immigration.
Biden previously said a border wall was not effective. Now facing tightening poll numbers and under pressure from within his own party, he appears to be shifting the party platform closer to Donald Trump's position on immigration.
In a social media post online, former President Donald Trump asked when would "Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long?"
Democrats attending the DNC Fall 2023 Meetings still drew a distinction between Biden's border wall construction and Trump's campaign pledge to build the wall.
"Donald Trump's wall was about division," Rev. Darryl Gray said. "It excludes people of color. It excludes people who are different."
Gray argued that Trump wielded the wall as a symbol of division to stoke racial animus in his campaign rhetoric.
"Biden has made very clear that the security of this country is of paramount importance to him," Gray said. "Nobody has ever said that we should not have security on our southern border."
"If the border wall is one way to do it, then let's make sure we have that. But at the same time, our policies still need to be open and reflect the fact that we still encourage people to come, but to come in a way that is safe, to come in a way that is legal."
"The Democratic Party has always, as part of our core values, cared about the marginalized, the least among us. We don't need to alter that at all."
"Former President Clinton just said that immigration is an issue," Gray said. "It's a crisis in this country. And so I don't think anybody is doubting that the issue of immigration is a crisis issue. We do need to make sure that we have the proper resources to care for immigrants and refugees."
While the reverend gave Biden a pass for constructing a barrier at the southern border, he criticized St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones for erecting steel gate barricades around the City Hall lawn.
"This will be remembered as one of the things that we wish she had not done," Gray said. "We have to put our own house somewhere."
Earlier this week, Jones gave orders for city workers to evict a homeless tent camp from the lawn under her office window.
"The timing is definitely suspect," Gray said. "You've got the Democratic National Committee coming here. It is reminiscent of what they did in Atlanta when the Olympics came to Atlanta. They moved all the unhoused people out of sight.
"We should have done more. We should have done better sooner. And I'm hoping that that the mayor has learned from this."