But in recent elections Democrats increasingly cast themselves as full-throated defenders of immigrants, regardless of legal status, while Republicans increasingly portrayed even legal immigration as a negative force in American life.Once you get past the 'clowns to the left, jokers to the right' framing, the piece is clearly way to the left of where the Democrats currently are, but self-identifying centrists can never acknowledge such things.
The lesson for Democrats is there's no point in "moving to the right" as they'll never get any "credit" for it anyway. Even from the New York Times!