After campaigning on a hard promise to push for Trump’s plan to deport every immigrant who entered the United States illegally, no matter how long they’d been here, and then voting for a bill to implement mass deportations, U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO) has now cosponsored a bill — which has little chance of passing — that creates a path to temporary legal status for some undocumented immigrants.
On multiple occasions last year during his successful campaign to oust Democratic incumbent Yadira Caraveo, Evans stated that he supported Trump’s plan of mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants, including those who have not committed crimes.
Pressed in one primary debate on whether he supported Trump’s policy to deport all immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally, Evans replied that criminals should be removed first, but “if you are not lawfully here, you need to go back, you need to wait in line … the way everybody else does in a law-abiding society.”
By joining a bipartisan bill on immigration, Evans has his eye on the midterm elections, say political experts.
“Not unlike other Members of Congress, Rep. Evans wants to be re-elected,” said Prof. Robert Preuhs, chair of the Political Science Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver. “Given the tight margin of Republican control of the House, holding the seat is important to the national party as well. His shift in position reflects growing discontent among the public stemming from the breadth and high visibility of ICE raids and detentions beyond those with criminal records.”
Phil Chen, an associate professor of political science at the University of Denver, has a similar view.
“We are seeing polling that suggests that some of the strictest crackdowns on immigration are not particularly popular among the general public, so Rep. Evans may be trying to find a middle ground that would be fairly popular among his swing district voters,” said Chen, adding that Evans is trying to “moderate his immigration stance a bit while still maintaining most of his immigration position from the previous campaign.”
“He’s Having It Both Ways”
Asked for his view on why Evans co-sponsored the Dignity Act last week, Norman J. Ornstein, emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said via email that Evans is trying to have it “both ways” on immigration.
“There is one obvious reason: Trump’s immigration policy is increasingly, deeply unpopular, even with Republicans, but more so with independents and Democrats,” wrote Ornstein. “The stories of vicious actions by masked ICE operatives, American citizens being abducted, people dragged out of cars, and more, have created a very different climate. For Republicans in swing districts, finding a way to get some distance from these actions is a political imperative. But you can’t at the same time alienate your base. So Evans is trying to have it both ways.”
Evans’ move comes as polls show Americans are more sympathetic to immigrants and more hostile to Trump’s mass-deportation actions, which are mostly resulting in the detention in Colorado of immigrants with no criminal convictions. A Gallup poll released earlier this month showed that 62% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s immigration policies, and a record 79% of Americans see immigration as a “good thing.”
“Go Back, Wait in Line”
On the campaign trail, Evans sometimes avoided directly answering the question of whether he supported deporting all undocumented immigrants, leading to confusion among journalists and others about his stance.
He’d usually say, first, that the border should be secured; next, criminals should be prioritized for deportation. And then, if asked follow-up questions, he’d say that all undocumented immigrants should be sent home and follow the legal process if they want to return to the United States.
“Go back, wait in line, do it the right way,” he told one right-wing radio station last May. “Stop cutting in line. You want to come here? Let’s come here. Let’s work on how we can streamline that process. But you can’t cut in line.”
Evans also said frequently that he wanted to reform the immigration system so that immigrants can enter the United States without breaking the law or having to wait decades. Still, he didn’t say that this would apply to immigrants already here — only to those who “want to come here.” In one survey — when asked what he’d do about people who lived in this country for a long time without documentation — he said that Dreamers should be allowed to stay.
After the Election, a Shift
After entering Congress, Evans seemed to be making an effort to sound more sympathetic to longtime immigrants living in the country without documents.
In December, he published an opinion piece in the Colorado Sun, in which he wrote that America is a “nation of second chances.”
“If [undocumented immigrants] can’t or won’t obtain legal status, then they should be deported,” he wrote. That sounds as if he might be offering legal status or some accommodation for undocumented immigrants, but it’s actually a recitation of the status quo, under which there’s little or no path to legal status for millions of undocumented people. He did not substantively change his support of mass deportation, as he advocated no way for undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status.
In a June letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he again said he wanted to prioritize the deportation of criminals.
But the letter said nothing about changing his eventual goal of deporting all undocumented immigrants, criminals and noncriminals alike.
A week later, reflecting Trump’s statements, Evans said for the first time that he favored offering legal status to immigrants working in unspecified industries, especially, he told Axios Denver, “if the only bad thing that they’ve ever done was illegally coming to the United States 18 years ago.”
Dignity Act
The legislation Evans endorsed last week, among other things, bars undocumented immigrants from being able to work surreptitiously, as many have done for decades, but offers a path to temporary legal status to those who’ve been here for about five years.
The proposed law, which Evans says is a next step allowable only because of border security measures implemented under Trump, is almost certainly going nowhere, but expect Evans to cite the bill as he goes forth in a political climate that may be much rougher to politicians like him who backed Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“In tight races, candidates move to the middle on policies that are highly salient,” said Preuhs, the political scientist at Metropolitan State. “In 2024, the economy was the most salient to a lot of CD8 voters. Immigration was also highly salient among Evans’ GOP base. Now, immigration is becoming more salient for moderate, independent and Latino voters who make up a large portion of CD8’s electorate. It’s not surprising that Evans thus wants to blunt any clear discontent with a shift in policy, or at least position-taking on the issue.
“In the big picture, that may be a good thing as elected officials respond to the public in a way we hope they do. That said, the risk of losing an election on this issue is likely the primary concern.”
Evans’ shift might help him if immigration remains an “important topic,” says Chen.
“It’s difficult to say, at this point, whether this will make a significant difference in the 2026 midterms, as it could potentially help his re-election campaign if immigration remains an important topic. However, if the economy or some other issue dominates the midterms, then this might not have a significant effect. In such a close district, however, candidates are always fighting for any small advantage, so I suspect this is an attempt to win over some more moderate voters without being overly public about the bill. And I imagine we’ll continue to see Rep. Evans try to spin this as not in direct conflict with his prior immigration stances.”
Evans won his congressional seat last year by under 2,500 votes. It was one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, making it a battleground for control of the chamber in next year’s election.
In the broad context, Evans is walking a tight rope in his district, when it comes to his position on immigration, says Kyle Saunders, a professor of Political Science at Colorado State University.
“Evans continues to negotiate a very delicate balance in a very competitive district in CD8,” said Saunders in an email to the Colorado Times Recorder. “Evans goes one way too far and he upsets and possibly demobilizes his base costing him enthusiasm and perhaps even votes, he goes the other way too far and he loses the smaller set of persuadable voters who actually, if they show up to the polls in a competitive district like this and vote in his favor, can determine the outcome of the election. It would appear, right now anyway, that he has moved a bit in the latter direction.”
Updated July 3 with a comment from Norman Ornstein.
