Diego Sanchez has lived immigration policy—as an undocumented child, a DACA recipient, an immigration lawyer, and now as Vice President of Policy and Strategy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Jim Robb helped build NumbersUSA into one of the most influential immigration restriction groups in the country, spending nearly three decades fighting for the interests of American workers.
For most of those years, their organizations were on opposite sides of nearly every fight. They weren’t talking. Neither side was moving. And Jim, newly named VP of Alliances at NumbersUSA, started wondering if there was another way.
Braver Angels provided the table. The Citizens Commission on Immigration—launched after the 2024 Braver Angels National Convention in Kenosha, Wisconsin—brought together representatives from across the full spectrum of the immigration debate: not to find a split-the-difference compromise, but to see if people with deep, substantive disagreements could still find common ground worth acting on.
Jim and Diego are now co-chairs of the 2026 Braver Angels National Convention in Philadelphia. This conversation, recorded just before the convention opens, is the story of how they got there—and what it actually looks like when former opponents learn to trust each other.
Key Themes
Trust is the prerequisite, not the outcome. Diego and Jim didn’t find common ground and then build a relationship—they built a relationship first, which made honest disagreement possible. Jim’s first impression of Diego wasn’t ideological; it was human. And that changed everything.
Common ground is not middle ground. Both guests push back hard on the assumption that bridge-building means watering down your positions. Jim still wants what NumbersUSA has always wanted. Diego still advocates hard for immigrant communities. What’s changed is how they engage—and what they’re able to accomplish together.
The system is broken. That’s not a talking point—it’s the one thing everyone in the room agrees on. The Citizens Commission starts from that shared frustration and works outward from there, into the harder questions where real disagreements live.
Talking past each other is a strategic failure. Diego has been doing this work for sixteen years. He’s worked across the aisle before—with Republican members of Congress, at Tea Party rallies, with evangelical communities. His read: when advocates only preach to their own side, nothing moves. The commission is trying to change that dynamic at scale.
Congress needs to be brought along, not surprised. The commission’s endgame is a national report on immigration—expected in late 2027. Jim explains why they’ve been quietly engaging members of Congress throughout the process: buy-in requires early investment. A report that lands without warning won’t land at all.
Takeaways
You can disagree on everything and still find a place to start. The Citizens Commission isn’t built on agreement—it’s built on the willingness to keep talking even when agreement feels far away.
Listening to understand is a skill, not a personality trait. Both Diego and Jim describe learning to hear the other side’s concerns as real concerns—not as arguments to be defeated.
What Braver Angels provides is structure and neutrality. The organization doesn’t take a position on immigration policy. What it offers is a process—and a room where people who wouldn’t otherwise sit together actually do.
Civic courage looks like showing up when it’s uncomfortable. Diego, who came to this country as a child and built his life here, describes co-chairing this convention as part of what citizenship means to him—not just having status, but taking responsibility for how we move forward together.
About the Guests
Diego Sanchez
Diego Sanchez is Vice President of Policy and Strategy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, where he leads the organization’s policy team and legislative agenda. An immigration lawyer and policy strategist with over fifteen years of experience, he works at the intersection of higher education, immigration policy, and government relations. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at Cornell University’s Center on Global Democracy and serves on the Leadership Team of Braver Angels’ Citizens Commission on Immigration. Diego’s commitment to immigrant students is deeply personal—he came to the United States from Argentina at age nine, spent years undocumented, and was a DACA recipient before eventually adjusting his status and becoming a U.S. citizen.
Organization: Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration
X (Twitter): https://x.com/DiegoNSanchez
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diegonsanchez/
Jim Robb
Jim Robb is Vice President of Alliances at NumbersUSA, the largest-membership immigration group in the United States. He helped found NumbersUSA nearly thirty years ago and pioneered online political activism tools that have generated more than fifty million contacts to Congress on behalf of members. Jim is the author of Political Migrants: Hispanic Voters on the Move, the first book to trace the movement of Hispanic voters into the Republican Party. He serves as co-chair of the 2026 Braver Angels National Convention and is a central figure in the Citizens Commission on Immigration.
Organization: NumbersUSA — www.NumbersUSA.com
X (Twitter): @jimrobbdc
LinkedIn: jimrobbdc
Learn more about the Citizens Commission on Immigration at braverangels.org/citizens-commission-on-immigration.
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