When a reporter asked Biden in late January whether he had fully used existing authorities to control border crossings, he responded that new legislation was needed to exercise more power, saying, “I've done everything I can. Give me the authority.”
Since then, with the election four months away and Biden continuing to trail former President Donald Trump in the polls, Biden has come to the liberating conclusion that he has more power after all. With the new border restrictions, Biden became the third consecutive president to try to change immigration policy by decree, and the fourth consecutive to fail to get changes through Congress. But Biden's immigration gaffes stand out for how unnecessary they were, and for the political damage they have inflicted on him.
The president's new policy is a tacit admission that the policies he implemented during his first three and a half years in office that were until recently considered successful have failed miserably. His new executive order provides for a temporary closure of the border if the number of migrants crossing ports of entry reaches an average of 2,500 per day for a week. To be eligible for asylum, migrants must willingly demonstrate or show signs of fearing persecution, rather than merely agreeing when asked if they fear persecution.
But there are some caveats: People who apply for asylum through the government's app won't be counted among the 2,500. Unaccompanied minors wouldn't be affected. The policy would also face legal challenges that could delay or block its implementation.
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A senior administration official said at a press conference that while the new law is still beneficial, the new policy is enough to reduce migration: “Migrants, especially if they know that they will be quickly deported through immigration court proceedings and will not be able to stay in the United States for years, will be significantly less likely to pay the thousands of dollars demanded by smuggling networks that more or less control access to routes to the border.”
But the question remains: Won't these networks promote the idea that unaccompanied minors can enter the country and that it's important for adults to claim fear of persecution? Republicans say this is a disappointing response to overwhelming numbers of immigrants, one that came too late and is an election-year ploy.
Biden has also come under fire from progressives, with Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) saying the president has “undermined American values ​​and abandoned our nation's obligations to refugees.” Some Democrats likened Biden's new policies to those of Trump. At the same briefing, a Biden aide sought to highlight the differences between the two administrations: “They have demonized immigrants, conducted massive raids, separated families at the border and put children in cages.”
The comments and new policies offer a glimpse into the path Biden did not take when he took office. Biden could have abandoned the worst aspects of Trump's record, particularly the routine separation of children from their parents, while keeping other elements. That would have required maintaining cooperative agreements with southern countries to stem the flow of migration and strengthening efforts to stop employers from hiring illegal immigrants.
Instead, Biden indulged in Democratic backlash against Trump and undoing everything his administration had done on immigration. A series of executive orders early in his term rolled back Trump policies, a sweeping change that pleased activist groups that have played the most vocal role in shaping Democratic immigration policy and dovetailed with a leftward shift among the party's voters on the issue.
But it meant losing control of the border. Two months into Biden's presidency, Alan Bersin, who oversaw the Border Patrol under former President Barack Obama, was already concerned that Biden was sending “mixed messages” and that “the border is open” to many migrants.
The worsening situation made legislative action more urgent. Biden is right to say that legislative action is still needed, and that the bill Congressional Republicans killed earlier this year contained many useful reforms. But his own policies simultaneously made such action politically unfeasible. The lack of enforcement of existing laws undermined the credibility of proposed new laws. The widening gulf between immigration law and practice further separated the two sides of the debate. What was perceived as a tightening of actual policy appeared to hawkish Republicans as a loosening of statutory requirements.
With Trump more or less openly opposing the agreement in order to improve his chances of winning the presidential election, a deadlock in Congress was inevitable. Biden's initial wavering on immigration issues is one of the reasons why Trump may win. When asked during the election campaign whether he would return to the family separation policy, former President Biden said it would deter illegal immigration, and did not deny the possibility, saying, “If people hear that their families are being separated, they're not going to come because they love their families.”
If we plunge into one disastrous immigration policy after another, Biden will not be entirely to blame, but his stupidity will play a part.
