Joe Biden Gets Religion on Border Control

Credit Image: © Daniel Heuer/ZUMA Press Wire

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One of the first things Joe Biden did after he was elected was undo Donald Trump’s immigration legacy. He stopped deportations and border wall construction, and called for amnesty. That summer, he ended President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. CNN ran a picture of a young man holding a Nicaraguan flag, with the caption: “He feared for his life in Nicaragua. Under Biden’s new policy, he is safe in the US.” In May 2023, Mr. Biden ended Title 42, which Mr. Trump had used to bounce illegals on public health grounds and reject most appeals for amnesty. No wonder there was a rush to the border.

Under American law, foreigners can claim asylum for many reasons, including coming from dangerous countries, being homosexual, or any number of subjective claims, including a credible claim of “fear.” If we want immigrants at all, they should be productive, intelligent, and want to be American. Under the current system, described by Auron MacIntyre in The Total State, people who are dependent, unemployable, sick, or unassimilable have an advantage. They justify more wealth redistribution, vote Democrat, and are recruits for activists and mobs agitating against whites.

Illegal immigration has surged under Mr. Biden. In a post on his administration, FactCheck.org noted that about 4.2 million people had either entered or been released into the country with orders (usually ignored) to appear before an immigration court. It guessed that another 1.6 million escaped the authorities altogether and got in from February 2021 through October 2023. Snopes, another source not friendly to conservatives, said that 7.2 million illegals came in through January 2024. In April 2024, Gallup reported that immigration was the top issue for Americans for the third straight month.

Some in the Republican Party seemingly tried to save the President from himself. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) introduced a “bipartisan border control bill” with measures that would take effect only after an average of 2,500 crossed illegally every day for a week. Its limited restrictions on amnesty applications could be used infrequently and would sunset after three years. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) bragged that the bill would increase visas, fund free lawyers for young illegals, let amnesty applicants work, and make citizenship easy for Afghans. (So much for “we must fight them there, so we don’t have to fight them here.”) The bill would also have given billions of dollars to NGOs that abet the invasion.

This is not border control. Former Obama Administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson declared in 2019 that we are “truly in a crisis” when there are 1,000 apprehensions a day at the border. That number “overwhelms the system.”

Of course “progressives” screeched. NPR quoted lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International complaining that it was harsh. Senator Elizabeth Warren said it was a “functional ban on asylum” and that we “can and should do better.” Black congresswoman Ayanna Pressley said “it is extremely disappointing that this White House would choose to double down on the previous administration’s harmful and flawed immigration policy.” NGOs, including the UN and Detention Watch Network, were upset. Stephen Colbert complained that the Emma Lazarus poem about the “tired and poor” did not mention a limit of 2,500 a day.

The Wall Street Journal, which loves immigration, called it a “border bill worth passing.” Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Senator Lankford had done a “remarkable job.”

In the meantime, Mr. Trump began blasting the bill, and the GOP fell into line, defeating it.

Mr. Lankford, Democrats, and their media allies then accused President Trump of either ignoring the problem or undermining border security for political reasons. Mr. Lankford said a “chaotic border” was a good thing for Donald Trump and sought pity from the media, complaining that conservatives were criticizing him. Politico idiotically said Donald Trump had killed a deal that would give Mr. Biden the authority to “close” the border. Joe Biden suggested that Trump was standing in the way of immigration law enforcement. “It would give me, as president, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed,” he said. “And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.” He already had the power.

Senator Charles Schumer tried to put the Lankford bill up for a second vote, but almost all Republicans and six Democrats voted to allow a filibuster, sinking it. Democrats stuck to the script. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) claimed that “this commonsense bill would . . . shut down the border, strengthen our asylum laws, and end catch and release. It is shameful that Mitch McConnell and DC politicians would rather keep the border as a political talking point than actually fix the problem.”

Now, just this week, Mr. Biden took executive action on the border — something he could have done all along. New measures, which go into effect immediately, shut down the border once the average number of border hoppers tops 2,500. Applications for asylum will be considered only in “exceptionally compelling circumstances,” whatever that means. Everyone else gets the boot “in a matter of days, if not hours.” Mr. Biden’s media allies are praising him, but it shows he had the power all along. He just wouldn’t use it.

The hard left is angry again. “It is a betrayal of what we were told in his campaign four years ago,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “We were told that President Biden would be restoring humanity at our border. . . . But what we are seeing is that history is repeating itself.” The ACLU promised to sue.

The Hill insists that Democrats are now the champions of border security, frustrated by Republicans. White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates wrote that “for 3 years, Joe Biden has led on border security and congressional Republicans have obstructed it — all in the name of politics.“ Reuters suggested that Mr. Biden is tough on immigration, though it admitted that “Biden took office in 2021 vowing to reverse some of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies but grappled with record levels of migrants caught crossing illegally.” Reuters ran photos of illegals, including children, looking sad.

According to a recent poll, 42 percent of Hispanics want a barrier on the border, a 12 point jump in just a few years. Trump has a 30-point edge with registered voters on border security, including a 23-point edge among Hispanic voters. Mr. Trump has not lost much support since his felony conviction, and he is in the lead in most battleground states. Mr. Trump says that he wants “deportation,” not “invasion.” The New York Times complained that he would duplicate Dwight Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback,” which was a “sordid chapter in American history.” However, it found that Mr. Trump’s message on immigration “appears to be resonating” and that about half of Americans want mass deportations.

Mr. Biden continues to blame Congress and Donald Trump, insisting that the crisis is “the direct result of the Congress’s failure to update an immigration and asylum system that is simply broken.” He says Republicans walked away from his lovely bill only because Donald Trump told them to.

Of course, he caused the problem. And now, his attempt to cover what former Press Secretary Jen Psaki calls a “political vulnerability” is an admission that he could have solved it all along. Election polls that show him losing, and opinion polls that show how angry voters are about illegal immigration, have forced his hand. Maybe he thinks he can fool the rubes into thinking he cares about the border. If Americans fall for this, we deserve what’s coming.