Biden's Immigration Ping-Pong Will Fail | Opinion

For a foundering Biden administration, this is the season of triangulation. Attacked by the far-left wing of his party for seeming too pro-Israel, the administration began a campaign of hindering at every turn our ally's attempt to win a war. Criticized for targeting Donald Trump with a wave of political prosecutions, Team Biden launched ads claiming it is actually Trump who poses a danger to democracy.

And now, as our porous borders allow an influx of unvetted people constituting a social burden and ample criminal threats, the White House plays ping-pong with itself on immigration. First came an executive order that would temporarily block migrants from seeking asylum once crossings topped 2,500 per day. Open-borders activists loudly protested, as if allowing a large football stadium's worth of migrants per month is cruelly restrictive.

So, right on schedule, we now have Joe Biden's attempt to appease the extremists who guide his party and thus control his fate. Gathering a gaggle of allies in the White House's East Room Tuesday, the president announced a sweeping executive amnesty for as many as a half-million people who will no longer have to leave the country to begin their citizenship application process.

The change affects those who have been in America for at least 10 years and are married to a U.S. citizen. They are now free to remain, and to work, for up to three years while applying for a green card, which unlocks innumerable government benefits and a path to full citizenship.

The marriage requirement allows Biden to couch the move in pro-family rhetoric, but the protections existed for a reason. Amid today's twisting of the normal definition of amnesty, the new executive order is a craven attempt to further erode any system featuring proper evaluation of those seeking to become American citizens.

Paying the thinnest lip service to his constitutional duty, Biden told attendees: "We can both secure the border and provide legal pathways to citizenship." But it is hard to identify any remaining shred of presidential intent to secure the border while the administration's citizenship process features flouting, not following, the usual legal means.

The strategy at play here features the Left's dream tactic—chain migration, by which unending streams of family members are brought onto American soil wrapped in warm familial sentiment. "Look at these supposedly pro-family Republicans," we will be told, in an attempt to condemn anyone who would stand astride the full family trees of millions sought by Democrats for their promise of grateful future voters.

Donald Trump's 2016 victory was fueled in large part by Americans fed up with years of unfulfilled border security promises from both parties. The 11 million additional voters who backed him in 2020 wanted more of the border security he delivered, which had the effect of dissuading multitudes of would-be migrants from even attempting the trip.

The world knows Biden is unserious about protecting our southern border, and the resulting flood has vindicated every warning Trump has been condemned for issuing. How many more Americans will suffer crimes at the hands of illegal immigrants before voters get a clue that these nations are in many cases "not sending their best," as Trump stated nine years ago?

One of the reasons Trump's poll numbers are surging in key states, and even among previously skeptical demographics such as young and nonwhite voters, is that the nation may be finally growing weary of open borders, sanctuary cities, and the litany of headlines featuring heinous crimes committed by people who should not be here in the first place.

On this issue as well as others not going his way, Biden has no basis for arguing that the facts are on his side, so he leans on the familiar default setting of insulting Trump—and with him millions of American citizens.

"The patience and goodwill of the American people is being tested by their fears at the border," Biden said Tuesday. "They don't understand a lot of it. These are the fears my predecessor is trying to play on."

Biden may be about to learn that voters understand all too well what is happening at the border, and that their votes on November 5 will be a reckoning, based not on fear but on resolve. A consensus is forming that we actually need an immigration policy that serves our national interest, and that for a while, we had one. That passion could be what makes Biden's predecessor his successor.

Mark Davis is a syndicated talk show host for the Salem Media Group on 660AM The Answer in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and a columnist for the Dallas Morning News and Townhall.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.