Biden’s border bullshit

The plan is to pretend the President didn’t campaign on opening up the border to everyone, didn’t proceed to roll back every successful policy as soon as he got into office, and didn’t watch millions upon millions stream in for three years.

Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, I opined that he was committing “a fast moving suicide” on the border by rolling back security measures that were effective under President Donald Trump, having reduced illegal immigration to near-record lows.  The tale only got more tragic from there with border crossings breaking records almost every month.  In December, for example, the US Border Patrol recorded 302,034 encounters on the Southern border alone, more than the average number of live births per month throughout 2023, meaning we are bringing more people in illegally than those who are born here naturally (tell me again how replacement is a conspiracy theory?).  The Biden Administration and President Biden himself had previously responded to this undeniable crisis by denying there was any crisis at all and insisting – against any and all possible evidence – that the border was secure.  To the extent they acknowledged a challenge, the solution was never actually securing the border in any meaningful way, but rather the need to address root causes of immigration, a project that was supposedly headed by the Vice President herself, or that required some kind of “comprehensive” reform wherein those here illegally would be granted a path to citizenship.  They were able to persist in this dereliction of duty – with some help from a prostate media in full protection mode – until Republican governors came up with a clever solution:  Openly transport illegals from their own states to sanctuary cities and progress enclaves, what turned out to be one of the most effective political stunts in recent memory, much to the chagrin and caterwauling of progressive pundits.  Democrat politicians and the media immediately cried foul, insisting that somehow it was the responsibility of Republican states and Republican states alone to care for millions of migrants, but before long the mayors of New York, Chicago, and other “blue” cities were calling the immigration problem a crisis and demanding federal aid.  Last November, for example, the Official Website of the City of New York declared Mayor Eric Adams was continuing to “manage” the “national migrant crisis.”  “While we continue to call for a national strategy to solve a national crisis, New York City continues to do its part to support asylum seekers,” explained Mayor Adams, who recently closed a school to house illegal aliens, literally throwing black and brown children out onto the streets.  “For over a year, we have asked the federal government to put forward a resettlement strategy, expedite work authorizations for asylum seekers, and provide New York City with much needed and meaningful financial support. In the absence of that national strategy, New York City continues to lead — building out the legal and resettlement infrastructure needed to address this crisis. We hope the federal government will join us in these efforts and finish the job they started.”

As Democrat mayors were responding, a heightened awareness of the “crisis” quickly spread to the general public.  Last month, a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that immigration had overtaken inflation as the largest concern of voters heading into the fall elections.  As reported by The Hill, “The survey found that 35 percent of respondents listed immigration as their paramount concern among an array of issues, with inflation in a close second, named by 32 percent of respondents.”  The increase represented a seven point jump in just a single month, even more staggering when you consider that the poll also asked which issues “touched them personally.”  More than twice as many respondents cited inflation over immigration, 38% to 17%, as personally impacting them, but immigration still led among all other issues, topping inflation and the economy in general.  “The pivot to immigration mirrors both a political environment tuning into border policy as a core issue and a reduction in inflation that’s somewhat deflated the political clout of that issue,” The Hill noted.  “Both issues are at the tip of the Republican spear in attacks against President Biden, who is facing a reelection run with dangerously low approval numbers.”  The rapid turnabout has prompted even immigration friendly outlets such as The New York Times to “analyze” what might be causing the underlying crisis.  “Being hustled into a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle and taken to a processing facility is hardly a setback, they wrote. “In fact, it is a crucial step toward being able to apply for asylum — now the surest way for migrants to stay in the United States, even if few will ultimately win their cases…It is not just because they believe they will be able to make it across the 2,000 mile southern frontier. They are also certain that once they make it to the United States they will be able to stay.  Forever.”  This is because “asylum seekers” will automatically be given a work permit if the wait time to hear their claim is more than five months.  With an average wait time of five years or more, every single asylum seeker is allowed to live and work in the US during that period, and – as even the Times admits – the odds that they will be deported a decade later are slim to none.  The result is a backdoor to the equivalent of a green card, which would normally take years to obtain at a cost of thousands of dollars.  A commenter on the Times website summed this up nicely, something I have a lot of personal experience with working for a company with a corporate office in India.  “I’m a legal immigrant, working in the US on a work visa. It took months of proving that no US worker can do my job, and thousands of dollars in legal and governmental fees to get that visa.  This year, my visa expires and there is no way to renew it, while the green card process takes [a] year so I will not be able to complete it before the visa expiration date (optimistically assuming that USCIS will approve it).  I will have to go back to my home country even though I have an extensive social and professional network here and contribute literally dozens of thousands in taxes every year. It makes my blood boil that at the same time, millions of people can basically walk through the border and they’ll get a red carpet treatment, with an automatic work permit. All while undermining wages for lower-skilled workers (an effect well measured and proven during the Obama administration).”

The combined impact of these changing political factors has been enough for President Biden and his fellow Democrats to take notice, and suddenly start changing their own story.  Border security is now all the rage in Washington, and the Senate – aided by a handful of woefully misguided if not highly funded corporatist Republicans – is supposedly close to what is described as a bill to “enact tougher U.S. immigration and asylum” laws to use NBC News’ phrasing. As they reported before the final details were made public last night, “The deal would take a three-pronged approach to mitigating the chaos at the border. First, it would limit options for people outside the U.S. to pursue asylum. Second, it would raise the standard for people at the border to qualify for asylum. Third, it would speed up processing of claims, cut off avenues for appeal if they are rejected, and end ‘catch and release’ by enforcing government monitoring of migrants throughout the process.”  The plan would be to “close” the border entirely when encounters exceed a daily average of 5,000, which is only about half of the December numbers, meaning the borders should already be closed right now and should have been closed for months previously.  (The final bill, if anything is even more noxious, because it excludes people who are not from Mexico and Canada from these figures.) What are we supposed to do with the millions who entered in the interim?  They don’t say, except we can assume all will remain. Critics have also noted that the “speed up of processing of claims” aspect seems likely to bring more people in than keep them out.  The President, meanwhile, is all in on the potential bill, undeterred by any and all criticism, and apparently unaware of either his prior statements or his own powers as Chief Executive.  Last Tuesday, against any and all evidence, he insisted that he’s done all that he can do on the border – and has been asking for help securing the border since he got into office.  “I asked them the very day I got into office,” he said. “Give me the Border Patrol. Give me the judges. Give me the people who can stop this.”  Now, he just needs the power, as in “I’ve done all I can do, just give me the power.”  Does that sound comforting to you?  Needless to say, Republican critics were quick to point out that he already has the power, and in fact has used this power almost universally to reverse security measures including ending catch and release, remain in Mexico, and Title 42, all of which he did by executive fiat and therefore could reinstate with the force of his pen alone.  Speaker of the House Mike Johnson detailed these inconvenient facts by posting a video on X, noting that his remarks are “simply untrue” and “He’s either lying or misinformed.”  “Here are just a few of the authorities at his disposal – if only he would use them: Presidential Authority to Restrict Entry 212(f), Expedited Removal 235(b)(1), Discretionary Detention Authority 236(a), Mandatory Detention 236(c). No more excuses,” he added.

Even more tellingly, President Biden is talking tough on the border while taking Texas to the Supreme Court for security actions at the state level, including putting up fencing in highly trafficked areas.  The Administration has, in fact, threatened to remove the wire fencing Texas has already put in place, though it appears they’ve realized the optics of claiming to secure the border while actively removing security measures are too out of touch for even the media to spin.  Instead, they claim they’re ready to “swiftly” cut the fencing down whenever they please and their ability to remove the wire at their whim “goes far beyond ‘reserving the right’. The US Supreme Court has ordered it” according to acting Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Troy Miller.  Putting this another way, the Administration is insisting they need the ability to unsecure the border to secure it.  The mainstream media has been more than happy to pretend this is normal and to avoid any previous analysis of the President’s statements, much less call him the bold faced liar that he surely is, as they undoubtedly would were he his predecessor, but even they cannot deny that there has been a radical shift in the overall discussion.  USA Today recently described “Biden’s pivot: Why the president is moving to the right in 2024 on immigration.”  Joey Garrison and Lauren Villagran began by noting that President Biden is starting to sound a lot like President Trump, “using similar language − seeking a border shutdown − as he urges Congress to pass a bipartisan bill under negotiation by senators to address what Biden has started to call ‘the border crisis.’”  This “marks a seismic shift to the right on border and immigration politics that has built over the past year.”  In their view, the goal is to “strip Republicans of one of their most effective wedge issues, setting up a potential case that House Republicans − who have refused to back a bipartisan border bill − stood in the way of long-discussed action on the border.”  That might be one way to put it, if one is cynically political to be sure, but characterizing what Americans claim is the most important issue facing the country as a “wedge” and failing to disclose how the President himself has refused to take any meaningful action on the border while noting he plans to blame this on Republicans indicates where the authors’ sympathies lie.  Their choice of expert does the same, leading with Denise Gilman, co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas, Austin, School of Law.  Ms. Gilman completely ignores the reality that millions of people streaming into the country every year is nothing short of an invasion, one now acknowledged by the leaders of even deeply progressive cities and instead pinpoints conservative fear mongering.  “I have to think it’s mostly because the Republicans have succeeded in creating a lot of fear around migration issues and have had success in doing that,” she said, ignoring any and all evidence of what constitutes a crisis.

The plan at this point appears to be obvious:  Pretend the President didn’t campaign on opening up the border to everyone, literally telling migrants to “surge to the border” because they deserve to be heard and that’s “who we are,” didn’t proceed to roll back every successful policy as soon as he got into office, what Reuters described as a “a quick and dramatic reversal of the restrictive immigration policies put in place by his predecessor,” and didn’t watch millions upon millions stream in for three years, doing absolutely nothing the entire time.  Instead, they will try to blame Republicans for not signing on to a completely unnecessary bill, one which, even were necessary, will not actually be implemented with President Biden in the White House, who clearly cannot be trusted with our national sovereignty under any circumstances.  Even should a bill with tough measures pass, the odds of him enforcing are essentially zero when he doesn’t enforce any tough measures right now. Perhaps even more cynically, the bill that was released last night contains far more money to secure the border in Ukraine than it does the United States, leading one to wonder whether border security is being entertained by the Administration simply because they believe it’s a pathway to funding the never ending war in Europe.  Would there even be a border security bill were it not for Ukraine? Regardless, they are counting on Americans to have very short memories to succeed.  The underlying rationale behind all of this is the same that it’s very been:  You are too stupid to keep track of their various schemes, and under no circumstances should you believe your lying eyes.