After failing to contain a surge of immigrant crossings, President Joe Biden faces a reckoning over his handling of combustible border security issues.
As president-elect, Biden promised to implement “guardrails” to avoid a situation with “2 million people on our border.” He said it would take some time to reverse “the Trump administration’s restrictive asylum policies” but promised it “will get done.”
One month later, the president began rolling back former President Donald Trump’s crackdown. Biden issued a handful of executive orders on his first day in office, while his new administration stopped turning away unaccompanied minors soon after.
Today, the number of arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border has surpassed Biden’s warning, marking a new record at more than 2 million this year.
PROSPECTS FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM DIM BEFORE MIDTERM ELECTIONS
The surge has become a major flashpoint ahead of the November elections, with Republican leaders seizing on the issue to stoke Democratic outrage.
After Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) sent a planeload of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, the White House accused the Republican of stoking “chaos” and using the newly arrived Venezuelans as political “pawns.”
But as the immigrants continue to stream across the U.S.-Mexico border, polls show the public is concerned.
According to a recent NPR poll, a majority (54%) said the United States was fielding an “invasion” at the southern border, including 40% of Democrats and 46% of independents. Seventy-three percent agreed the number of apprehensions was a problem.
For more than a quarter of people in a September NBC News survey, border security was the country’s first or second most important issue. Asked who was best equipped to tackle the problem, voters gave Republicans a 36 percentage point advantage, 56%, compared to 20% for Democrats.
Democrats also fail to notch an advantage on legal immigration issues, with both parties tied at 44%, according to a New York Times-Siena College poll.
Republicans have made clear that they intend to hold Biden’s feet to the fire if the party retakes the House.
In a GOP agenda unveiled on Thursday, leaders announced a mission to “fully fund effective border enforcement strategies,” end “catch-and-release” loopholes, and restrict employment possibilities for people living in the U.S. illegally.
Biden and his aides have refused to call the surge at the border a crisis, even as officials brace for higher numbers. Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden deputized with slowing the flow of arrivals, has spent just three days in Latin America.
Trump significantly reduced migrant arrivals using two measures, both of which Biden has sought to shut down: The “Remain in Mexico” policy, under which asylum-seekers were held south of the border as their cases were processed, and Title 42, which allowed for expulsions on public health grounds.
Biden has disputed charges that he is to blame for the surge and on Tuesday brushed off news that DeSantis may soon be sending immigrants from Texas to Delaware.
“He should come visit. We have a beautiful shoreline,” Biden told reporters.
During a recent exchange on immigration with NBC’s Chuck Todd, Vice President Kamala Harris twice insisted that the border was “secure.”
Prominent Democrats have seized on DeSantis’s flights as a political cudgel, comparing it to a form of “kidnapping” and even “human trafficking.”
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The fight has drawn attention to the difficulty of passing immigration reform.
Congress had not passed any major legislation since 1990.
But Biden’s press secretary made a push for new legislation this week.
“We have a solution in front of us that we are happy to have bipartisanship on, on an issue that has been a broken system,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
