President Biden faces his first major test with the crisis at the southern border, a deteriorating situation that may expose the limits of focusing the administration on reversing former President Donald Trump’s policies.
Trump also devoted much of his presidency to undoing the handiwork of his predecessor, President Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president for eight years. But the surge of migrants at the border, including a large number of minors being housed in government facilities, is at least partially attributable to Biden easing immigration controls, including some introduced or strengthened by Trump, and rolling out the rhetorical welcome mat in contrast with the last administration, which made stopping illegal border crossings a top priority.
“Surges tend to respond to hope, and there was a significant hope for a more humane policy after four years of, you know, pent-up demand,” Roberta Jacobson, the Biden administration’s coordinator for the southern border, told reporters at a White House briefing last week. “So, I don't know whether I would call that a coincidence, but I certainly think that the idea that a more humane policy would be in place may have driven people to make that decision.”
BIDEN HAS NO PLANS TO VISIT THE SOUTHERN BORDER ‘AT THE MOMENT’
“This was totally predictable and totally preventable,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “Sometimes, the 'Orange Man' is not so bad. Or, at least, not so wrong.”
The Republican National Committee on Tuesday hit Biden as an “absentee president” on the border and other fronts: “Joe Biden won’t hold a press conference. He won’t recognize the border crisis. He won’t even visit the border.” The White House did announce Biden's first press conference as president, slated for March 25, later in the day.
Biden’s critics are pointing out that the candidate who campaigned against “kids in cages” under Trump is housing migrants, including children, in poor conditions. There have been reports of limited opportunities to bathe, sleeping on the floor, and people packed closely together despite the pandemic. Some minors have been held for longer than a week, in violation of the three-day limit, without media access to the facilities.
The White House sees the issue differently. “We are trying to work through what was a dismantled and unprepared system because of the role of the last administration,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday. “It's going to take some time, but we are very clear-eyed about what the problems are and very focused on putting forward solutions.”
This has been a common theme of the Biden response from the beginning. "What we are seeing now at the border is the immediate result of the dismantlement of the system and the time that it takes to rebuild it, virtually from scratch," Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters at the White House earlier this month.
Both Trump’s way of talking about and handling immigration, particularly the “zero-tolerance” policy that initially led to a spike in minors in federal custody at the border, were roundly condemned as mean-spirited and even racist. Biden has reversed a number of Trump policies, including the requirement that asylum-seekers remain in Mexico while their applications are pending, border wall construction, and a strengthening of the public charge rule preventing new immigrants from relying on taxpayer services while also proposing a deportation moratorium.
Border apprehensions are up 28% in Biden’s first month in office, with 100,000 people attempting to enter the country in February alone. The president has proposed an immigration bill that would offer legal status, including an eight-year pathway to citizenship, for most illegal immigrants in the United States.
"We are in the middle of a national pandemic, millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, and there is a burgeoning crisis at the border. Under conditions like these, this is perhaps the worst imaginable time to gut this important safeguard,” Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, protested in a letter to the DHS secretary. “By creating a fresh incentive for foreign migrants to surge across our southern border, your actions reflect a profound misunderstanding of the plight of American workers and communities across the country, and threaten to further exacerbate an already severe humanitarian disaster."
This creates a precarious political situation for Biden and the Democrats over a year away from the midterm elections.
“At a time of national crisis with COVID and at a time where the POTUS is lecturing us on being responsible, he does the very opposite by encouraging people to illegally cross our borders and giving false hopes and endangering the very citizens he is sworn to protect,” said Republican strategist Bradley Blakeman. “Trump did his best to secure our borders, and it was working much better than his predecessors, Obama and Biden.”
“We certainly welcome anyone who comes forward and has solutions and wants to be a part of working to address what we all know is a challenging situation at the border,” Psaki said Tuesday in response to a reporter who asked about whether the White House would respond to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s request to talk about the migrant surge.
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That’s not good enough for Republicans, who are pressing Biden on the border.
“Now, President Biden is turning back the clock on national security and public health,” Blakeman said. “It is irresponsible and dangerous. Biden created a crisis he refuses to acknowledge.”
