If you’re a Democrat running for Senate in an eastern state, it is easy to ignore the crisis President Joe Biden has created on the southern border. But Democrats such as Sen. Mark Kelly (R-AZ) don’t have that luxury.
Voters who live on the southern border know that it is not secure, and they know that Biden is completely to blame. Kelly was forced to acknowledge this reality in his first and only debate with Republican candidate Blake Masters last night.
LAND OF DISENCHANTMENT: POROUS US-MEXICO BORDER MAKES FOR TIGHT GOVERNOR’S RACE
“When Democrats are wrong, like on the border, I call them out on it,” Kelly said. “I’ve spent a lot of time on our southern border, and let me just say it’s a mess. It’s chaos. It’s crisis after crisis.”
Asked specifically what Biden has done wrong on the border, Kelly said: “When the president decided he was going to do something dumb on this, and change the rules, that would create a bigger crisis — I told him he was wrong. So I pushed back on this administration multiple times.”
It isn’t exactly clear what specific policy Kelly is talking about here, but NBC News followed up with Kelly’s campaign, and the campaign said Kelly was referring to Biden possibly considering a complete end to using Title 42 to return some illegal immigrants back to Mexico earlier this year.
During the pandemic, President Donald Trump used Title 42 to return all immigrants who illegally crossed the southern border back to Mexico. On his first day in office, Biden began repealing this policy, first exempting unaccompanied minors from Title 42 and then families. As a direct result of these policy changes, the number of unaccompanied minors and families illegally crossing the southern border soared, thus creating the “chaos” and “crisis” Kelly bemoans.
Kelly did write a letter to Biden asking him not to fully repeal Title 42, but Biden has already partially repealed the policy, and every month, fewer and fewer immigrants are sent back to Mexico through that program.
Biden doesn’t actually need Title 42 to bring order back to the southern border. Trump had already secured the border through his “Remain in Mexico” policy before COVID-19 broke out. Unfortunately, Biden also ended “Remain in Mexico” on his first day in office, thus making the border crisis worse.
The public overwhelmingly supports the “Remain in Mexico” policy that Biden destroyed. Asked specifically by Harvard University if “people who cross the border with Mexico illegally should be turned back to Mexico” (which is the “Remain in Mexico” policy) or “released into the US with a court date” (which is Biden’s policy), 71% of voters chose “Remain in Mexico.”
The White House is reportedly discussing a push for amnesty after the midterm elections. They may want to ask border Democrats about just how unpopular Biden’s already lenient border policies are in their communities first.
