President Biden and his aides describe this year’s election as crucial — existential, even — because of Donald Trump’s hostility to democracy. Many outside experts agree.
Yet given the election’s importance, the Biden administration has been notably slow to address one of his biggest political vulnerabilities: immigration.
Polls show that immigration is a top concern of voters, often trailing only the economy. Most voters are unhappy with Biden’s handling of the issue and say they trust Trump more on it. Even Democratic mayors and governors have criticized Biden for the surge of migration on his watch.
Despite this situation, the White House has been reluctant to act aggressively for most of the past few years. Only in the past six months has it begun to do so. Administration officials are now preparing executive actions to tighten the border, according to my reporting, and Politico has written that Biden is likely to sign them next month.
In today’s newsletter, I’ll trace the history of Biden’s immigration policy and explain what’s likely to happen next.
Biden’s loosening
If you’re a loyal Democrat, I can guess what you may be thinking right now: Hey, wait! Biden tried to pass an immigration bill, and Republicans stopped him. That’s true, but it’s only one part of a larger story.
Late last year, the White House worked with a bipartisan group of senators to tighten border security. The plan revolved around policies Republicans favor. Yet Trump, recognizing that it could have helped Biden politically, persuaded Republicans to kill it.
The move was transparently cynical, as Biden has pointed out. Rather than help the country solve a problem, Trump and his allies prioritized partisan gain. The plan they killed would have expanded border patrols, increased the number of immigration judges and made the asylum system both tougher and fairer.
But it’s worth remembering that this bill didn’t come up until almost three years into Biden’s presidency, long after his initial policies had helped cause the migration surge. He campaigned in 2020 promising not only to undo Trump’s cruel policies — such as family separation — but also to welcome more migrants. After taking office, he signed executive orders to do both.
Biden tried to pause deportations. He changed the definition of asylum to include fear of gang violence. He used immigration parole — which the law says should be used “on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons” — to admit hundreds of thousands of people. The parole programs alone amounted to “the largest expansion of legal immigration in modern U.S. history,” Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News wrote.
Would-be migrants, as well as the Mexican cartels that run transit networks, heard a clear message: Entering the United States had become easier. The number of people attempting to do so spiked almost immediately.
Biden’s policy changes aren’t the only cause, to be clear. The end of the pandemic played a role, as did chaos in parts of Latin America. And Biden has since taken some steps to curb migration. In recent months, his administration has collaborated with the Mexican government to reduce the flow of people from other countries who reach the U.S.-Mexico border. That collaboration helps explain the recent decline in border crossings that you can see in the above chart.
Costs and benefits
Still, these policies have been relatively modest compared with what Biden could have tried. He could have worked with Congress sooner on a border bill. He could have reversed his parole expansion and done more to tighten asylum rules. He could have issued the executive orders that he is only now considering (which may shut the border when crossings exceed a certain level). Republicans are happy to remind voters of these options: Mike Johnson, the House speaker, went so far as to give Biden a list of actions he could have taken and hasn’t.
Yes, federal judges might block some of these policies, but the Supreme Court has given presidents wide latitude on border policy. Either way, even the announcement of the polices could have an impact. It would send a message that the border was no longer as open as it once was.
I understand that some Democrats prefer a more open border on humanitarian grounds. The U.S. is an affluent country, and millions of people rationally believe their lives would be better here. Allowing more to come, even if they are not true refugees, has large benefits.
But it has downsides, too. The recent immigration surge has stretched budgets and created turmoil along the border and in cities like Chicago, Denver and New York. The surge is also undemocratic in some important ways: Immigration levels have been higher than federal law calls for and higher than most Americans support.
Then there are the political effects. The migration surge has been a gift to Trump’s campaign — which seems as if it should be alarming even to Democrats who favor high immigration. As Oren Cass, who runs American Compass, a conservative think tank, put it, “If you think there is nothing that matters more in the world than Joe Biden winning the 2024 election, how can you say there is nothing to do in the area of greatest political salience?”
Whatever the reasons, Biden appears likely to take bolder action in the next several weeks.
For more
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