Biden vows not to demonise immigrants in annual speech
‘I will not separate families. I will not ban people from America because of their faith,’ says president
President Joe Biden delivered the annual State of the Union address on Thursday night, casting a wide net on a range of major themes - the economy, abortion rights, threats to democracy, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine - that are preoccupying many Americans heading into the November presidential election.
The president also addressed massive increases in immigration at the southern border and the political batle in Congress over how to manage it.
“We can fight about the border, or we can fix it. I’m ready to fix it,” Biden said.
But while Biden stressed that he wants to overcome political division and take action on immigration and the border, he cautioned that he will not “demonise immigrants,” as he said his predecessor, former president Donald Trump, does. “I will not separate families. I will not ban people from America because of their faith,” Biden said.
Biden’s speech comes as a rising number of American voters say that immigration is the country’s biggest problem.
Immigration law scholar Jean Lantz Reisz answers four questions about why immigration has become a top issue for Americans, and the limits of presidential power when it comes to immigration and border security.
The unprecedented number of undocumented migrants crossing the Us-mexico border right now has drawn national concern to the US immigration system and the president’s enforcement policies at the border.
Border security has always been part of the immigration debate about how to stop unlawful immigration.
But in this election, the immigration debate is also fuelled by images of large groups of migrants crossing a river and crawling through barbed wire fences.
There is also news of standoffs between Texas law enforcement and US Border Patrol agents and cities like New York and Chicago struggling to handle the influx of arriving migrants.
Republicans blame Biden for not taking action on what they say is an “invasion” at the US border.
Democrats blame Republicans for refusing to pass laws that would give the president the power to stop the flow of migration at the border.
Confusion about immigration laws may be the reason people believe that Biden is not implementing effective policies at the border.
The US passed a law in 1952 that gives any person arriving at the border or inside the US the right to apply for asylum and the right to legally stay in the country, even if that person crossed the border illegally. That law has not changed.
Courts struck down many of Trump’s policies that tried to limit immigration.
Trump was able to lawfully deport migrants at the border without processing their asylum claims during the COVID-19 pandemic under a public health law called Title 42.
Biden continued that policy until the legal justification for Title 42 - meaning the public health emergency - ended in 2023.
Republicans falsely atribute the surge in undocumented migration to the US over the past three years to something they call Biden’s “open border” policy.
There is no such policy. Multiple factors are driving increased migration to the US. More people are leaving dangerous or difficult situations in their countries, and some people have waited to migrate until ater the COVID-19 pandemic ended. People who smuggle migrants are also spreading misinformation to migrants about the ability to enter and stay in the US.
The president’s power regarding immigration is limited to enforcing existing immigration laws.
But the president has broad authority over how to enforce those laws.
For example, the president can place every single immigrant unlawfully present in the US in deportation proceedings. Because there is not enough money or employees at federal agencies and courts to accomplish that, the president will usually choose to prioritise the deportation of certain immigrants, like those who have committed serious and violent crimes in the US.
The federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported more than 142,000 immigrants from October 2022 through September 2023, double the number of people it deported the previous fiscal year.