Biden’s border bungle is souring America on immigration
The percentage of Americans who think the country should let in fewer immigrants fell steadily after 1995. But that trend has reversed in the past few years. According to Gallup, 41 percent of Americans want to see a decrease in the number of “people who come from other countries to live here in the United States,” up a whopping 10 points from May 2020.
This trend tracks closely with the border crisis that has unfolded under the Biden presidency. More people than ever are undertaking horrific treks north, only to reach the border and encounter a new journey of uncertainty. Of the over 3 million migrants released into the United States under this administration, many will encounter years of court backlogs with no guarantee of residency while waiting in cities and communities that are running out of resources and patience.
Ultimately, this is hurting immigrants and would-be immigrants the most. The disorder is shifting public opinion against the idea of immigration and contributing to the demonization of immigrants. The plummeting public perception of immigration is in large part due to the negative consequences — both real and perceived — stemming from the disorder at the border on Biden’s watch and the risks it poses.
Nowhere is this clearer than on the campaign trail. At a rally in South Carolina on the eve of its primary, Donald Trump told a crowd of 6,000: “Remember I came out and I said, ‘the border — they’re having problems. They’ve got rapists, they’ve got thugs’ . . . and everybody said ‘what horrible things!’ We were right about that one too.” Across the country, Trump primary supporters said Trump’s main challenger, Nikki Haley, wasn’t tough enough on immigration. Sure enough, Trump-allied groups blasted her in January for having suggested in 2015 that it’s wrong to call all undocumented immigrants “criminals,” despite the fact that as governor of South Carolina she signed one of the nation’s toughest anti-illegal immigration bills.
But public sentiment isn’t just inflamed in the GOP — the perception of immigration is souring across the board. Since 2019, the share of Democrats who want to increase border security has risen by 10 percentage points, and those who want to increase deportations has gone up eight.
Their rhetoric is heating up, too. President Biden finally conceded that there’s a crisis at the border — though he waited for House Republicans to stumble on a bipartisan border bill. He used the term “illegal” to refer to migrants during the State of the Union. It’s a taboo term among progressives — despite the fact that crossing the border without authorization is illegal — so it’s no wonder the president later apologized for not using the more politically correct “undocumented.” Biden’s sudden shift to tough talk on immigration can be attributed to the fact that the border is the issue in the 2024 election, and Biden’s approval rating on the matter is an abysmal 35 percent.
As a small number of migrants who were released from the border under the administration make headlines for crimes like the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, Republicans are quick to point fingers at Biden. Criminalizing migrants who entered the country illegally is central to Donald Trump’s campaign strategy.
These are unfair generalizations about a population that, through my own reporting at the border and in Boston and New York, I’ve generally found to be hardworking, respectful, and hopeful. Trump is responsible for what Trump says. But it’s also true that the Biden administration has done itself no favors by taking steps that have put the American population — as well as migrants — at risk.
On the most basic level, by allowing migrants to remain in this country while they await asylum hearings, and instituting other policies that have served as a magnet for record-level border crossings, this administration has handicapped border patrol officers in doing their actual job: securing the border. Between ports of entry, the border remains porous and easily accessible to good and bad actors alike, who pass without vetting. Back in 2022, when I visited Del Rio, Texas, local ranchers told me about not getting help when they called Customs and Border Protection about dozens of illegal crossings on their properties.
Keep in mind that vetting is rigorous in other immigration processes. Andrew Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, pointed out in an interview that if a foreign national gets a visa to come to the United States, they have to “pass a criminal background check at the consulate abroad before they’re ever given that visa.” Not so at the border. Arthur says border agents “will check certain US databases, and they may have some access to foreign databases, but you don’t have that same level of review for people who have entered illegally.” Part of this is a volume problem: Brandon Judd, the president of the Border Patrol Union, told me in an interview that “we just don’t have enough time to properly vet people before they’re released.”
There’s plenty of evidence that the current level of vetting isn’t thorough enough. Riley’s alleged killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, was released from an El Paso detention center in 2022 due to lack of space. A 27-year-old member of the terrorist group al-Shabab was captured in Minneapolis after being released by Customs and Border Protection in California. He was released in March 2023 due to a “mismatch” with the name on the terror watch list and wasn’t brought into custody until Immigration and Customs Enforcement became aware of his identity in January. Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was “very concerned” about a human trafficking network tied to ISIS at the border.
Vetting issues have always been a risk at the border. But the Biden administration has explicitly lowered the bar. A September 2021 memo from the Department of Homeland Security limits enforcement priorities to migrants posing a threat to national security, public security, or border security — but it left a great deal to officers’ own judgment: The memo instructs personnel to “not rely on the fact of conviction or the result of a database search alone.” One of the things this means in practice is that now migrants convicted of domestic violence can be allowed in.
Steven Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University, believes that the memo simply prioritizes “who to target, and they wanted to target those who had committed the most crimes.” But such perilous prioritization wouldn’t be necessary at a more orderly border.
Among the factors that border personnel were told might merit discretion on their part: “advanced or tender age” of a migrant with a conviction in another country, “a mental condition that may have contributed to the criminal conduct,” and “time since an offense and evidence of rehabilitation.” According to Judd, the memo made it more difficult “to hold people in custody pending their deportation or for asylum proceedings.” He added, “We ultimately ended up having to release a lot of people that in the past would have never been released.”
Progressive activists are often right to call out Trump’s rhetoric as inflammatory and racially insensitive. And it’s true that migrant-related crime happens at a low rate and is disproportionately highlighted by Republicans and right-leaning outlets. But to pretend that this current administration hasn’t created a higher level of risk at the southern border is folly. And the greatest consequence for the country is even graver: The very concept of immigration, including legal immigration, is at stake.
We’re already seeing this play out in Congress, where in February Republicans canned a bipartisan border bill that they said didn’t go far enough. That bill was mostly fashioned to get tougher on the border and illegal immigration, but it also would have boosted the number of visas for legal immigrants.
Americans value border security as a part of immigration reform. A recent study done by the Immigration Hub, a nonpartisan organization that encourages “fair and just immigration policies,” shows that battleground state voters value increasing border security at similar rates to “providing legal pathways for Dreamers and those undocumented immigrants who have been here for many years.” This means that among the American people there is broad support for both immigration reform and securing the border. Taking both steps could also, in the long run, expand opportunities for legal visas.
Regardless of his intentions to create a “fair and humane” border, Biden has done more harm than good for the future of immigration and the perception of migrants. The lesson is clear: To restore an appetite for more immigration, the first step is to restore order at the border.