The Riverside Press-Enterprise
The border remains a challenge for Joe Biden
Divisions within the Democratic Party are deepening over the critically important issue of immigration, adding to the political and practical challenges facing the Biden administration as it works to mitigate the ongoing crisis at the southern border.
Progressives are pushing back against President Joe Biden’s new “middle-ground” immigration policy, which pairs stronger deterrence measures for illegal border crossings with the opening of limited legal pathways for asylum seekers and migrants.
This renewed Democratic infighting over the border ultimately leaves President Biden and Democrats in toss-up House and Senate seats vulnerable to attacks from Republicans. Just 13% of Americans believe the situation at the border has improved under Biden — a sentiment that the GOP will be able to weaponize in the runup to the 2024 election if there is a vocal group of Democrats essentially advocating for open borders.
While this new positioning is ostensibly a step in the right direction for Biden, whose uneven approach to the border up until this point has landed him a 33% approval rating on his handling of the issue, the president now finds himself under fire from his left flank.
Last week, 77 Congressional Democrats signed a letter publicly calling on the president to reconsider his policy. Among the signatories is prominent Sen. Bob Menendez, who has described the new policies as “merely an attempt to replace our asylum laws, and thousands of asylum seekers waiting to present their cases will be hurt as a result.”
Immigration activists took the president to task as well. Eleanor Acer, director of the refugee program at Human Rights First described the new policy as a “humanitarian disgrace.”
Some Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, have equated Biden’s policy of restricting migrants’ ability to obtain asylum at our border while also encouraging them to apply for asylum in a third country with the policies of former President Trump.
As a candidate in 2020, he pledged to undo many of Trump’s immigration directives, and criticized the former president for restricting asylum seekers from Central America. Yet, many of the same policies have continued under his administration.
Indeed, this new measure is essentially an extension of Title 42, a COVID-ERA rule that allows the government to expel migrants on public health grounds without taking standard procedural steps.
The policy increases the use of expedited removal for those who illegally cross the border, encourages asylum seekers to obtain authorization in a third country before making their way to the U.S. and imposes a five-year reentry ban for violators.
At the same time, it expands humanitarian “parole” for citizens of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti by opening 30,000 monthly spots for citizens of those four countries seeking asylum. In order to qualify for one of the spots, migrants must pass a background check, be able to buy a plane ticket and have a sponsor in the U.S.
To be sure, there must be an even more forceful effort by the administration to prioritize curbing illegal immigration in a way that treats it as a matter of both national security and economic policy, despite the internal strife it could cause.
The border is in crisis, and the response must match the severity of the situation. In 2021, there was a record number of apprehensions at the southern border and cities such as New York have been overwhelmed by an influx of migrants for months.
While many migrants have legitimate claims to asylum, others are seeking to abuse the process and using it to traffic in dangerous individuals and drugs like fentanyl, which is now the principal cause of death among Americans aged 18-45.
Further, mitigating the southern border crisis is ultimately a precondition for fixing our nation’s deeply flawed immigration system.
A comprehensive approach should, in addition to enhancing border security, create a pathway to citizenship for DREAMERS brought here as children and address the need for sensible increases in legal immigration of high-skilled migrants in particular, which is crucial for our historically tight job market.
Regrettably, though, this conflict within the Democratic Party further dooms the prospect of this Congress advancing a comprehensive fix to our nation’s broken immigration system, as neither party has articulated a unified approach that can be used as a starting point for bipartisan talks.
For his part, Biden deserves credit for finally making an effort to mend the crisis at the border with the resources he has at his discretion. Yet, it will be clear in the coming weeks and months that a more forceful approach to controlling the border is needed, leaving him with a decision to make.
Even if Biden continues towing the centrist line, as he should, if progressives push back against his policies, as they have, it could deepen the rift within the Democratic Party in a way that gives Republicans political ammo to use against Democrats in 2024.