Republicans have no excuse for a bad border deal

There’s no excuse for a weak deal on border security between the White House and Senate Republicans.. The border crisis could cost Democrats this year’s election and put Donald Trump in the White House — and Democrats know it. That means Republicans have all the leverage.

And it explains why so many GOP skeptics are unwilling to go along with major concessions.

Every year of his presidency, President Joe Biden has broken the record for most encounters at the southern border.

If you’re Biden and you know illegal immigration propelled Trump into the White House in 2016, why, on taking office, would you proceed to unleash the worst border crisis in American history?

It boggles the mind.

This is catching up with the president. The January Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that immigration is the No. 1 issue for voters. Republican governors have nationalized the problem by sending migrants who crossed the border illegally to Democrat-led cities such as Chicago and New York. “Once migrants started to show up in the cities, once budgets started to get stretched … once urban mayors raised alarm flags, this became an issue of concern to the national public,” says Mark Penn of the Harvard-Harris poll.

A recent Fox News poll found Democrats are completely out of step with the American people on illegal immigration: 67% of all voters said they want to deport those who are here illegally, 58% want to use the military to stop illegal immigration and 54% want to build a border wall. And according to a recent

College poll, voters say they trust Trump over Biden to do a better job on immigration by 12 points.

Americans are tired of seeing children kicked out of classrooms and recreation facilities that are turned into temporary migrant shelters. They are sick of having their tax dollars used to house migrants in luxury hotels, only to see five of them charged with beating up New York police officers and then released without bail. They are done with the surge of deadly fentanyl. And they blame Biden.

Republicans have little incentive to let Biden off the hook for his failed border policies a few months before the next election, Biden has

New York Times/Siena

demonized them on immigration while presiding over an unprecedented border debacle. Why provide him with last-minute cover if the deal does not actually solve the problems he created?

Republicans are rightly skeptical that Biden actually wants to secure the border. As he promises that if Congress passes the deal, he’ll “shut down the border tomorrow,” he’s pushing Texas to cut razor wire that it put up to secure the border. If he really wants to detain migrants, why is he leaving thousands of detention beds empty? And why isn’t he deporting those who enter the country illegally the way President Barack Obama did?

If Biden really wanted to shut down the border, he could today. The same laws are on the books today that were there when Obama and Trump got the border under control. Biden is choosing not to enforce the law.

Any deal Republicans reach needs to force Biden to take steps that will cause some in his party to balk — such as funding and expediting construction of the border wall; reinstating the policy requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico; barring applications for asylum for those who have transited through a safe third country; and deporting the millions of migrants who are here unlawfully. What would Democrats get? The ability to plausibly tell fed-up voters they’re finally getting serious about trying to solve the No. 1 problem voters say they care about.

If Biden won’t do these things, it will be clear he doesn’t want to stop illegal immigration. He only wants to stop Trump.