The border: Do Biden and Harris have a plan?
Kamala Harris held out for as long as she could, said Mark Krikorian in NationalReview.com, but last week Joe Biden’s appointed “border czarina” finally caved to her critics and visited the U.S.-Mexico border. The vice president chose Democrat-run El Paso for her brief “photo op,” 800 miles from the South Texas border at McAllen, where the “disaster” she and Biden have created is unfolding. But there is no hiding from the numbers. Since January, when Biden halted construction of the border wall and started repealing former President Trump’s asylum policies, 900,000 migrants—including thousands of unaccompanied children—have been taken into custody at the border. That’s double the 400,000 apprehended migrants in all of 2020—and it’s only July. Somehow, Harris found the gall to try to blame this “historic surge” on Biden’s predecessor, said John Davidson in NYPost.com, claiming she and Biden “inherited a tough situation.” But the real explanation is straightforward. When you repeal policies like Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” plan that successfully deter people from coming to the U.S., “they will come.”
The Biden administration did, in fact, inherit a mess, said Maria Cardona in TheHill.com. Trump used the Covid-19 pandemic to block all asylum claims, and tens of thousands of migrants were penned up in squalid tent cities on the Mexican side of the border. Despite Trump’s “draconian” policies, including separating children from their parents, migrants kept coming. Biden inherited a backlog in immigration courts of 1.3 million people and 350,000 pending asylum applications. Desperate migrants are willing to risk anything as they flee rampant crime, gang violence, and lack of jobs in Central America’s “Northern Triangle”—Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The actual job Biden gave Harris was to address the
“root causes” of migration in Central America, so fewer people make that dangerous trek. Migrants arrive seeking physical safety, “as is their right under U.S. and international law,” said Nicole Narea in Vox.com. Some have been deported, some are being held in jail-like detention centers to await asylum hearings, and thousands have been released into the U.S. while awaiting court dates. Now the administration needs to create a system for processing the asylum claims of families so that they can be decided in a matter of weeks, rather than years.
“Root causes, huh?” said Ruben Navarette in TheDailyBeast.com. On Harris’ recent trip to the region, her message to millions of desperate people whose “countries are imploding” was a simple
“Do not come.” Yes, the administration has proposed $4 billion in aid to Central America, but much of that money will only go to strengthen corrupt “military and police that—far from keeping people safe—often help drive people out.”
Biden needs to “go on offense,” said Paul Waldman in Washington Post.com. The administration actually is working hard to build a more efficient and compassionate asylum system—an effort that 71 percent of battleground-state voters support, according to new polling. Those same polls, however, show Biden with a 57 percent disapproval rating on immigration. Why the huge discrepancy? With Fox News blaring scare stories about “the crisis” at the border, Democrats have been “tentative and uncertain” about touting their more humane immigration policies, lest it aid Republicans in riling up their nativist voters. But why try to appease nativists who want no immigration? It’s time for Biden and the Democrats to focus on “getting the policy right” and stop worrying about “people who probably aren’t going to vote for them anyway.”