Biden caught between allies and critics of border policy

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WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden is caught between a difficult situation and an even more difficult immigration situation.

Biden embraced the main progressive political goals on the issue after winning the Democratic nomination, and he’s started to embrace some of them. But his administration has been forced to deal with unusually high numbers of migrants trying to enter the country along the US-Mexico border, and the federal response has ignited both critics and allies.

Much of the anger centers on the administration’s immigration official, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

It is no surprise to be hit on both sides when it comes to immigration, Mayorkas told NBC over the weekend. We are unfortunately at the epicenter of the division of the country.

The result is that immigration has become an early and unwanted distraction for an administration that prefers to focus on the pandemic, the economy, and other political priorities.

Only 35% of Americans approve of Bidens ‘handling of immigration, up from 43% in April, when it was already one of Bidens’ worst problems, according to a new Associated Press-NORC poll Center for Public Affairs Research. Immigration is a relatively low point for Biden within his own party, with just 60% of Democrats saying they approve.

Images of border patrol officers on horseback preventing Haitian migrants from crossing the Rio Grande only added to the angst. While the widely shared photos mistakenly suggested that officers were using their reins to primarily whip black migrants, Mayorkas and Biden expressed outrage at the tactics and homeland security investigation.

The outcry was such that Mayorkas was asked if his department was a dishonest agency. He replied, I couldn’t disagree more vehemently.

Some of Bidens ‘strongest supporters on Capitol Hill and among outside immigrant advocates had previously expressed outrage at the administrations’ continued reliance on a Trump-era public health authority known as of Title 42, to quickly expel migrants, including thousands of Haitians.

Marielena Hincapi, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center and former co-chair of an immigration task force aimed at uniting Biden supporters with the more progressive mainstream Sen. Bernie Sanders, noted that the White House has appointed some of the best people. in our movement to help manage immigration programs.

But she is among those opposed to Title 42, which the Trump administration invoked at the start of the pandemic, ostensibly to slow the spread of COVID-19. It prevents people from making asylum claims in the United States.

This is the time when friends need to have those courageous conversations with friends, Hincapi said. When they make the wrong decision.

The administrations’ refusal to suspend Title 42, even when appealing a court order to stop relying on it to evict families, as well as the lack of progress in Congress on a sweeping bill on the The immigration that Biden introduced when he took office prompted supporters to warn of a return to the app. – heavy policies of President Barack Obama.

They’ve been there eight months, said Todd Schulte, chairman of FWD.us, an immigration advocacy group backed by some of the country’s biggest tech companies. The policies they actively pursue are very different from those they have promised. The policies they actively pursue fail. Yet the continued direction is in the wrong direction.

The Obama administration in its early years dramatically increased the number of migrants it deported in hopes of showing Republicans that it had stepped up enforcement while trying to get its own comprehensive immigration program through. through Congress. Officials ultimately deported a record 3 million people, leading some activists to label Obama the chief deportee, but still failed to produce congressional action on an immigration overhaul.

The math the administration is doing right now is that it will have a better chance of getting Congress to act on larger scale immigration reforms if it succeeds in controlling the border, said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director general of immigration and cross-border transport. border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. It was really the theory of the Obama administration.

Like the Obama and Trump administrations, the Biden administration is facing an increase in the number of migrants attempting to cross the border, either illegally or to report to border patrol agents so they can seek asylum.

The total number of encounters with migrants along the US-Mexico border reached just over 208,000 in August, a slight drop from July but still the highest since March 2000 and the highest since the last strong increase in 2019, under President Donald Trump.

The current total is inflated by Title 42, with around a quarter of encounters involving people who were recaptured after being previously deported under public health authority. The numbers have also increased due to factors such as the devastation of COVID-19 on Latin American economies and the perception that Biden will be more welcoming than Trump.

Bidens’ response has been to try and tackle the root causes of migration by increasing aid to Central America, which was cut off under Trump, and re-establishing a program for children in the region to apply. visas to reunite with family in the United States.

His administration also used the proposed new federal rules for measures such as strengthening legal protections for immigrants brought into the country illegally as children.

I’m confident the president will use all the tools at his disposal, but the administrative tools are not enough to sort out what needs to be fixed, said Cecilia Muoz, director of the White House Home Policy Council under Obama. She blames the staunch opposition in the Republican Congress and the Senate rules she says have been poorly enforced, as she expects immigration reform will not be passed by Congress as part of the process of budgeting.

Legislative efforts aside, the administration ended the Trump-era practice of deporting children crossing alone from Mexico under Title 42 and allowed thousands of migrant families to stay in the United States. United as they pursue asylum claims, a process that often ends in denial but can take years to reach a final decision.

He however continued to use Title 42 to evict many families and almost all single adults, with Mayorkas repeatedly insisting that this is a necessary public health measure, aimed at reducing the spread of the disease. COVID-19 in detention centers.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy adviser at the American Immigration Council, argues that relying on Title 42 causes more problems than it’s worth by inflating the total number of meetings, which are still well below what they were 20 years ago.

Title 42 created a significant amount of border churn, and the end result of that churn was not a safer border, Reichlin-Melnick said. It has been a reduction in the ability of people to request protection and an overworked border patrol, which does not have the capacity to cope with this level of activity.

A federal judge, ruling in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, recently said it was likely illegal to rely on Title 42 to deny people the right to claim asylum and said it would issue a preliminary injunction ending its use. The Biden administration appealed, further infuriating critics.

Anthony Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, told a forum on Monday that he broadly supports administrative actions on immigration and Mayorkas. But he said the ACLU, which has filed more than 400 lawsuits under Trump, will not hesitate to continue challenging Biden over Title 42 and other matters.

I think litigation is as important in keeping our feet under fire from our allies as it is in fighting the enemies of civil liberties and civil rights, Romero said, because that’s what creates political will.

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Associated Press editor Emily Swanson contributed to this report.

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