Biden’s Immigration Reform Draws Trump Comparisons

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Minutes before sitting down with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other Congressional leaders on May 16, President Biden was asked if he had anything to say about the Southwest Border. It’s been nearly a week since the pandemic-era Title 42 immigration policy instituted by Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, ended, and the massive increase in border crossing officers that many predicted has not materialized. .

The border “looks better,” Biden said. “It looks better.”

Biden is seeking credit for new rules he put in place to replace Title 42, which set standards for who is allowed to apply for asylum in the US that Biden’s critics on the left say are as strict as those imposed by his predecessor, Donald Trump. The new rules further deny entry to people who have previously tried to cross between ports of entry, have not applied for protection in any country they passed through on their way to the US, or come to immigration officials without appointment made through a new US government app.

Four years ago, Biden made it clear that his presidency would overturn Trump’s entire approach to immigration. The record he’s building appears to be less clear, potentially vying for the border debate during next year’s election.

“Biden wants to send the message that he’s willing to go where Trump went, to really make his case that he’s as tough as anyone on people crossing the border illegally,” said David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, DC “It’s certainly the case that he thinks it’s a political necessity.”

The new asylum rules have been blasted by immigrant rights advocates to Biden’s left, both in public comments and in private meetings with White House staff. Groups representing immigrants quickly sued the government to block the rules, saying they are a return to Trump-era asylum restrictions and violate US asylum law designed to offer protection from people fleeing political persecution and state-sponsored violence.

But Biden’s tough new policy, at least in the short term, seems to be working. In the week after the changes took effect, the number of people Border Patrol encountered crossing between ports of entry dropped to an average of 4,000 per day, down by more than half from the days leading up to the change of the rule on May 11, according to the numbers. issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

Read more: Migrants Struggle to Make Asylum Appointment Through US Government App

Those numbers haven’t stopped critics on the right from continuing to insist that Biden failed the country at the border. In the Chamber, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, bordering on introducing articles of impeachment last week against Biden. And Trump claimed in fundraising emails that federal officials have been dishonest about the situation since the end of Title 42. “God only knows the REAL NUMBER of illegal aliens charged outside of our wide-open borders since Biden opened the floodgates last Thursday,” read one of Trump’s email solicitations for donations sent Thursday.

Trump put immigration at the center of his successful 2016 presidential campaign. As President, he built and upgraded hundreds of miles of border fencing, instituted a ban on immigration from many Muslim-majority countries , slowed the processing of legal immigration applications, and instituted a policy that separated parents from children at the border. Polls taken during his administration have found that much of Trump’s immigration agenda is not supported by the majority of Americans.

At a CNN Town Hall event on May 10, Trump falsely claimed that the border wall was completed during his presidency, and doubled down on his family separation policy. “When you have that policy, people don’t come,” Trump said. “When a family hears that they are going to separate, they love their family, they don’t go. I know it’s harsh.”

Some of Biden’s earliest actions as President amounted to a repudiation of his predecessor’s approach to immigration. On his first day in office, Biden sent a sweeping immigration reform bill to Congress, halted construction of Trump’s border wall, reversed Trump’s visa ban applied to many African and Muslim-majority countries, and strengthened the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that Trump tried to end.

But the contrast gets murkier when it comes to Title 42, which Biden promised to repeal but ultimately kept in place for more than half of his first term. White House officials rank comparisons of the new asylum policies with Trump’s immigration policy. They argue that the new rules are consistent with Biden’s comments on the campaign trail. In a Democratic primary debate in July 2019, Biden said that allowing people who remain in the US to cross between ports of entry is unfair to people applying to enter from other countries. “If in fact you say you can cross the border, what do you say to all those people around the world who in fact want the same thing, to come to the United States and make their case, that they have to wait line?” Biden said. “If you crossed the border illegally, you should be sent back.”

Some immigrant rights groups believe Biden’s new rules run counter to the American tradition of allowing others to find safety and start a better life. “The administration said, ‘It’s not like Trump rules. We’re not like Trump,’ and it’s very difficult for us to understand how that happened,” said Karen Tumlin, founder and director of the Justice Action Center, a nonprofit that based in Los Angeles working to protect immigrant rights. “They pointed to the fact that there are some exceptions, but they also talked a lot about discretion at ports of entry. And also not having access to counsel when people first arrive. They talked a lot about increasing the speed of removals under accelerated removal, which we know is very problematic, and this is basically where due process goes.”

Administration officials emphasize that the new system implemented takes a carrot-and-stick approach to immigration. While Biden has raised the bar for granting asylum, he has also worked to bring more people through legal channels in an effort to reduce the number of people who hire smugglers to cross the border. The Biden administration has expanded temporary parole programs for people fleeing Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, and plans to open new offices in Colombia and Guatemala, where migrants can see if they qualify for legal way to enter the United States.

“This is a smart and pragmatic response by the American government to a new set of border challenges,” said Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic strategist. Voters may reward Biden for crafting a workable solution to a complex border problem, Rosenberg said.

Recent polling shows that a growing number of Democrats and Independents are dissatisfied with current levels of US immigration Gallup polling from February found that the percentage of Democrats who want less immigration to the US rose from 11% in 2022 to 19% this year. During that time, the number of independent voters who wanted less immigration rose from 19% to 36%.

By carving out a solution that both opens more legal paths and tightens asylum rules, Biden can argue to voters that he has found a way to manage the nation’s immigration system as effectively as possible. because of Congress’s refusal to reform the system as a whole or approve the resources. at the border he requested.

“It’s more about the President’s ability to explain to the American people that he’s put in place a plan that works on America’s border and immigration system,” Rosenberg said. “Now, I think they’ve come up with a smart plan that he can explain to the American people that, look, I’ve been given a tough job here, but we’ve done a good job and made things better. ”

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