Immigration was dead simple when Joe Biden was campaigning for president: It was an easy way to
attack Donald Trump as a racist, and it helped to rally Democrats with the promise of a more humane
border policy.
Nothing worked better than Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” that he was building along the southern border. Its existence was as much a metaphor for the polarisation inside America as it was a largely ineffective barrier against foreigners fleeing to the United States from Central America.
“There will not be,” Biden proclaimed as he campaigned against Trump in the summer of 2020, “another foot of wall constructed.”
But a massive surge of migration in the Western Hemisphere has scrambled the dynamics of an issue that has vexed presidents for decades, and radically reshaped the political pressures on Biden and his administration.
Instead of becoming the president who quickly reversed his predecessor’s policies, Biden has repeatedly tried to curtail the migration of a record number of people — and the political fallout that has created — by embracing, or at least tolerating, some of Trump’s anti-immigrant approaches.
On Thursday, Biden administration officials formally sought to waive environmental regulations to allow
construction of 20 additional miles of border wall in a part of Texas that is inundated by illegal migration. The move was a stunning reversal on a political and moral issue that had once galvanised Biden and Democrats like no other.
The funds for the wall had been approved by Congress during Trump’s tenure, and on Friday, the president said he had no power to block their use.
“The wall thing?” Biden asked reporters on Friday. “Yeah. Well, I was told that I had no choice — that I, you know, Congress passes legislation to build something, whether it’s an aircraft carrier wall or provide for a tax cut.
I can’t say, ‘I don’t like it. I’m not going to do it.’” White House officials said that they tried for years,
without success, to get Congress to redirect the wall money to other border priorities. And they said Biden’s lawyers had advised that the only way to get around the Impoundment Control Act, which requires the president to spend money as Congress directs, was to file a lawsuit.
The administration chose not to do so. The money had to be spent by the end of December, the
officials said.
Asked on Thursday whether he thought a border wall works, Biden — who has long said a wall would not be effective — said simply: “No.” Still, human rights groups are furious, accusing the president of abandoning the principles on which he campaigned. They praise him for opening new, legal opportunities for some migrants, including thousands from Venezuela, but question his recent reversals on enforcement policy.
“It doesn’t help this administration politically, to continue policies that they were very clear they were
against,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant rights organisation. “That muddles the message and undermines the contrast that they’re trying to make when it comes to Republicans.”
“This president came into office with a lot of moral clarity about where the lines were,” she added.
Biden had previously adopted some of his predecessor’s policies, but those have still failed to slow illegal immigration. The issue has become incendiary inside his own party, driving wedges between Biden and some of the country’s most prominent Democratic governors and mayors, whose communities are being taxed by the cost of providing for the new arrivals.
Eric Adams, the Democratic mayor of New York,
has blamed the administration for a situation that he
says could destroy his city. J B Pritzker, the Democratic
governor of Illinois and an ally of Biden, wrote this week
in a letter to the president that a “lack of intervention and
coordination” by Biden’s government at the border “has
created an untenable situation for Illinois.”
In comments to reporters at an event opposing book
banning, Pritzker said that he had recently “spoken with
the White House” on the matter “to make sure that they
heard us.”
The moment underscores the new reality for the
president as he prepares to campaign for a second term.
His handling of immigration has become one of his biggest
potential liabilities, with polls showing deep dissatisfaction
among voters about how he deals with the new arrivals.
With record numbers of migrants streaming across the
border, he can no longer portray it in the simple terms he
did a few years ago.
Since taking office, Biden has tried to balance his
stated desire for a more humane approach with strict
enforcement that aides believe is crucial to ensure that
migrants do not believe the border is open to anyone.
This spring, the president announced new legal options
for some migrants from several countries — Venezuela,
Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti. He also has expanded
protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants already
in the United States, allowing more of them to work while
they are in the country temporarily.
But the more welcoming policies have been balanced by
tougher ones.
Biden this year approved a policy that had the effect of
denying most immigrants the ability to seek asylum in the
United States, a move that human rights groups noted was
similar to an approach that Trump hailed as a way to “close
the border” to immigrants he wanted to keep out.
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