The only thing that’s clear about the current argument about the new White House immigration policy and GOP congressional opposition to it is that both sides’ positions are based on electoral politics, not about the best way to handle immigration into the United States.
In the end, it’s the fault of Congress — of both the House and the Senate — and not of executive orders from either the former Donald Trump administration or the current Joe Biden immigration.
Congress is where immigration laws should be made, but those electeds have shirked their duty to effect immigration reform for literally decades.
But, to properly share the blame, both recent presidents — now running against each other again — created policies that are based on what they think will get them elected, not on what properly should be done.
Recently, a bipartisan group of senators crafted compromise legislation based on the unprecedented surge of migrants at the southern border. It was a true compromise, with both sides getting some of what they wanted, but not all.
Its chance for passage in the House was destroyed when Trump quickly announced that he was against it. He believes his chances for election to a second term will be helped if the chaos at the border continues, so that he can continue to rail against it and blame Biden for it.
Biden, meanwhile, who formerly claimed that his hands were tied and that Congress needed to act instead, did what presidents do: flip-flopped. He issued an executive order that is aimed at looking tough on immigration not because it will work but because it seems, well, Trumpian.
A plurality of Americans continue to tell the Gallup poll that their No. 1 concern is immigration, and so the Biden team played politics this week with a new directive.
Which, unfortunately, will not work. It merely sounds hard-line by greatly restricting migrants’ rights to seek asylum after crossing the southern border. “The entry of any noncitizen into the United States across the southern border is hereby suspended and limited,” says Biden’s order.
A summary of what it does, from Reason immigration reporter Fiona Harrigan: “When border encounters between ports of entry hit an average of 2,500 per day over a seven-day period, migrants will no longer be allowed to seek asylum unless they qualify for a narrow exception or request an appointment at a port of entry through an app (a process that has been glitchy and cumbersome). The restrictions will lift two weeks after the daily number of encounters between ports of entry falls below 1,500 on average over a seven-day period.”
We know how the scene at the border looks to many Americans, and we share their concern. We also know that politics demands the administration — and its electoral challenger — take what appears to be a tough stance on asylum.
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But Americans need to understand a simple truth about the new Biden policy. It won’t reduce the demand to enter the United States. That demand is created by two things: The despotic regimes and gang violence across the globe from which would-be immigrants are fleeing, and — this is a good thing — our relatively strong national economy and availability of jobs.
Instead of the now familiar scene of migrants from Africa, Latin America and China stepping calmly across the border and surrendering on purpose to Border Control agents and entering the asylum process, “it will cause more people to enter illegally and try to evade detection rather than turn themselves in for asylum. Evasions mean more trespassing on private property, more car chases with smugglers, and more confrontations between Border Patrol agents and migrants,” David Bier of the Cato Institute explains. “This action will only result in more deaths of migrants who think the only way to enter is by evading Border Patrol — by hiding in deserts, swimming the Rio Grande River, or slipping in surreptitiously into the back of tractor-trailers.”
Unpopular though it may be in some quarters, we are pro-immigration. And we are also pro-order. The new Biden policy will create more pandemonium at the border, not less, offering only the appearance of “cracking down.” Congress, do your job, and let grandstanding candidates for the presidency grandstand about something else instead.
