Biden Discovers the U.S.-Mexico Border He offers modest new enforcement while blaming Republicans for the surge of migrants on his watch.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-discovers-the-u-s-mexico-border-11672962647?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
One sign that President Biden plans to run for re-election is that he’s finally noticing there’s a problem at the U.S.-Mexico border. Not that he intends to do much about it. His Administration on Thursday teed up the President’s trip to the border near El Paso on Sunday by outlining its Title 42 replacement plan, which is more political palliative than a solution.
Title 42 lets the federal government bypass usual procedural requirements during a public-health emergency to expel migrants, including many asylum seekers. The Supreme Court has let Title 42 stay in effect temporarily as litigation plays out. But courts are likely to rule eventually that a President has the authority to terminate the policy, as Mr. Biden wants to do.
Mr. Biden’s problem is that his political and policy signals that the border is essentially open have created a magnet for migrants that will grow after Title 42 goes away. Border patrol encounters soared to 2.2 million in the last fiscal year from 405,036 in 2020 and are on course to be higher this year even with Title 42 in place. And that doesn’t include the migrants who are never caught.
The President’s political problem is that all of this is straining the border region and increasingly cities where the migrants are heading after they enter. Democratic mayors are furious. So now the President is at long last trying to address the problem by announcing “new enforcement measures.” Count us skeptical that any of them will do much good.
The Administration plans to increase its use of expedited removal for migrants who don’t claim asylum, or for asylum seekers who don’t pass the initial “credible fear” test. It also will provide more support for border communities and boost resources to process migrants. Why didn’t it do all of this earlier?
The Administration also aims to deter migrants from showing up at the border by expanding refugee visas from countries in the Western Hemisphere and establishing a parole process that would let 30,000 migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba apply each month to come to the U.S. and work legally for two years.
This is surely better than the current fiasco of migrants crossing the border illegally, claiming asylum when they get caught, then being released into the U.S. while waiting for a hearing, and then not being able to work for months until a work authorization is approved. But the President’s piecemeal measures do little to fix the underlying migration incentives.
To wit, it’s too easy for migrants to remain in the U.S. if they claim asylum and too hard for them to get a legal guest-worker visa. The “credible fear” asylum test needs to be made harder. And there needs to be more guest-worker visas of all sorts and programs that let low-skilled workers come for non-seasonal jobs such as nursing homes.
Mr. Biden gave away the political nature of this border epiphany in remarks on Thursday by repeatedly blaming Republicans for the migrant surge. He said they won’t give him more money, won’t negotiate in good faith, and refuse to consider the “comprehensive immigration reform” he proposed in 2021.
This is an exercise in re-election campaign inoculation, not a genuine legislative offer. His comprehensive reform includes a pathway to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, which has no chance of passing Congress. Over two years Mr. Biden has put zero political capital into forging a compromise. If he were serious about negotiating with the GOP, he would have spared the blame-game this far out from 2024 and staked out what could be bipartisan common ground.
So much for moving to the political center after losing the House majority. On immigration as on energy, his policies have done real-world harm, but he won’t change because he doesn’t he want to anger the left. And on immigration the left is as culpable as the restrictionist right in refusing compromise because it wants to exploit the issue in campaigns.
Why does Mr. Biden want a second term if he doesn’t want to lead?
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