April 5, 2022

Biden's Moves to Make His Border Crisis Even Worse


KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • President Biden’s immigration policies have caused a massive crisis at our southern border.
  • Now, still without a plan to secure the border, he is taking away a measure that was used to help reduce some of the problem.
  • Last year, U.S. officials recorded more than 2 million crossings by illegal immigrants along the southern border; there were 1.1 million expulsions under Title 42. 

Border security continues to suffer at the hands of the Biden administration. In his first days in office, the president sought to end immigration policies that had been working, with no plan for how to replace them. His decisions have created one of the worst humanitarian crises ever on the southern border and leave the country vulnerable to serious threats. In its latest misstep, the administration has announced it will rescind a public health measure known as Title 42 on May 23. That policy had been allowing Customs and Border Protection to more easily and quickly expel migrants back across the southern border.

Biden’s Bad Immigration Policies

Biden’s Bad Immigration Policies

RADICAL BORDER policies create a historic crisis 

In its first few months, the Biden administration moved quickly to dismantle the system that was being used to secure the border. It took 94 executive actions on immigration, many of which made it easier for people to illegally enter and stay in the country. A crisis quickly ensued, with the number of migrants at the border doubling from January 2021 to March 2021. Authorities reported more than 2 million instances of migrants trying to cross the border illegally in 2021, not including those who evaded immigration authorities entirely.

One of the most effective tools for stemming the tide was the Title 42 policy. Put in place as a public health measure in 2020, it allowed officials to expel illegal migrants to prevent the spread of coronavirus. That authority was used to expel 1.1 million times to expel illegal migrants in 2021. Although the Biden administration did what it could to undermine the policy, border patrol agents retained the ability to quickly remove illegal migrants and try to impose some order.

Despite the unprecedented surge of people rushing to the border, immigration enforcement actions fell. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 48% fewer convicted criminals in fiscal year 2021 than it had the previous year. The agency also deported 63% fewer criminals and issued 46% fewer “detainer requests” to local authorities. The massive decrease in enforcement is solely attributable to the far-left politics and policies of the administration and its supporters in Congress.

Last week, the administration issued a new rule giving bureaucrats at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services the ability to grant certain types of asylum requests without an immigration judge’s decision. This policy, another nod to extremists in the president’s party, is likely to lead to a large increase in migrants with frivolous asylum claims being granted asylum and allowed to remain in the United States. This seems to be a departure from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ promise in March of this year to “deliver consequences for those who do not qualify for relief and seek to enter our countries illegally.” The Biden administration also took steps to undermine any ability to deal with the border crisis by cutting detention facility capacity for migrants. It requested a reduction of thousands of beds and the elimination of family holding facilities in its FY 2023 budget. Not done yet, on Friday last week, the administration announced it will rescind Title 42 measures on May 23.

Current border processing facilities are severely undersupplied and do not have the capacity to deal with the number of illegal migrants already crowding the border, let alone what is to come with the repeal of Title 42. Border Patrol agents have recently been processing 7,000 people a day. DHS officials have told Congress they expect 1 million people to cross the border in the first six weeks after Title 42 is abandoned. At that point, they expect to have to process as many as 18,000 illegal immigrants per day at the southern border.

The system is already so overburdened that many of the people caught are placed into ICE’s “alternatives to detention” programs and quickly released without any meaningful accountability. The administration is working quickly to move illegal immigrants caught at the border, and who are not expelled, into the interior of the U.S. With an added surge of migration, this will become more widespread. Senator Joe Manchin called the Biden administration’s policy change on Title 42 “a frightening decision.” Other congressional Democrats have also called on the administration to keep Title 42 in place until it comes up with a real plan restore control over our southern border.

NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS ON OUR BORDER

The administration has tried to say it will stem the tide at the border by focusing on the root causes of poverty in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. A year into the administration, it’s clear this strategy, if there truly is one, is not working. Even if it were, many of the people crossing are from other countries. According to the New York Times, more than 6,400 Russians crossed the border without authorization from last October through the end of January, many at official ports of entry.

The new surge will take border agents away from other jobs to process migrants. Criminal groups and other adversaries could take advantage of the more open border. Air Force General Glen VanHerck, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, has noted that the Russian intelligence service, known as the GRU, is active in Mexico and is looking for opportunities to access. 

Biden’s Bad Policies Make Country Less Safe

Biden’s Bad Policies Make Country Less Safe

Rescinding Title 42 will lead to more chaos and suffering at the border. Pulling agents away to process illegal immigrants in an already overburdened system will only make the problem more acute and solutions harder to find. The administration should move quickly to secure the border and restore order.

Issue Tag: National Security