President Biden finally visited the U.S.-Mexico border to see for himself the extent of the problem. Reports suggest his tour was somewhat sanitized. The union representing the Border Patrol tweeted just before the visit that “El Paso is being cleared up as if nothing unusual ever happened there.”
That means the people in charge of Biden’s optics know it would be awkward for the President to be pictured among migrants who have swamped the border or amidst the migrant camps and individuals sleeping on the streets. Those images would directly connect Biden with the border chaos.
However, his trip there, even though it was watered down, is the most concrete acknowledgement since he took office that the border is a major issue, and one that has gotten dramatically worse during his tenure. The Customs and Border Protection agency reported 2.3 million encounters with migrants in fiscal year 2022, with the flood continuing into 2023.
Title 42 remains in place for the moment, and that allows the U.S. to turn away migrants for health reasons related to the pandemic. But that isn’t a border policy; it is just a questionable tool to try to stem the flow.
Last week, Biden announced the U.S. would limit entry to 30,000 individuals per month coming from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the four countries that make up a large percentage of the border crossers. “Do not, do not just show up at the border,” Biden said. “Stay where you are and apply legally from there.”
Again, that is only a partial fix. What the country needs is comprehensive immigration reform and improved border security, and that is up to Congress and the President. In 2013, The “Gang of Eight” in the Senate—that included four Democrats and four Republicans—crafted a sweeping immigration bill that cleared the body 68-32.* Fourteen Republicans voted for the bill.
The bill provided a 13-year-long pathway to legal status for individuals who entered the country illegally, but only if they had not been convicted of a serious crime, could pass a background check and pay their assessed taxes. Border security goals or “triggers” would have to be met, including more border fencing and additional border patrol agents hired, along the way.
However, the bill failed to get support in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
About the same time, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost in the primary to Tea Party-backed candidate David Brat who accused Cantor of being soft on immigration. Cantor’s stunning defeat ignited a fear among Republicans that any pathway to legal status or citizenship for the undocumented would brand them as “pro amnesty.”
Republicans have been running from that possibility ever since. Then Biden campaigned against Trump by branding him as “anti-immigrant.” That helped him with progressives and Latinos. About two-thirds of Latino voters backed Biden over Trump in 2020.
But Biden’s rollback of Trump border policies and his words of encouragement to would-be immigrants triggered a surge at the border. “We’re a nation that says if you want to flee and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come,” Biden said during a Democratic debate.
The problem is immigration and border security are popular political wedge issues. Republicans can accuse Democrats—or in the case of Cantor, even members of their own party—of being for “open borders” and supporting “amnesty. Democrats can paint Republicans as uncaring “nativists.”
That kind of language is good for riling up the base and raising money, but it doesn’t solve the problem.
*(Correction: An earlier version incorrectly said 42 Senators voted against the bill.)