Biden’s Border Policy Is Not “Open Borders”
Practically since his first week in office, President Joe Biden has faced repeated criticisms from Republicans and some Democrats that his border policy amounts to “open borders.” This criticism is not simply inaccurate: it is unhinged from reality in a way that distinguishes itself from normal political hyperbole.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Practically since his first week in office, President Joe Biden has faced repeated criticisms from Republicans and some Democrats that his border policy amounts to “open borders.” This criticism is not simply inaccurate: it is unhinged from reality in a way that distinguishes itself from normal political hyperbole. Indeed, U.S. immigration policy is effectively closed borders, and Biden’s immigration policies and goals are largely the same as those of President Donald Trump.
Under U.S. immigration law, it is illegal for anyone in the world to travel or immigrate to the United States unless they fall into very narrow exceptions. Like Alcohol Prohibition—which had exemptions for religious, medicinal, or industrial purposes—America’s immigration prohibition’s small exceptions are irrelevant for the vast majority of potential immigrants. Effectively, if they don’t qualify as a select few high skilled workers or family members of U.S. citizens, they can’t come legally.
President Biden has not suddenly ended America’s immigration prohibition and opened up U.S. borders to almost anyone who wants to come (as was largely America’s immigration policy from 1776 to 1924). Instead, he has far more vigorously enforced immigration prohibition than the law requires, narrowing the few exceptions to the universal ban on legal immigration.
For example, one exception is for those facing persecution in their home countries. Biden has undisputed authority under the law to admit as many refugees from abroad as he wants. The president sets the limit and picks whoever he considers “of concern” to the United States. Yet Biden is on pace to admit the fewest refugees in the history of the U.S. refugee program, fewer than 10,000.
He won’t let refugees in from abroad. But the law explicitly allows refugees to ask for asylum at U.S. borders even if they don’t have permission: anyone “who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival … ), irrespective of [their legal] status, may apply for asylum.” In 1996, Congress clarified that agents “ shall refer [any asylum seeker] for an interview by an asylum officer.”
Yet Biden won’t follow that either. He has continued a Trump ban on “ nonessential travel ” at U.S. land ports of entry and requesting asylum isn’t essential . So because they can’t come in legally, they cross illegally, and since the law says they can apply “whether or not at a designated port of entry, irrespective of their legal status,” they should still have the right to request asylum.
But Biden is using another Trump policy known as “ Title 42 expulsion ” to immediately deport as many asylum seekers and border crossers as possible without hearing their asylum claims. He’s mostly dumping them in Mexico, just as Trump did with “Remain in Mexico,” just with a different name and on a much larger scale. Biden’s still using the pandemic as a reason for this policy, despite the easy availability of effective vaccines for Americans who want them. But whatever the excuse, his goal is the same as Trump: immediately deport as many as he possibly can.
So what explains the reports of some immigrants being released into the United States? Is this “open borders”? Not at all. The numbers of arrivals so far exceed the government’s capacity to turn them away that it has resorted to releasing a few of them as a last resort, but they are not “free.” They are arrested, detained, and charged as removable. They are illegal immigrants subject to re‐arrest at any time.
The Biden administration has smashed all records for immediate expulsions without due process, increasing the rate from 62,000 per month under Trump to about 100,000, but Mexico will only take back its own citizens, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Salvadorans, and even for the Central Americans, it will not take back young kids with their parents if it has no place for them to stay (how logical!).
So everyone else must be put on planes and flown back, but this takes far more time and resources than the government has. Immigrants must be detained, checked over much more thoroughly, and shipped to airports. There aren’t enough detention facilities, agents, and airplanes to get this job done in enough time to avoid having to release some immigrants. The Biden administration has repeatedly said as much.
Don’t believe them? Well, the Trump administration faced the exact same constraints, and they too released many thousands of immigrants from the border. But Biden has a much greater challenge now to keep up his closed border policies. The number of immigrants arriving from outside Mexico and Central America has exploded in the last few months, increasing from about 10,000 to more than 62,000 per month, requiring farther flights and more resources. Yet despite the releases, the number of removals or those sent to immigration jail far outnumber the number of releases about 3 to 1 .
The illegal immigration problem would disappear if President Biden would simply let immigrants enter the country legally at ports of entry to request asylum, grant them work visas at consulates, or admit them from abroad under the refugee program or through “ humanitarian parole ”—a discretionary legal immigration authority that he has chosen only to deploy sparingly, mainly for Afghans. Yet Biden is keeping consulates closed and wasting more than 42,000 H‑2B seasonal work visas that Congress authorized him to issue.
Ultimately, Biden has made a policy choice to let in as few immigrants as possible. He’s not simply “enforcing the law.” He’s finding every way possible to keep out immigrants. Yet despite this fact, he’s still facing the same tired claims that he’s for “open borders.” If he’s going to get that claim regardless, he should just own it. Open America’s doors, and let immigrants come legally.
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Biden is pursuing the same policies as Trump, yet somehow, the borders are now open and billions of unvaxxed immigrants are flooding the country.
Those on the right who say they don't need to be vaxxed should be welcoming these folks because they too want freedom. But somehow, it's just not the same.
But of course, the crying is all crocodile tears.
my family was affected by xenophobes in the last administration. what should've taken 90 days took over 4 years.
This is not a very satisfying explanation. How is releasing illegals into the USA easier than simply sending them back across the border?
Absolutely correct. What the article does not say is that according to CBP and ICE people living in my neck of the woods on the border, once those illegals are released into the US, the Biden administration has absolutely no intention of tracking or sending those those people back as they vanish into the woodwork of this country at the expense of the American taxpayer.
Why are they released into the USA in the first place? Why not truck them right back across the border?
I have been asking myself and others that very same question for years. I live 6 blocks from the AZ/ Mexico border fence. I can look out my front door and see Mexico. The illegals apprehended here are bussed 2 hours North to Tucson and then flown out to parts unknown. The only explanation that comes to mind, even if a bit far fetched is potential voters for the Democrats.
Do you have any way to gauge what percentage of the illegals are bussed further into the USA vs. bussed back to Mexico?
According to what I have been told locally by the CBP agents I know, the answer is none are being sent back to Mexico at the current time.
That makes no sense; 100% allowed illegals is clearly wrong so I would not trust your sources.
Too funny, another article is lauding the "rush" of Hispanic women switching to the GOP in FL & TX.
Makes you think what's good for the goose should be good for the gander
Gotta use up that empty jail space somehow. I have no idea really, That would be a question for ICE.
I've tried talking to ICE agents a few times. (I live 1/2 mile from the border as the crow flies. They patrol our neighborhood pretty frequently.) Not the friendliest people in the world, I'll say that about them.
Such a strange situation with information today. One would think that this question would have been already answered many times over by our 24x7 ' news ' outlets.
Here is one explanation from the Times:
One should think, but I can't say I see a lot of it these days. What I do see is a lot of 'belief'.
You said you live a half block from the border. May I ask what state you live in?
Actually, a 1/2 mile. I currently live in El Paso, TX.
Okay thanks. You folks have a worse time than we do over here. We are fortunate to have good relationships with our agents over here and many are more than willing to tell you how they see things. The blessings of a small rural community I guess. Plus I have seen a lot of folks here go out of their way to thank the agents for what they do on our behalf.
Bullshit is never satisfying.
I got suspended or cut from NV for quoting this, so I'll go with youtube this time...but this has been me for the past year...
Biden doesn't advocate open borders and ours aren't!
Sorry, but allowing/giving 100K Illegal Aliens A MONTH freedom to wander the U.S. after being bused INTO the U.S. - damn sure that qualifies a "open borders".
Yep.
Those are the ones that they catch. Who knows how many the coyotes, drug smugglers, and human traffickers are bringing across that are never documented in that count?
The drug cartel loves Biden; they can direct a horde of illegals, including children, women, and families at the border patrol (as we all know they will be accepted readily by Biden into the US)- while they bring their people across the border just a few miles away. Nothing the undermanned border patrol can do. They have been turned into processing agents.
This article is as full of shit as Biden.
nstead, he has far more vigorously enforced immigration prohibition than the law requires
Lol...
It's almost impossible to be deported once you enter the interior of the US.
Got any facts to back that one up?
That hasn't been my Italian SIL's experience. And holy red tape when it comes to getting his green card.
I've got an in-law that has had the same experience. Why ask permission, when you can swim across though? Rent a trailer, use a fictitious name, steal someone else's identity, have a family, get deported on occasion so you can visit the rest of the fam back home on the US government's dime, send home 3/4 of the pay you are making here. Sounds like a bunch of harsh exaggerations. Not at all. That was the routine of every one of the guys I used to work with that crossed the border illegally.
That hasn't been my Italian SIL's experience.
If he's not a terrorist or a violent felon, he's not going to get deported. As the DHS Secretary said, "We have fundamentally changed immigration enforcement in the interior. For the first time ever, our policy explicitly states that a non-citizen's unlawful presence in the United States will not, by itself, be a basis for the initiation of an enforcement action."
When people around the world travel to Mexico to cross the US border then, yes, the border is open. These people are not asking to enter the US; they're asking to stay in the US after they've illegally entered the country.
Note that advocates of immigration are not arguing to let more people in. People are already flooding the border and large numbers are already illegally entering the US. What is being advocated is providing some sort of legal status for those entering the country illegally. Refugees are entering the US now but they are not being provided legal refugee status. Advocates for immigration are demanding eliminating the the process for obtaining legal status.
The problem has become so bad that now people are illegally entering Canada from the US. The US cannot even control its northern border. Illegal border crossings into Canada are increasing because the southern border of the US is open.
? ... Nations do not control who is leaving.
And the U. S. can not control who is entering ILLEGALLY.
Borders have holes ... all of them.
Not holes when 1/3rd crossing the border ILLEGALLY are never caught because there are so many open gates.
"This fiscal year, Border Patrol has made more than 1.076 million apprehensions of illegal migrants. If the estimates cited by Carroll are correct, more than 1.582 million migrants have actually attempted to enter illegally in FY 2021, and more than 500,000 of them successfully evaded Border Patrol agents.
That is a staggering number of people, greater than the population of Kansas City, Mo. The United States government has no idea who they are, whether they are criminals or terrorists, or where they are going.
That said, given that 40 percent of all Border Patrol agents are “off the line” caring for the massive number of migrants that they have apprehended, if a foreign national wanted to successfully enter the United States illegally, now’s the time to do it. The border may not be “wide open”, but it’s close.
That fact, coupled with (as explained above) how few deterrents there currently are to illegal entry, suggests that a 32 percent “ got away ” rate may itself be “conservative”. We could well be back to the point that agents, try as they might, are only able to stop half of all illegal migrants.
Regrettably, we will never know, because few of those aliens will ever be found—almost all are here to stay.
Unless and until the Biden administration changes its disastrous border policies, and allows ICE agents to again enforce the immigration laws in the United States, hundreds of thousands of unscreened foreign nationals will continue to pour into this country and evade capture, following an estimated half million others who already have this fiscal year."
Yes, nations do control who is leaving. That's why there are things like passports and visas. People don't realize that an enhanced driver's license is also a passport. People living in the US are required to show a passport to fly within the United States.
Is the Center for Immigration Studies a hate group, as the Southern Poverty Law Center says?
What exactly makes the SPLC experts on another organization?
And does anyone really care what they say? It is kind of like Media Bias Fact Check.
Ridiculous.
Who gives a fuck what the SPLC says?
From my link above...
Progressive liberals who don't know better?