Biden, Illegal Immigration, and Progressives
– By Howard Sierer –
Within days of taking office, Pres. Biden issued a series of executive orders opening the floodgates for those crossing our southern border. David Leonhardt of the New York Times summarizes those orders:
“Biden tried to pause deportations. He changed the definition of asylum to include fear of gang violence. He used immigration parole – which the law says should be used ‘on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons’ – to admit hundreds of thousands of people.” Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News wrote that the parole programs alone amounted to “the largest expansion of legal immigration in modern U.S. history.”
Another Times reporter, Miriam Jordan, explained why so many migrants came: “It is not just because they believe they will be able to make it across the 2,000-mile southern frontier. They are also certain that once they make it to the United States they will be able to stay. Forever. And by and large, they are not wrong.”
The resulting surge of millions of new “undocumented” (née illegal) immigrants was widely predicted by observers of both political parties. So why did Biden do it in the face of public opinion polling over the years that consistently showed overwhelming majorities in favor of more spending and emphasis on border security?
The answer: he was under pressure from the progressive left, that small fraction of the Democratic Party that calls the party’s shots and policy positions. They saw it as “the right thing to do” on humanitarian grounds, threatened to withhold their support at the ballot box in the future if it wasn’t done, and were quite sure that once the immigrant surge was underway, the public would come around to their way of thinking.
If this train of thought sounds familiar, it’s similar to the reasoning by many of these same folks that has Biden doing all he can to force electric vehicles on an unreceptive public.
The progressive siren song on immigration was “more is better and less is racist.” Wanting to distance themselves from Trump and his supposedly draconian border policies, Democratic Party leadership and in particular Democratic Senators and Representatives turned a blind eye to the unfolding humanitarian and political disaster rather oppose a Democratic president and the progressive left. Left-leaning media were likewise deferential to the disproportionately influential progressive left.
Democrats ignored what should have been obvious: expanded immigration raised the possibility of follow-on effects and unintended consequences that would be highly unpopular. How do you prevent people from gaming the system? How do you handle the possibility of surges at the border to take advantage of lenient rules? How are these millions going to be housed? Fed? Employed?
The sheer numbers alone were almost certain to result in negative reactions from the public. An Axios poll reports that half of all Americans – including 42% of Democrats – said they’d support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. That same poll reports that 30% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans would end birthright citizenship for those born to illegal immigrants in this country despite the fact citizenship is guaranteed in our Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Americans are so upset with Biden’s immigration blowout that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in Congress offers a Constitutional amendment!
Even before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, he was trailing Donald Trump in the presidential election polls. As a result, Biden’s shifted gears and issued an equivocal half-step toward tightening the border. It’s loaded with weasel words that will allow federal bureaucrats and local officials sympathetic to undocumented immigrants to allow most of them to enter. The order’s real intent is purely political: he belatedly wants to look tough on the border. Unsurprisingly, it’s seen as a meaningless gesture by most voters. Nonetheless, progressives are whining here, here and here.
Biden’s been in office three and a half years. The cat is out of the bag. Locked in by the progressive elite, massive damage has been done and will take a decade or more to unwind. Millions of undocumented immigrants – human beings with real aspirations and lives to lead – have been treated as pawns in a massive experiment in social engineering by the progressive elite. For many of the newly-arrived, this will not end well.
I have long favored increases in legal immigration. Biden and the progressives who formulated his immigration policies have me, along with the massive majority of Americans, asking what part of “we need to get a lot tougher on border security” don’t Democratic politicians and thought leaders understand?
