John Daniel Davidson of the Federalist questions President Biden’s approach toward the southern border.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on immigration that was designed to give the appearance that his administration was cracking down on illegal border crossings.
In reality, the order was a fig leaf to cover what amounts to Biden’s ongoing open-border policy that allows for mass illegal immigration. It was so riddled with exceptions and loopholes, anyone could see it was plainly a political stunt.
Then last week, news media reported that Biden is expected to announce another executive order granting amnesty to a half-million illegal immigrants, shielding them from deportation and allowing them to remain and work legally in the U.S. According to a report from NBC News, the order would create a program called “parole in place” and apply specifically to illegal immigrant spouses who have lived and worked in the U.S. for over a decade, an estimated 500,000 people.
The policy whiplash here — pretending to secure the border one week, the next week floating plans to grant a mass amnesty — is a testament to the impossible political reality of Biden’s situation vis-à-vis the border. The open-border radicals that hold sway in the Democrat Party need to be appeased with mass amnesty after even the appearance of a border crackdown by the Biden White House.
Why would Biden need to create the appearance of a crackdown? Because recent polling indicates Americans across the political spectrum are fed up with Biden’s border crisis, including 58 percent of women and 53 percent of Hispanics who now say they support mass deportations, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll of registered voters.
Even given the usual caveats about the reliability of polling, results like these, together with consistent polling for months showing immigration is a top priority for voters, suggest Democrats have a major political problem on their hands ahead of the November election.