Christopher Jacobs writes for the Federalist about more bad news emerging from the outgoing Biden administration.

It makes sense that, in the waning days of Joe Biden’s administration, yet another report would illustrate the chaos his four years in office hath wrought. For another year, the annual demographic review released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) illustrated the problems associated with Biden’s border policies.

Yet that same report also provides a glimmer of hope for a solution. Once Biden and Democrats finally realized the problems associated with the border — as they floundered in the polls months before the 2024 election — even their half-hearted half-measures helped to reverse the prior trends. It bodes well for the second Trump administration’s border actions, which started on day one.

The CBO report details projections for fertility and immigration over the next three decades, as part of its updates to the budget and economic outlook. But its most timely, and revealing, estimates relate to immigration numbers associated with the recent past, i.e., the Biden administration.

As with last year’s report, the effects of Biden’s immigration policies are visually obvious. In fact, “CBO now estimates that net immigration in 2021 and 2022 was larger, by 300,000 and 150,000 people per year, respectively, than the agency estimated last year.” That’s nearly half a million more migrants arriving in the first half of Biden’s administration than previously estimated.

Yet the report also notes that “net immigration after 2023 is now generally projected to be smaller than CBO projected last year.”

The budget gnomes also made clear what caused the decrease in projected immigration levels — which by implication demonstrates what caused the increase to begin with:

“In 2024, net immigration of other foreign nationals declined from the 2023 level, mainly because of a June 2024 executive order that temporarily suspended the entry of most non-citizens at the southern border. CBO estimates that without that executive order, net immigration of other foreign nationals in 2024 would have been larger by about 400,000 people (or 22 percent).”

Flailing in the polls for reelection, Biden realizes he can take action to secure the border — and immigration levels suddenly decline! Whoda thunk it?