By Noah Rothman
Tuesday,
March 12, 2024
When it
comes to the border crisis over which Joe Biden has presided, the president has
been on a journey. And he seems to be determined to drag us all along with him,
whether we like it or not.
In
early January, when the prospects for bipartisan legislation that would have
tightened border-security statutes and contributed additional funds to policing
the U.S. side of the Rio Grande looked reasonably bright, the president
insisted his hands were tied. “The Biden administration is asking Mexico to
help curb the huge flow of migrants into the U.S., as Biden runs out of options
to fix a problem that is hurting his polling,” NBC News reported.
But
as hopes for a deal faded and, eventually, collapsed entirely, the president
suddenly discovered that he did have at least a handful of
“options” that might at least partly stem the migrant tide. “The plans have
been under consideration for months, the officials said,” NBC News revealed, contradicting its earlier reporting.
While details on those forthcoming executive orders were light, it was clear
from the anguish on offer from White House officials that no one looked forward
to breaking the glass on what they called “plan B,” which we can only assume
would be something resembling robust border enforcement.
But
days turned into weeks, and no executive order pertaining to border security
materialized. Then, with immigration surging to become voters’ primary
election-year concern, the Biden administration finally got specific about the
action it planned to take. “The Biden administration is considering taking
action without Congress to make it harder for migrants to pass initial
screening for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and quickly deport recently
arrived migrants who don’t meet the criteria,” NBC News uncovered.
Indeed,
what the White House was entertaining — tightening the “credible fear” standard
by which asylum-seekers are granted temporary residency — seemed to be lifted
directly from the legislative language in the Senate’s stalled border bill.
Among other policy shifts by presidential fiat, it seemed as though the
administration was at long last willing to acknowledge their suboptimal
reality. By implementing provisions Biden insisted he needed congressional
authorization to pursue, he would expose as a lie the excuse for inaction
administration officials spent months cultivating. Risky though that may be,
the border crisis was simply too acute to keep playing political games with it.
At
least, it seemed that way for a while. But it was not to be. On Monday, Biden
informed the nation that the cavalry was not coming, and the games would
continue.
“When
is [a] border executive action coming?” a reporter pressed Biden during a tarmac interview following a campaign stop in
New Hampshire. “I’m counting on the border action to happen by itself,” the
president said. “Them passing it.” The reporter was perplexed. “If Congress
can’t come to an agreement?” Biden’s interlocutor pressed. “They haven’t yet,”
the president acknowledged. He turned to move on from this discomfiting line of
questioning before briefly adding, “I’m helping them.”
He
is not, in fact, helping Congress get to “yes” on a border deal. Indeed, by
spending the better part of six weeks intimating that he already had at least
some of the authority he needs to implement the provisions in the failed Senate
supplemental, Biden ratified the legitimacy of Republican critiques of that
bill. Those in the congressional GOP who balked at border legislation insisted
that, however valuable permanent alterations to the statutory language may be,
Biden didn’t need Congress to mitigate the crisis. The president had all the
power he needed to stanch the incoming flow at the border, and Congress would
only be taking partial ownership of a crisis Biden would otherwise own
outright.
So,
we’re back to where we started: a standoff. The president seems to believe he
can erase the last several weeks from voters’ minds by insisting once again
that border security is the province of the federal legislature. Republicans
have all the ammunition they need to convince voters that Biden is retailing a
falsehood. Both seem prepared to take their respective narratives to voters and
let the electorate litigate the issue in November.
It’s
possible that the border crisis metastasizes to such an extent that Biden is
once again forced to contemplate doing his job. But in the absence of a
measurable worsening of the situation at the southern border, the stage is set.
It will be up to the voting public to determine who has put on the better
performance.
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