National Review Online
Monday, January 29, 2024
President Biden wants a total and complete shutdown
of the border until he can figure out why he’s kept it open for so long.
Late last week, the president touted an imminent border
deal with Senate Republicans. “It would give me, as President,” he wrote in a
statement, “a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes
overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the
bill into law.”
He’s referring to a provision in the deal that reportedly
would compel him to use a Title 42–like authority to stop illegal immigrants
after average daily crossings reach 5,000 over a period of seven days, or 8,500
in a day. It’s worth noting that during much of this crisis the crossings have
been fewer than 5,000 a day (only in the last several months did they routinely
reach an even more unfathomable level) and President Obama’s Homeland Security
secretary Jeh Johnson famously said 1,000 crossings a day overwhelm the system.
It’s also easy to imagine ways to game the deal’s provision, especially given
that the administration is already working to launder would-be illegal crossers
through new legal avenues created for the purpose.
We’ll withhold judgment on the deal until we’ve seen all
the details, but it’s not too early to comment on the brazenness of Biden’s
posture. He created the border crisis and has long denied it existed. But now
that he wants to get more Ukraine funding (which would be paired up with the
border deal) and is perhaps worried about the politics of the border crisis,
he’s admitting that the border is “overwhelmed” and making the Trump-like
pledge to shut it down. Please.
Biden inherited a border that was under control via
humane and lawful policies that had been put in place by the Trump
administration, most importantly Remain in Mexico. He then tore them all down
and has spent years cynically and dishonestly blaming the resulting chaos on
his predecessor. Whereas Trump used existing authorities to come up with ways
to control the border, Biden has ignored the law to wave in millions of illegal
immigrants.
The Republican architects of the deal will have trouble
selling their colleagues on it, and not just because Trump is adamantly
opposed. If Biden were sincere, he’d be doing what’s already in his power to
crack down on the border, and if Biden could be constrained by new rules, he
wouldn’t be ignoring the ones on the books right now.
Biden says he’s itching to bring the border under
control. He should have at it.
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