President Joe Biden is reportedly looking to implement immigration policies similar to the ones he condemned when his predecessor, Donald Trump, was in the Oval Office.
SO WHAT
Biden is getting mugged by reality at the southern border.
THEN
During his 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Biden vowed to dismantle the most aggressive of Trump’s immigration policies, which he deemed inhumane and xenophobic.
“If I’m elected president, we’re going to immediately end Trump’s assault on the dignity of immigrant communities. We’re going to restore our moral standing in the world and our historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum-seekers,” Biden said in August 2020, addressing the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Conference.
- Biden’s campaign platform argued that the “challenges we face will not be solved by a constitutionally dubious ‘national emergency’ to build a wall, by separating families, or by denying asylum to people fleeing persecution and violence.”
NOW
Last month, a federal judge ordered the government cease Title 42 expulsions — removals of newly arrived illegal immigrants based on a public health law — by Dec. 21.
- Biden administration officials have acknowledged that they expect termination of the policy, which began under Trump, to make America’s illegal immigration crisis even worse.
- Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border have hit an all-time annual high, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol data released in October.
In preparation for the end of Title 42, the Biden administration is considering “drastic measures” at the border that were controversial when Trump implemented them, Axios recently reported.
- Single adults “who illegally cross the border and have not first applied for legal pathways offered by the U.S. or protection in other countries they traveled through” would automatically be placed in the expedited removal process, per the report.
- And the White House would “surge” prosecutions of single adults who cross into the U.S. without authorization but commit no other crimes.
- “That some of these approaches are being considered at the highest levels of government reflects the Biden administration’s desperation to get a handle on unprecedented efforts to crossthe U.S.-Mexico border,” wrote Axios reporter Stef Knight.
THE KICKER
In July, the Biden administration quietly approved a plan to complete a section of the border wall.
- Biden vowed in August 2020, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.”