Biden hardens his rhetoric: From the proposal to legalize millions of migrants to the asylum ban

Joe Biden began his term with a great gesture to the Latino electorate. In his first hours in the White House, the president sent Congress legislation that sought to “restore humanity and American values” to the immigration system. The bill intended to automatically give residence permits (green cards) to Dreamers, to people under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and to undocumented farm workers who were in the United States before 2021. The law went to die in the Capitol, where it crashed into a Republican wall. Forty months later, that same president has introduced a controversial restriction on asylum, a measure considered the harshest ever adopted by a Democrat in power.

What has led Biden to deliver this blow in an election year? The distance between the two measures is not a straight line, but rather a bumpy path that has been drawn by the pragmatism of the administration and the whim of public opinion, which has veered to the right on the issue of immigration after the harsh legacy left by Trump. It may be said that Biden has taken steps forward with the goal he set for himself, but he has also gone backwards in other ways.

The government’s legacy in immigration policy was built in the first months of Biden’s term in office. In addition to the law, which created a clear eight-year path for 10.5 million people to get their papers, a series of decrees and measures followed. He raised the limit of refugees who could enter the United States, which Trump had kept at a minimum. He also reactivated the granting of residence permits, which the former president had frozen in 2020 with the excuse of the Covid health emergency.

In the first months of the Democratic administration, Biden tried to create a contrast with his predecessor. It was one of his campaign promises. It was “a moral failure and a national shame” when a father and his baby drowned on U.S. shores, when children were being locked up in overcrowded detention centers and the government kept them there indefinitely, the then-candidate said on his website. Among his commitments was to take urgent action to undo Trump’s legacy and modernize the immigration system.

Reality forced him to take another path. According to official figures, in fiscal year 2020, immigration authorities documented some 646,000 arrests. The pandemic is partly responsible for this low number for such a busy area as the border with Mexico. A year later, however, Biden’s first in power, arrests reached 1.9 million. The number continued to skyrocket to reach 2.5 million last year.

Thomas Homan, a former Trump-era official who led the law enforcement force in charge of deporting undocumented immigrants, assures that this enormous number of arrivals tested the response capacity of the Border Patrol, the federal force that monitors the 1,954-mile frontier with Mexico. In order to process such numbers, it was necessary for many officers to manage large groups, leaving several miles with little supervision.

In order to quickly process the number of people arriving at the southern border, Biden left Title 42 in place, a measure that Trump put into effect during the pandemic. In short, what he was doing was closing the border to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Scientists ruled out the effectiveness of the measure because the virus was arriving by air along both coasts and not by land via immigrants. But Title 42 served to quickly deport illegal immigrants and advance Trumpism’s most radical positions on border control.

The Biden government initially received harsh criticism for maintaining Trump’s tool to combat irregular immigration. The rule helped quickly deport 2.8 million people, mostly to Mexico. The president tried to lift it on more than one occasion, causing the Republican governors to sue the executive to leave the rule in place. Title 42 finally expired a year ago, on May 11, 2023. It was in place for 38 months, affecting many asylum seekers. When the dust settled, Biden’s image as an ally of migrants had already disappeared.

This, despite the fact that the Democratic administration has admitted the largest number of people under the humanitarian parole program. This protection status, different from TPS, has benefited tens of thousands of people fleeing armed conflicts such as those in Afghanistan and Ukraine, and also those leaving collapsed countries like Haiti or Venezuela. According to the CBS network, this administration has admitted one million people under this program. Republican congressmen demand that the use of parole come to an end. Citizens of six other countries are protected by TPS until July 2025.

Call to protest

In a measure perceived almost unanimously as having electoral overtones, Biden announced a week ago an executive order that allows the border to be closed when the number of arrests exceeds 2,500 per day over the course of a week. It is a very low ceiling. In the days after the announcement, 3,800 people were arrested per day. In December, illegal crossings were close to 10,000 a day. In addition, the new decree makes it more difficult to apply for asylum for those arriving by land. The administration also reduced from 24 to four the number of hours that detainees have to consult a lawyer to help prepare their first interview with immigration authorities.

The Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights (Chirla) has called for a demonstration on June 15, when Biden and former president Barack Obama will be in Los Angeles to hold a fundraising event for the campaign.

“The protest is part of a week in which we want to call the president’s attention to keep his promise and protect his legacy,” the organization says. Chirla wants the president to take action to extend the protection of undocumented immigrants with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), who arrived as minors. The program, like many immigration control measures, is experiencing a conservative attack in the courts. A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals could suspend it after 12 years of validity. If this happens, it would be bad news that would be added to Biden’s tally amid his re-election campaign.

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