dDemocratic mayors, governors and members of Congress from the Southwest to the Northeast stood with Joe Biden at the White House as he discovered an executive order temporarily sealing the US-Mexico border to most asylum seekers, the most restrictive immigration policy of his presidency.
“We have to face a simple truth,” said the President of the United States. “To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now.”
Those around him agreed, applauding the directive as a welcome, if belated, step. However, for many Democrats unassisted, the moment marked a stunning reversal from just four years ago, when the president campaigned to dismantle Donald Trump's inflammatory immigration policies.
Most Democrats agree that Biden had to do something to address a problem that has become one of his biggest political vulnerabilities.But the party, once united in furious opposition to Trump's crackdown on asylum, now finds itself divided over its course of action, divided as much on the substance of the policy as on the wisdom of its policy.
Biden is once again campaigning for the presidency against Trump, but the political climate has demonstrably changed.
Unprecedented levels of migration on the southwest border, fueled by poverty, political upheaval, climate change and violence and amplified by incendiary Republican rhetoric, the Americans have been trampled. Polls show that border security is one of the best, sometimes the above: Concern among American voters this election season.
The action, designed to deter illegal border crossings, was an attempt by the Biden administration to address those concerns. But he also invited unwelcome comparisons with his predecessor, whose policies he was accused to “revive” in a legal challenge filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of Vanessa Cárdenas, said it “violates the core American values ​​of who we say we are and puts people at risk.” The voice of America, an immigration advocacy organization. “It's part of a trap that Democrats are falling into: They're buying into the narrative that the right is pushing on immigration.”
For three years, Republicans have accused Biden of ignoring growing concerns about the southwest border, which falsely claim is under “invasion”. But as the humanitarian situation has worsened, so has he faced critic of Democratic mayors and governors calling for more federal help to handle the record numbers of people arriving in their cities and states, especially during peaks in 2022 and 2023.
Supporters of Biden's latest policy, including the border state and swing state Democrats say the action will deter illegal immigration by encouraging people to seek asylum in an “orderly” manner at legal ports of entry. Even if the courts block the rule, they are poised to argue to voters that Biden took decisive action when Republicans would not.
“We all want order at the border” said Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, Democrat that turned a seat in the House in a special election earlier this year after campaigning for more border security. “The American people want us to deal with immigration.”
But progressives, immigration rights advocates and some Hispanic leaders say the new order not only suspends longstanding guarantees that anyone arriving on U.S. soil has the right to seek asylum, it undermines North American values. – Americans The president's embrace of punitive policies, they argue, risks losing the support of key parts of his coalition.
Biden knew the order would enrage corners of his party; he addressed them directly in remarks at the White House earlier this month, saying the goodwill of the American people was “wearing away.”
“Doing nothing is not an option,” he said. “We must act.”
But advocates and progressives say it can do more to protect undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for decades, some for nearly their entire lives.
They are instant Biden is using his bully pulpit to move the fight against immigration beyond the border by using his presidential authority to protect more immigrants from deportation and create pathways for them to work legally. The White House is as reported considering future action to protect undocumented spouses of US citizens from deportation.
Last week, the Biden campaign released a new ad marking the 12th anniversary of Daca, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program established by the Obama White House in 2012, as the Democrat runs in re-election and looks for ways to bolster Latino support. voters
The program provides temporary work permits and deportation relief for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers, people brought to the United States without permission as children.
“Ultimately, Congress must act to reform our immigration system,” Cárdenas said. “But until then, we need Biden to do everything he can to show that he still believes in what he promised he would do when he got into office.”
BThe iden policy, which went into effect immediately, is intended to deter illegal immigration by temporarily blocking people who cross the US border outside lawful ports of entry to seek asylum, with some exceptions. The order is lifted as daily arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico drop to 1,500 a day in a seven-day average. The last time the crossings fell below this threshold was in 2020when the Covid-19 pandemic stopped migration.
The number of illegal border crossings has declined in recent months, partly due to stepped-up Mexican enforcement and seasonal trends. But officials say the level is still high and fear the trend could reverse as the weather cools and a new Mexican president takes power weeks before elections in November.
Despite its failure, the bipartisan border security deal, brokered with the White House's blessing, underscored how far the immigration debate in Washington has shifted to the right.
The legislation included a wish list of Republican demands for border security aimed at keeping people out. There was no long-sought Democratic aspiration to expand pathways to citizenship and work visas for the millions of undocumented people living in the US. Instead, Democrats tied the border deal to a foreign aid package against conservatives.
“This changed the contours of what had been a widely understood immigration framework,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, adding, “I'm not sure what the solution is anymore. border of consensus or compromise”.
On the campaign trail, Democrats hope to capitalize on Republican resistance to the border deal by casting Trump as unserious about tackling illegal immigration at the border, his main issue. But it may prove difficult for Biden to make headway on what has long been one of the nation's most polarizing political issues.
Polls consistently show deep public disapproval of how Biden has handled the border, with voters giving Trump, who has also faced heavy criticism for his immigration plans, a wide lead.
A CBS News poll they found broad public support for the president's executive order, even among Republicans, but also believed that illegal border crossings were more likely to fall under Trump than Biden.
And a new one Monmouth University Survey Last week, it found that Biden's position was largely unchanged by the action, with about half of Americans, 46 percent, saying he didn't go far enough, compared to 31 percent who he said it was right. Only 17% said the order went too far.
On Wednesday, a coalition of immigrant advocacy groups led by the ACLU sued the Biden administration on the directive.
“By enacting an asylum ban that is legally indistinguishable from the Trump ban that we successfully blocked, we were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt.
The administration anticipated legal challenges. “We stand by the legality of what we did,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. said in a Sunday interview with ABC, adding that he would have preferred Congress to act.
Last week, a group of 18 progressive members of Congress sent a letter to Mayorkas asking the administration to reconsider the asylum rule on the grounds that it “puts asylum seekers at serious risk of illegal removal and re-harm.”
Despite their disappointment, Biden's Democratic critics say Trump, who has said undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and is planning a broad campaign of mass deportation in a potential second term, would be far more dangerous.
“The more American voters focus on the anti-immigrant and extremist policies that the right is pushing, the more they will reject that vision,” Cárdenas said. But, he added, “Americans want to know what's the plan? What's the strategy? What's the vision? And I think it will serve Biden and the Democrats better if they have an answer to the question of what are they for “.
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