Unauthorized crossings at the US southern border have grown higher and higher in the first three years of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Now, in the first half of 2024, they have fallen sharply, but they are still significantly higher than in the decade before Biden took office.
That’s the basic numerical trend, according to numbers from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). How much Biden’s policies have affected that trend is harder to sort out, and will likely be a big area of his debate with Donald Trump this Thursday.
The dramatic rise in unauthorized immigration during Biden’s first few years was fueled by major factors beyond the president’s control, such as the waning of the Covid-19 pandemic and unrest in several Latin American countries.
It’s also plausible that Biden’s more lenient immigration stance, relative to Trump’s, contributed in part. He has tried to balance humane policies towards immigrants (eg offering New legal route to entry or Protection against deportation already here for some) and more hard-headed measures to curtail unauthorized arrivals.
Yet during its first three years, such arrivals were quite high. His defenders often argued that the main drivers of immigration were not within the president’s control, and that his responses were limited by a broken legal and political process, insufficient resources, and Republicans’ refusal to enact legislation.
The twist in recent months is that the number of unauthorized arrivals has finally increased has been degraded. “Illegal crossings at southern border continue to decline,” Fox News reporter Bill Melugin Wrote in X this weekAdding that CBP is now looking at “the lowest border numbers of the Biden presidency.”
We don’t know how long these low numbers will last, of course, and there are still far more unauthorized immigrants coming in than normal during the Obama or Trump years. But it’s a significant change, and it’s worth exploring why it seems to have happened.
Unauthorized immigration increased during Biden’s tenure. Was it because of Biden’s policies?
There was a really big unauthorized migration increase under Biden. He spent most of a decade at the helm of US Customs and Border Protection before taking office 300,000 to 500,000 “Encounters” with migrants at the southern border every year. Under Biden, the average number has been about 2 million a year Last year is still the highest.
These are often referred to as “record breaking” and “peak” numbers of migrant arrivals. But some analysts say it’s more complicated than that. Justin Fox This is the argument at Bloomberg Opinion That true number was probably higher from the 1980s to the mid-2000s because more immigrants escaped CBP notice then.
But it clearly seems true that far more people are coming in illegally under Biden than under Obama or Trump. So why?
Conservatives argue that there are specific characteristics of the policies and messaging of the US and Biden administrations that have driven the increase in immigration. Biden, after all, ran for office promising to reverse Trump’s brutal policies toward immigrants. More broadly, they believe that many people are coming because they hear that, the way our system is set up, they have a pretty good shot of getting into the United States and staying there for a while. (The asylum claims system is incredibly backlogged and detention capacity is limited, so it is common for claimants to be released to the US during long waits for their claims to be heard.)
In contrast, progressives prefer to emphasize the circumstances that force immigrants to leave their home countries, such as the catastrophic collapse of Venezuela’s economy and deteriorating conditions. Nicaragua And Haiti. Such crises, they argue, have worsened in recent years, both in the region and around the world, and people need help. (Also, notably, the Covid-19 pandemic when Biden took office made immigrants more free to travel.)
Both narratives probably have some truth to them. The president can’t just wave a stick and make this problem disappear — otherwise Trump would. (CBP still has more than 300,000 immigrant encounters per year under the Trump administration; in fiscal 2019 The number has increased up to about a million.) Administration is indeed constrained by real-world practicalities and global forces beyond its control.
Yet it’s also true that Biden’s policies, even if viewed charitably, have been a bit of a mess, as the Democratic Party is deeply torn about its core values and goals on this issue.
Biden’s border policy has changed during his tenure
Since taking office, Biden has tried to balance Democrats’ desire to help people seeking a better life in the United States with their fear that too many unauthorized arrivals pose practical and political problems. But he has struck that balance in different ways at different times.
At first the policy objectives of his administration were “flow management“Underlying assumptions are that policy on immigration will do little to reduce the overall demand to enter the United States. Biden’s team tried to emphasize that the border was “not open“And clearly saw the chaotic border scene as a political risk, but they too xd Trump’s strict policies are very popular.
By 2022, Democratic politicians in blue states and cities are seeing an influx of immigrants, with arrivals increasing rapidly. incrementally Alleged that they were overwhelmed — Their shelter systems, schools and budgets are severely strained by the challenge of helping so many needy people. “Welcoming immigrants is in our DNA,” New York Gov. Cathy Hochul (D). said. “But there have to be some limitations.”
In late 2022 and early 2023, Biden adopted a bipartisan policy. Because many recent arrivals came from Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba, he used executive authority to allow hundreds of thousands of people from those countries to come legally if they followed an orderly process. He changed the policy to make more refugees ineligible if they don’t follow an orderly process. The aim was to transform disorderly and unauthorized immigration into organized and legal immigration. Still, unauthorized border crossings remain high.
By the end of 2023, Biden argued that the issue was indeed a moot point Asylum process And Insufficient resources – and the only solution was a big new immigration bill (which would be coupled with a stalled Ukraine aid package). Bipartisan talks on the matter stretched over months, and Biden was willing to give Republicans all they wanted. In the end, Trump got the GOP and Senate Republicans to scrap the deal say that Trump openly admitted that he did so because continued border chaos would be good for his election prospects.
This year, unauthorized border crossings have declined sharply. Why, and is it sustainable?
With no bills in hand, unauthorized arrivals high, and the 2024 election looming, the Biden administration has acted on its own.
First, officials agreed to get the Mexican government to do more to stop migrants from crossing the U.S. border in the first place. this, Analysts believeProbably the main reason is that the number of arrivals will drop quite a bit in the first half of 2024.
The second was Biden’s executive action To further limit asylum claims this month, stop the asylum process if too many people are arriving. Many have previously argued that he did not have the legal authority to do so, but he did Decided to try it However, it is left up to the courts to block his policy.
So Biden can finally claim some victory in reducing the number of unauthorized arrivals, though it’s unclear whether that will hold in the long run. Still, if Biden’s recent actions change the situation, it might be a little surprising why he didn’t make such a move much earlier in his term.
Additionally, progressive critics point out that Biden’s actions resemble policies pursued by Trump to deport more immigrants to Mexico and halt new asylum claims. “While his administration has eschewed the belligerent rhetoric of its predecessor, its goal appears to be largely the same: to push the border further south and hold Mexico responsible for managing the flow of migrants,” By Stefania Taladrid in New York.
That similarity should not be overstated. Biden’s policies also differ dramatically from Trump’s because he is still allowing hundreds of thousands more people through him legally. new legal the way, and is already protecting many here from deportation (while Trump promises an unprecedented crackdown). Biden is still trying to find a middle ground. But overall, his border policy has been a case study in the difficulties of governance.
