Biden's Dangerous Border Problem

Plus: In Ukraine, Peace Now Means War Later

Immigrants from Ecuador warm themselves by a fire beneath the moon along a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border barrier, as they await processing by the U.S. Border Patrol, after crossing from Mexico on May 22, 2022 in Yuma, Arizona. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

We are a uniquely welcoming country, largely built by immigrants, and — contra the revanchist nativists — a nation that is defined by its robust multiculturalism.

But, as Noah Smith reminds us, there are limits, and public opinion seems to be turning sharply. In his latest newsletter — “Americans are angry about immigration” — Smith highlights the dramatic shift in recent polling, including this chart from Gallup:

Throughout American history, we’ve seen this pattern. “Immigration is deeply ingrained in our national self-concept,” he writes. “But every once in a while, a sufficiently large number of Americans get the idea that immigration is a threat to our nation, and they take actions to limit that perceived threat.”

Unfortunately, now appears to be one of those times. Anti-immigration sentiment collapsed during the Trump years, but has come roaring back under Biden.

As A.B. Stoddard writes today, Biden faces a number of brutal headwinds — on the economy, homelessness, crime, and age. But the shift in opinion on immigration is especially illustrative and ominous.

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Trump and his allies are fully prepared to exploit the moment. He has declared that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and has rolled out a dystopian program of deportations and camps for immigrants and asylum seekers.

Trump’s plans include ending the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, invoking a World War II law that allows the president to unilaterally detain and deport people who are not U.S. citizens and cutting off funding for transportation and shelter for people who lack legal status in the country, The Associated Press reported.

Over time, the extremism of Trump’s position could generate a backlash, but for the moment, anti-immigrant sentiment seems to have momentum. For the first time since 2016, the Quinnipiac poll found that a majority of Americans now say they favor building a wall along the U.S. Mexico border.

The poll reported that 52% of voters said they would support building a wall, while 44% opposed it. Support is divided among party lines, with a majority of Republicans backing a border wall and a majority of Democrats resisting it.

The findings mark the first time since 2016, when the question was first asked of voters by the pollsters, that a majority of voters indicated support for the idea.

Voters also consider the influx of immigrants to be a genuine crisis.

A majority of those polled also said they think the number of migrants seeking sanctuary in the U.S. is a "crisis." Monthly encounters with migrants at the U.S. border with Mexico have soared in recent months.

In a recent Fox News poll (which is more reliable than much of the rest of the network) fully two-thirds of voters — 66 percent — disapproved of Biden’s handling of the border. Other polling has found that the issue is hurting Democrats across the board.

[O]ur most recent NBC News poll shows Democrats with their largest-ever deficit on immigration handling… According to the poll, Republicans now enjoy an 18-point advantage on the question of which political party better handles immigration, with 45% of registered voters picking the GOP and with 27% picking the Democrats. 

What’s striking about these numbers is that Democrats led Republicans on this immigration-handling question during the entire Trump presidency, for part of Barack Obama’s presidency and during the George W. Bush years. 

So something HAS changed on this issue in Biden’s presidency — with the GOP advantage starting off at 9 points in October 2021, growing to 17 points in 2022 and now standing at 18 points.

As Smith writes, we find ourselves “in one of our anti-immigration moments right now, and the political impact could potentially be huge — the return of Trump, and all of the institutional chaos that will inevitably entail.”

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It’s worth pointing out that there is a discernible gap between the politics and the actual facts on the ground. A recent analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute found "Mr. Trump’s policies resulted in far fewer removals in absolute terms and a slightly higher percentage of released border crossers than Mr. Biden’s.” Cato also highlighted Biden’s efforts to stanch the flow of migrants by holding onto some of the Trump’s policies.

Mr. Biden has put the thinnest new coat of paint on Mr. Trump’s “asylum ban” and reinstituted it. Contrary to the plain language of the asylum law, immigrants are now presumed ineligible for asylum if they cross the border illegally.

Mr. Biden has also transformed Mr. Trump’s “remain in Mexico” plan into “deport to Mexico.” Under Mr. Trump, some asylum seekers were supposed to wait in the most dangerous cities in Mexico for a hearing north of the border. Under Mr. Biden, some asylum seekers are being permanently deported to Mexico with no chance for asylum, even if they are not Mexican.

That is not all. Mr. Biden has doubled the number of immigrants detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities pending removal, and he has negotiated deals to reopen deportations to Venezuela and Cuba. He has deported more people to Haiti in less than three years than Mr. Trump did in four. Mr. Biden’s own administration has stated that all these countries are too unsafe and politically repressive to expect people to live in.

But they noted: “No matter how cruel or restrictive Mr. Biden’s policies are, they will never be enough to appease his critics. They also aren’t working.”

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That may be so, but it doesn’t change the political dynamic that Biden — and the rest of us — now face going into 2024. A recent NBC commentary quoted anti-Trump Republican Mike Madrid warning that the perceived security threat of illegal immigration was “clearly having an impact when Americans are already feeling crime is an issue… and they view the border as something that can and should be controlled."

Madrid said that with voters, including Latino voters, demanding more border security, the door opens for some of Trump’s rhetoric and positions, along with those of the Republican governors.

"If Joe Biden doesn't start articulating a clear, precise border security policy," he said, "they will continue to lose Latino voters and all voters at a time when they can't afford to lose any."

As David Frum warned several years ago, “If liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will.” His 2019 piece was a stark warning:

Without immigration restrictions, there are no national borders. Without national borders, there are no nation-states. Without nation-states, there are no electorates. Without electorates, there is no democracy. If liberals insist that only fascists will enforce borders, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals refuse to do.

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Meanwhile: Tillis: Senate border talks yield 'good progress' on asylum, impasse on parole - POLITICO

The Senate "Gang of Six" is closer to a deal on asylum reform than it was a couple weeks ago, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. Still, he added that there’s now a big split over how to address the parole system used by some people seeking to get into the United States.

“We’ve made progress on asylum, some of the other reforms that I think would reduce future flows. But you just can't have a wide open parole policy that this administration or future ones could abuse after a political cycle,” Tillis told reporters on Monday evening.

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Trump’s Pee-wee Herman Moment

On Monday’s podcast, Will Saletan and I discuss Trump’s insistence that he meant to mix up Obama and Biden… Plus, the asymmetry in the hostage-prisoner exchanges, linking reform of asylum rules to aid for Ukraine and Israel. And is Chris Christie helping or hurting Nikki Haley?

You can listen to the whole thing here. Or watch us on YouTube.

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Quick Hits

1. In Ukraine, Peace Now Means War Later

In today’s Bulwark, David J. Kramer, John Herbst, and William Taylor write that Ukraine's war aims are designed to guarantee a lasting peace, not a reprieve before another Russian attack.

(David J. Kramer is a former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the George W. Bush administration, is executive director of the George W. Bush Institute, and chairs the board of the Free Russia Foundation. John Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. William Taylor is a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.)

Zelensky has been compared by some to Winston Churchill.

Ramaswamy, Haass, Kupchan, and the other American defeatists echo Viscount Halifax, an ally of former UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain of appeasement fame, who was bent on negotiating a peaceful surrender with Germany.

As Churchill is often quoted as saying to Halifax during a cabinet meeting, “You cannot reason with a tiger while your head is in its mouth.”

Ramaswamy, Haass, and Kupchan are no doubt all grateful that Halifax lost that argument. Going forward, our money is on Ukraine’s Churchill and the Ukrainian people.

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2. Can the Anti-Trump Coalition Hold?

A.B. Stoddard has a heaping dose of bad news:

AS PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN CONTINUES to lose support, former President Donald Trump has never had more. This isn’t only because prices, and Biden’s age, are too high. Many disillusioned Biden voters say they will not vote next year, but Trump is also winning converts.

A lot can change in a year but the electorate is shifting, and the anti-MAGA coalition is splintering.

Trump leads Biden in national polling and swing state polling. Biden’s overall approval hovers around 39 percent, nowhere near what is required for an incumbent to win a second term, and the numbers on his management of the economy—the number one issue—are worse.

A new Democracy Corps Battleground survey released Monday shows Biden down 5 points to Trump in battleground states (and 6 points down when accounting for independent candidates whose vote share is 17 percent). The poll found that voters don’t want to hear about job growth, dipping inflation, rising GDP, or that a recession has been averted. They are angry about prices and can’t buy things because of interest rates.

“Democrats talking about this strong economy and things moving in the right direction sounds like you are talking about a different country,” the poll’s key findings stated.

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3. Donald Trump Wants Me to Join His Inner Circle

Do yourself a favor and read this piece by Bill Lueders in today’s Bulwark:

THE OTHER DAY, DONALD TRUMP’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN sent me an urgent email. It said the president needed my help. What I needed to do was join something called “THE PRESIDENT’S TRUST.” The email spelled it all out:

This year, President Trump learned who his TRUE allies are.

He also learned who would gladly stab him in the back during the most despicable witch hunts that will forever go down as a stain on our country’s history.

The email said that, given all this, it was “critical that the President’s most TRUSTED ALLIES like YOU step up to defend him.” This could be accomplished by becoming a Founding Member of THE PRESIDENT’S TRUST, which professes “to peacefully defend our movement from the never-ending witch hunts.”

Alas, the email noted ruefully, “the last time we checked the enrollment roster, we didn’t see you had accepted your invitation yet.” And so Team Trump sent the invite again…

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Cheap Shots

I swear this is not a parody:

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