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Whatever happens at the border must be the fault of the prior administration, President Joe Biden's critics or circumstances beyond anyone's control. And no matter how bad things get, it is definitely not in any way a "crisis at the border" — a phrase as taboo at the Biden White House as "black sheep" and "ladies and gentlemen" at Stanford University.
Pancho Villa could ride again and detach a portion of the United States to serve as a safe haven for millions of migrants drawn from throughout the hemisphere and Biden officials would call it a "challenge," not a "crisis."
If the famous Mexican revolutionary isn't going to reappear, when Title 42 — the pandemic-era edict that has become a pillar of border enforcement — inevitably expires, the historic influx of migrants now is only going to get bigger. Apprehensions are running at an off-the-charts 7,000 a day and could go as high as 18,000.
It's incredible but true that two years into the Biden administration, with President Donald Trump 800 miles south of the White House hawking trading cards, Biden officials still point the finger at him.
The other day, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said her boss has been saddled with the "system that was set" by his predecessor. Biden, too, has claimed he was stuck with "one god-awful mess at the border," and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas likes to complain about "inheriting a broken and dismantled immigration system."
Harrowing photos show migrants risk kidnapping, freezing temps to get into US It's passing strange, though, that the failure of Trump's approach didn't become apparent until he left office and his policies were largely dismantled.
It'd be one thing if Biden had positioned himself as an inheritor of Trump's border policies and assiduously kept them in place; then, if crossings skyrocketed anyway, he might have had legitimate cause to argue that the Trump measures had failed.
Instead, he declared himself a sworn enemy of all Trump had wrought, tore up as much of it as possible — and when a border that had been brought under control by 2020 unraveled month by month still blamed it on Trump. This is a rhetorical move so audacious that most wouldn't dare attempt it.
Equally bold is the assertion that harsh criticisms of Biden's border policies are responsible for migrants coming. Jean-Pierre recently said that if Title 42 is lifted it "does not mean the border is open. Anyone who suggests otherwise is simply doing the work of these smugglers."
The idea is that if border hawks say we have a de facto open border, migrants will think, erroneously, that they can come to the border and gain entry illegally. Of course, it is the reality that migrants can come to the border and gain entry illegally that is driving the continued flow, rather than anyone pointing this out.
Then there is the communism excuse.
"What's on my watch now," Biden has said, "is Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua." Jean-Pierre put a finer point on it: "Failing authoritarian regimes in Venezuela as well as Nicaragua and Cuba are causing a new migration challenge across the Western Hemisphere," she averred. "So what we're seeing is a new pattern."
It is certainly true that the number of migrants from these countries has increased, but if the border is largely open, they are going to feel the same incentive to come as migrants from other countries. Migrants from these three nations still accounted for only 42% of the September total.
Unfortunately, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua have been miserably misgoverned for a long time. What's changed is that desperate people living in these countries have a better chance of getting into, and staying in, the United States than ever before.
When Title 42 goes away, it's hard to predict exactly what will happen — except Biden and his team will resist taking any responsibility.
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