No ‘Sister Souljah moment’ for Biden at the border, but an attempted makeover
W. James Antle III
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President Joe Biden didn’t have a Sister Souljah moment at the border, but he did try another tactic of former President Bill Clinton: triangulation.
Biden could have aggressively pushed back against elements of the Democratic Party who appear to regard most immigration enforcement as morally suspect if not wholly illegitimate, as Clinton once denounced a rapper who spoke casually about killing white people during remarks to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition.
Instead Biden is attempting to revive the Washington immigration policy consensus that was shattered by the failure of the 2013 Gang of Eight deal and seemingly buried by former President Donald Trump: exchange amnesty for most illegal immigrants and other pathways for legal immigration for border security funds.
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“They need a lot of resources, and we’re going to get it for them,” Biden said on Sunday.
Republicans recaptured control of the House during the midterm elections and have enough senators to filibuster most legislation. It remains to be seen whether such measures, which failed under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, can again muster bipartisan support in either chamber.
As Biden readies a reelection bid, he is positioning himself between congressional Republicans and the most liberal Democrats on one of the most fraught issues of his presidency: immigration.
There has been a sustained surge in illegal immigration throughout his term, with nearly 2.4 million border encounters reported last year. Things are expected to get even worse with the coming expiration of Title 42.
Consequently, immigration and the border are two areas where Biden consistently receives his lowest marks from the public. His approval rating on immigration is 37% with 59.3% disapproving, according to the latest RealClearPolitics polling average. A new CBS News poll has 62% disapproving of Biden’s handling of the border to 38% who approve.
The White House has long responded to questions about the chaos at the border by touting “record funding” Republicans — who were then the minority in both houses of Congress — had failed to pass and an immigration bill Biden dropped shortly after taking office.
But the new combination of parole in place and ramped up enforcement to deter illegal crossings is controversially being done through executive action, as Biden challenges Congress to take up his immigration legislation.
In the 2020 Democratic primaries, Biden positioned himself against opponents who wanted to decriminalize border crossings and curtail deportations. But upon arriving in the Oval Office, he moved swiftly to reverse many Trump-era immigration controls and attempted a 100-day moratorium on deportations. Many attribute the border surge to migrants’ perceptions that if they could get into the United States, they would be permitted to stay.
Biden has largely tolerated the chaos at the border and previously waved off demands that he visit the area, once saying he had more important things to do.
While Biden was vice president, Obama had attempted to establish credibility on enforcement as he sought to persuade Congress to pass an immigration amnesty. The administration highlighted the number of undocumented persons being removed from the country. But Obama had little winning over converts to amnesty and was derided by progressive activists as the “deporter in chief.”
Biden is sensitive to the political impact of immigration, but largely sought to avoid this kind of left-wing blowback during his first two years in office at the cost of taking a beating from Republicans on the issue. Now he is trying to walk a careful middle line: accepting that immigration enforcement is legitimate, but effectively accepting a strong presumption in favor of people who can improve their living standards by migrating to the U.S. being allowed to do so.
That still requires taking a pro-enforcement tone in public.
“Do not just show up at the border,” Biden said to migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua in remarks at the White House on Thursday. “Stay where you are and apply legally from there.”
“The border is not open,” Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. “We will continue to fully enforce our immigration laws in a safe, orderly and humane manner.”
Biden is not the first political figure to attempt this transformation. “I’ll build the goddamned [border] fence if they want it,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said in a 2007 Vanity Fair profile while running for president. But when he faced a tough primary challenge in 2010, McCain ran an ad showing him touring the border and vowing to “complete the danged fence.”
There is no guarantee that the gambit will succeed, however. While the visit took away a GOP talking point, the Republican National Committee dismissed it as a “dog and pony show” on Monday, quoting a Texas reporter.
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The president’s border visit came against the backdrop of House Republicans struggling to elect a speaker, taking 15 ballots to give Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) the gavel. Democrats are also hoping to stave off a drop in Hispanic support that has been evident in recent election cycles.
Biden hasn’t officially announced he will be a candidate in 2024, saying after the midterms he would take time to discuss it with his family. But most signs indicate that he is leaning toward another run.