President Joe Biden’s record on border security is so bad that his own party members regard it as toxic. Even far-left candidates such as James Talarico call themselves “border security” Democrats so as to distance themselves, if possible, from the abject failure of their past leader.
But as bad as Biden’s policies were at the southern border, where Democratic negligence was most obvious, the ex-president’s refusal to enforce the law inside the country was equally reckless. The extent of the damage done was documented by a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report released this week.
The foreign-born population of the United States grew by a record 8.3 million under the Biden administration, pushing its share of the country’s population to a record 15.8%. Not all of this growth was from illegal immigration, but the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the illegal population alone grew by 5.6 million. It includes not only those who crossed the southern border illegally but also others admitted legally on temporary visas who did not leave after their authorization expired.
Each year, the State Department issues 10 million nonimmigrant visas. These include B-1s and B-2s for tourism and business, F-1 visas for students, H-2As for agricultural workers, H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, and other categories. Such visas permit temporary travel to the United States. Most people leave before their visas expire rather than becoming permanent additions to the foreign-born population.
But some 500,000 a year stay, becoming illegal immigrants just as those who crossed the border without authorization did. The Immigration and Nationality Act says “any alien who was admitted as a nonimmigrant and who has failed to maintain the nonimmigrant status in which the alien was admitted … is deportable.” DHS reports almost 2 million suspected overstays during fiscal years 2021–2024 among nonimmigrants admitted through air and sea ports.
According to the inspector general, ICE received more than 3.1 million leads concerning suspected overstays or other violations of admission terms during Biden’s presidency, from 2021 to 2024. Of those, it arrested only eight. Such scandalous nonenforcement cannot be anything other than a policy decision to ignore the requirements of the law.
The report attributes the limited enforcement to a Sept. 30, 2021, memorandum written by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that directed ICE to focus its resources on threats to “national security, public safety, and border security.”
Mayorkas made clear that a criminal conviction alone was insufficient to establish that an illegal immigrant posed a current public safety threat. His memo specifically rejected automatically treating domestic violence as grounds for apprehension and removal. Agents were directed to weigh mitigating factors, including how long offenders had lived in the United States and the effects of deportation on their families. Under that policy, even serious criminal conduct did not guarantee that immigration authorities would attempt removal.
Democrats claim they have learned the lessons of Biden’s immigration failures and will do all they can to secure the border if elected back to power. This is doubtful, to say the least. Democrats still oppose detaining migrants arrested for illegally crossing the border and returning them to Mexico. There is only one other policy option when Border Patrol arrests someone illegally crossing the border, and that is to release them into the United States. That was Biden’s policy, and it was a disaster. Democrats have not articulated any alternative.
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But let’s assume that Democrats do find some magic new way of dealing with illegal border crossers other than detention or return to Mexico. What about the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who enter legally but then illegally overstay their visas? Democrats have no answer for what to do about these people either, other than to grant them citizenship, which would be a clear invitation for millions more to stay. In other words, the Democrats are still bent on sacrificing United States sovereignty and letting foreigners decide whether they wish to live in the United States rather than leaving the decision where it should be: with the citizens of this country, whose will is expressed through federal laws.
Securing the border is only part of enforcing immigration law. A country that admits visitors temporarily must ensure they leave. Until Democrats commit to enforcing that obligation, their promises of border security will be empty. Americans deserve immigration laws that mean what they say, and the only way that happens is through enforcement.