Thursday, March 28, 2024

Immigration – Joe Biden’s Achilles Heel?

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Washington, D.C. – Though the president's job approvals number has been slowly creeping up, a new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds a majority of Democrats – 56 percent – want someone other than to be the party's nominee in 2024, in part because of how badly he's handled the immigration issue.

From inflation to immigration, Team Biden's performance has been, to be charitable, poor. Most of the major initiatives have gone by the wayside. Even his signature Build Back Better program was allowed to flounder for more than a year until being resurrected – in a considerably diminished form – thanks only to a decision by West Sen. Joe Manchin to flip his vote in exchange for a public works permitting promise that may go unfulfilled.

Biden's inability to accomplish anything except getting a couple of massive, inflation-spiking stimulus relief proposals through has left key issues like immigration unaddressed. He likes to blame the opposition, especially the “MAGA Republicans” he attacked repeatedly in his Philadelphia speech as being “a threat to democracy” but that's just a distraction from reality: He and the people he's chosen to run his administration are in over their heads and don't know what they're doing.

At least, let's hope they are. If the policy outcomes we've experienced are the ones they sought, they've brought chaos about intentionally. Consider what they've done, or failed to do, on immigration. It's the issue most national polls say is second in importance to inflation to the people who say they are likely to vote in the upcoming election.

Under Biden, the U.S. border with Mexico has become virtually porous, placing an onerous burden on the taxpayers of just a few states to deal with a problem that needs to be solved in Washington. A new poll by RMG Research undertaken on behalf of the America First Policy institute finds the frustration among voters arising from the administration's inaction at a near boiling point.

To draw a contrast, some GOP leaders have begun to exploit the issue for partisan advantage, raising the hackles of liberals and progressives who think “Can't we all just get along” is in the Declaration of Independence. Some have even called the practice begin by Texas Gov. Greg Abbot and recently embraced by Arizona Gov. and Florida Gov. of shipping busloads and planeloads of illegal immigrant detainees from their states to sanctuary cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., barbaric. Not only is that an overstatement, RMG's poll of 1,200 registered voters – error margin +/- 2.8 percent – found the strategy enormously popular among the same voters who may determine the outcome of the upcoming election.

According to RMG's analysis, more than 60 percent of the voters surveyed called the complaints raised by officials in the self-identified sanctuary cities “hypocritical” given that the political leadership in those communities' long-standing position is not to cooperate with the federal 's effort to identify, arrest and repatriate people living there who are not legally in the United States.

In its poll, RMG found 55 percent approving of the relocation efforts and 63 percent saying it was the only way to bring needed attention to a problem that has been ignored by the national press since Biden replaced former President Donald J. Trump in the White House.

Biden, who says relocating illegal immigrants to Chicago and other places is nothing more than a “political stunt” maintains a process is in place “to manage migrants.” The evidence on hand, which includes an explosion in the number of people crossing the border illegally from what it was under his predecessor, suggests the president is poorly briefed on the situation.

“Sending illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities is politically popular,” the polling firm said in a memo whose contents were reported on Monday in The Washington Times. The survey was taken a week after DeSantis rerouted detainees bound for Florida from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, a liberal enclave located off the coast of Massachusetts where prominent progressives such as former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have homes.

It's clear the voters are not as sanguine about the issue as Biden or , a prominent critic of Trump immigration policy who was picked to be the administration's “border czar.” By a margin of 54 percent to 28 percent, The Washington Times reported, voters doubted the administration was serious about wanting to secure the border and cut . Close to two-thirds – 60 percent – said they believed the drug cartels had more control over events down there than the United States government. Rather than just giving speeches, Harris should go to the actual border, where the problems are, and see for herself how we are being overwhelmed.

The politicians who dismiss this issue as mere demagoguery (with a touch of racism thrown in) do so at their peril. A country that cannot keep its borders secure, many have said, will not long remain a country. The president and his people see immigration – especially illegal immigration – as an isolated issue, driven by bigots who want to keep America “white,” not for the serious, social dilemma it poses that touches on most every aspect of society.

It fits nicely with the distorted view of America he described in Philadelphia. What he and those around him are missing is how the border policies they have in place let criminal networks flourish and create a haven for coyotes engaged in smuggling and sex trafficking to rape women and abuse children. The administration has done little to shut down the pipeline that brings an unending flow of fentanyl-laced pharmaceutical phonies into the country, spreading its poison everywhere from big cities to impoverished communities where hope and opportunity left soon after the jobs did.

That's more than just a shame: It's an avoidable tragedy. The people who are being pushed here to get them out of Mexico and who are lured here by empty promises dangled by persons of devious intent aren't helped by what the is doing now or by what it refuses to do. More to the point, these people who want nothing more than a better life are being hurt by it, badly. Immigrants admitted in an orderly fashion through a well-defined legal process and then allowed to assimilate have added and will continue to add much to America. It's a strength, not a weakness, to have people all around the world wanting to come here and to let them to do so. We should welcome them. As Sen. Robert F. Kennedy once said, “Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as their talent and energy allow.” How the Biden administration is handling things at the border doesn't allow for that at all.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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Peter Roff
Peter Roff
Peter Roff is a longtime political columnist currently affiliated with several Washington, D.C.-based public policy organizations. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TheRoffDraft.

4 COMMENTS

  1. They will never get near the border. They know if they did, it would be their admission of guilt for what is and has been going on. Right now, DeSantis, Abbott and Doocey should be shipping illegal invaders to a Democrat sanctuary city. If they won’t come to observe the FUBAR themselves, then take the FUBAR to them.

  2. The Biden Botch UP At the Border, will always be an Achilles Heel, but not for Joe Biden because he keeps telling lies that the border is secured! the Achilles Heel is for the American people, and now there is an article that I read, called “Afghanistan Next Door”, the new cartel problem for Mexico. Mexico is collapsing if it hasn’t already. The border needs to be secured. The states needs to utilize the 10th amendment, forget about Biden. If they want to build the wall, build it! Open up the pipeline projects. Start opening! The states outside of Gov. Desantis and Gov. Abbott, the rest of the states are in derelict of their duties. Get things done!

  3. “Washington, D.C. – Though the president’s job approvals number has been slowly creeping up, a new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds a majority of Democrats – 56 percent – want someone other than Joe Biden to be the party’s nominee in 2024″

    joey lie-den’s approval numbers are slowly creeping up????!!! Who in their right mind thinks lie-den is doing a good job? Everything he touches turns to crap. EVERYTHING.

  4. Arachnid Joe has about 8 Achilles heals, one for each leg.I’m more concerned right now about winning both houses. Then we can fix our attention on Joe.

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