After fumbling border security, the immigration crisis is on Republicans

President Biden must feel like he can’t catch a break. While the country’s cost-of-living crisis appears to be abating, another crisis is emerging to replace it. It’s a record surge in illegal immigrants crossing America’s southern border.

Immigration is either reducing or causing inflation, a top concern for U.S. voters, according to recent polls. second closest. The last thing President Biden and the Democratic Party want to do is have the chaotic border become the centerpiece of the 2024 presidential campaign.

But over the past three years, migrants have flooded the border after hearing that it has become easier to enter the country. In fiscal year 2023, U.S. border officials experienced record conditions. 2.5 million immigrants; In December, the number of people crossing the border in a single month reached a record high of nearly 250,000 people.

The surge has overwhelmed border and customs officials, flooded immigration courts and detention centers, and imposed significant economic costs on border communities. It is also backlash Large “sanctuary cities” like Chicago, Denver and New York have Texas Governor Greg Abbott in office. bus immigration.

As a result, the people support Biden. low score For immigration control. This is especially true in key battleground states where voters have wide margins. I trust Donald Trump more than Biden. To manage the border situation.

But if immigration is a political headache for Biden and his party, it is turning into a debacle for Republicans. Yesterday, in an astonishing display of hypocrisy and cowardice, Republican Congressional leaders forced through a tough national and border security bill aimed at drastically reducing illegal immigration.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has called for just such a bill to be sent to the Senate in return for support for military aid to Ukraine, even though he and other House Republicans had previously called for it to be sent to the Senate in return for support for military aid to Ukraine. He declared the bill “null and void upon arrival.”

With the blessings of leaders of both parties, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.). created a bipartisan bill After four months of difficult negotiations with the White House.

The plan includes $20 billion in emergency spending to increase border and asylum staff and expand detention facilities, $17 billion and $10 billion for security and humanitarian assistance to Israel and Gaza, and protection from Russian aggression. It includes $62 billion that is urgently needed to protect Ukraine.

It also includes provisions that significantly limit asylum and parole applications, automatically close the border if daily border crossings reach unmanageable levels, and expedite court hearings for immigrants seeking admission as refugees. It also includes provisions such as:

These are major concessions on Biden’s part, but Republicans won’t take “yes” for an answer.Rather, they bowed to President Trump. request The bill will be repealed so that he is not deprived of an important issue in his election campaign.

to their hysterical cries, “Intrusion” Although the number of criminals and terrorists is large, many Republicans on Capitol Hill clearly believe they are working with Democrats to thwart a more serious danger. Instead of doing their job yesterday, House Republicans treated the Freedom Caucus extremists to yet another sick, partisan sideshow. vote for impeachment Thank you, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, for your work.

Conspiracy theories also taint the legislature.

“Democrats changed their immigration policy when their leaders began to expect they could import voters to make up for the loss of voters alienated by Democratic policies.” avoider Michael Lind is a political commentator who calls himself a populist.

There’s an irony here. Before Trump, the Republican Party was a reliable voice for a more lenient approach to illegal immigration.

In part, this reflects companies’ demand for a steady supply of cheap labor to do jobs that Americans won’t do.Republicans and business leaders thwarted We are going to require employers to implement the E-Verify system, a simple and effective way to verify that they are not employing illegal workers.

Libertarian organizations like the Cato Institute sprang up in droves. report and analysis They argue that even though immigrants impose short-term costs on workers and communities, they make a net contribution to U.S. economic growth in the long run.

However, economist George Borjas I observedthis narrow view of immigration as a labor input ignores the social costs of mass immigration and the challenges of assimilating large numbers of newcomers.

On the left, House progressives have slammed Biden for supporting the Senate bill.Trump Light” They warn that it could further alienate young activists upset by Biden’s staunch defense of Israel’s right to protect it from Hamas.

But progressives’ apathy toward enforcement of U.S. immigration laws is not shared by most Americans. young voters. He is also out of step with previous Democratic presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who drew a clear distinction between illegal and legal immigration.

This change reflects the party’s new demographic and class structure. Since 2000, college-educated millennial activists and professionals have become increasingly influential. white working class non-college voters He left the Republican camp.

Immersed in identity politics, progressive activists are quick to brand any attempt to stop illegal border crossings as xenophobic, if not racist. In the 2020 primaries, many Democratic candidates took on “bold” poses in hopes of winning. decriminalization of borders and abolish immigration and customs enforcement.

Biden has refused to support these unreasonable demands for open borders. However, his attempts to regulate border flows through administrative action failed.

Both countries are complicit in what is happening on their borders, and neither party can solve the problem alone. By greedily deferring to Trump and refusing to make legislative compromises, House Republicans have once again chosen performative outrage over providing real solutions.

So now the border crisis is theirs as well.

Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute.