Following President Biden’s disastrous performance in last week’s debate, some Democrats and liberals have called for him to step down, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been mentioned as a possible successor, raising questions about how she would handle the border crisis.
Whitmer, governor of a battleground state, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024 if Biden were to step down. Polls so far have suggested she would fare best among several candidates against former President Trump, the Republican front-runner.
If she receives the nomination and wins in November, she would assume a federal leadership role at a time when immigration policy and the ongoing crisis at the southern border are top issues for voters and the country.
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Governor Gretchen Whitmer attends the kickoff of her campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on August 2, 2022. (Bill Priano/Getty Images)
Governor Whitmer has generally supported President Biden’s immigration policy efforts, and when he announced additional restrictions on asylum last month, the governor released an impassioned statement praising the move and praising the president for “getting things done.”
“President Biden’s executive order will ease the burden on Border Patrol agents and help secure our nation’s borders by making it easier for immigration officials to remove people who are in the country illegally. Today’s announcement builds on the President’s commitment to deploy a record number of Border Patrol agents and officers to the southern border,” she said. “The American people want real solutions, and today President Biden is delivering.”
Like other Democrats, she also supported Biden’s broader demand for a comprehensive immigration bill to fix a system the administration has called “dysfunctional.”
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The plan included sweeping reforms, additional visa pathways, additional funding, and a path to U.S. citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. Republicans rejected the plan, in part because of its amnesty provisions. Governor Whitmer wants the bill to pass.
“President Biden sent a comprehensive immigration reform bill to Congress on Day One and has repeatedly asked Congress for additional border resources, only to be blocked by Republicans,” he said last month. “Republicans should stop playing politics and work with the administration to develop a collaborative, bipartisan federal solution to fix our broken system.”
Like Biden, she has been a sharp critic of former President Trump’s stance on the border. She previously said he sent the National Guard to the border while in office and blamed him for tearing up a bipartisan Senate deal to fund the border.
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“He told Republicans to back off, and they did,” she said in April.
On February 23, 2024, migrants crossed the border from Mexico and arrived at a makeshift camp near Jacumba Hot Springs in San Diego. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)
Stateside, she has signaled she may take a tougher stance on illegal immigration, which would certainly be tougher than some activists would like.
She has deployed the National Guard to the border multiple times to support Texas, both under the Trump administration and the Biden administration.
His office said it deployed 175 troops between 2020 and 2021, with 37 more stationed there since 2020. It also visited Michigan soldiers at the border in 2022.
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Unlike other Democratic candidates, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, she has taken a hard-line stance against illegal immigrants receiving state benefits — illegal immigrants are eligible for state Medicaid — but Whitmer has shown no signs of going along with that stance.
“If you’re here illegally, I don’t think you have a right to access,” Whitmer said in April. Detroit Free Press.
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Whitmer has been criticized by Republican lawmakers for her Newcomer Rent Assistance Program, which provides up to $500 in rent assistance to some immigrants, but the program is intended to help asylum seekers, refugees and others with valid immigration status in the U.S. and does not cover undocumented people.
