"...all he had to do to succeed was broadly maintain the path that his predecessor had already set."

Unforced errors in immigration policy continue to leave a mark as voters across the political spectrum express increasing dissatisfaction with the border surge. President Biden's approval rating on the issue is abysmal - just 29% of the public approves of his handling of the border in recent Quinnipiac and CNBC polls.

(If you want to see more on the increasing concern among Democratic voters, our colleague Lisa Venus wrote a blog analyzing additional polling.)

In his National Review column "A Border Crisis of Biden's Own Making," Rich Lowry explains how this border crisis should have been avoided:

"[Biden] said that there's no way to solve the migrant crisis without addressing the violence, corruption, gangs, political instability, and destitution in Central America. Then, astonishingly enough, he claimed to have alleviated all these problems as vice president until Trump came along and ripped it all up.

It's not clear what Biden is even referring to, but if what he said were remotely true, there never would have been a migrant crisis under Trump in 2019 because conditions in Central America would have been too favorable for people to leave.

...It's completely obvious that what has driven the crisis at the border are expectations that Biden would be more welcoming than Trump and the exemption that Biden created for minors in Title 42, used to turn around migrants during the pandemic.

Biden has also ended Remain in Mexico, the successful program to get migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are adjudicated in the U.S. (if they are allowed in the U.S. during this process, they will never leave, even if their claims ultimately fail)."

Note: The Washington Post has a thorough timeline of comments and actions of the Biden administration from the transition in late 2020 through April 2021, which have resulted in an unnecessary border crisis. To view, click here.

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