Amid a record-setting crisis, a radical increase in immigration.
President Biden spent relatively little of his address to Congress on the subject of immigration, but he did urge the legislature to pass his immigration bill. Ironically, in a speech that urged America to think big on practically every subject he addressed, Biden undersold just how radical his immigration expansion would be. Take a look:
For the record...
The Washington Post reported that illegal border crossings began to level off in April, but remain near 20-year record highs.
Nick Miroff details the multiple actions the Biden administration took that directly led to the surge of unaccompanied minors and family units, despite warnings. The result: a record number of teens and children in shelters.
Byron York says the Border Patrol is "no longer really trying to prevent people from entering the U.S. illegally. Rather, they are attempting to humanely house and feed the thousands prior to releasing them into the country."
Nolan Rappaport says "Biden is so focused on reversing the Trump administration's border security measures that he isn't thinking about the consequences of his actions."
Andrew Sullivan says "It's as if Biden looked at Merkel's decision in 2015 to admit a million Syrian migrants, which helped tip an entire continent toward the far right, and thought: let's try that here."
Immigration lawyer Matthew Kolken shared the view from his clients' perspective: "I represent asylum seekers. It is a large percentage of my practice. Universally, the motivating factor driving individuals to our southern border is Joe Biden's immigration statements. Immigrants believe that without Trump there will be amnesty. It really is that simple."
Former USCIS senior official Joseph Edlow lays the blame on the introduction of Biden's immigration bill and the dismantling of the Migrant Protection Protocols (i.e. the "Remain In Mexico" policy). The message to Central America, Edlow says, is "Welcome, we have work authorization for everyone (even if we don't have enough jobs)."
Nick Miroff appeared on Andrew Sullivan's podcast for one of the best conversations about the border that you'll hear this year, including:
The "Root Cause" Ruse
Rich Lowry said that if Biden's VP efforts to address "the root causes" of illegal Central American migration were as successful as he claimed in his address, there never would have been a 2019 surge under Trump, much less one right now.
The establishment media has lost its enthusiasm for fact checks but The Associated Press did note that, in fact, the U.S. continued to send money to Central American countries during the Trump administration, despite evidence that it wasn't effective at slowing border surges.
Colbert I. King suggests Vice President Harris find out what happened to the billions that have already been sent to the Northern Triangle (and why they haven't stopped people from leaving those countries), or else risk failing where so many others have failed before.
Alan Tonelson adds that "until genuinely promising plans are developed, there will be no substitute for re-securing the border by reinstating the type of Trump-ian controls that minimize the strength of the U.S. magnets that influence migrant flows as surely as the problems of sending countries."
The Associated Press reports that the conditions in the sending countries haven't changed; U.S. policy has. And now people are once again using children as "passports" to get into the country.
Nolan Rappaport has a theory for why Biden put Vice President Harris in charge of the border crisis.
The One-Eyed Man Is King
Trump's ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, says he's all for programs to help Northern Triangle countries, but when it comes to stopping illegal immigration, he says "the answer is much closer to home. I don't see how we can't get our own employers to stop hiring people illegally." Money quote:
"As long as our country continues to incentivize unauthorized immigration by turning a blind eye to the employment of millions of unauthorized immigrants within our borders, we cannot claim to have a "humane" policy."
Rappaport gives a bipartisan history of the border wall.
Revisionist History
Matt Taibbi exposes the absurd double standard in how the media covers Biden's border "challenge" and "migrant facilities" with their approach to Trump's border "crisis" and "cages."
Tonelson compares The AP's immigration narrative with those darn, stubborn facts.
The Editors podcast (45 minutes in) compares former Speaker of the House John Boehner's attempt to cast himself as a xxxxxx against the MAGA phenomenon with his betrayal on immigration as a significant factor in Trump's rise.
The horse race
Axios reports that "Swing voter support for Biden's border policies is like sand falling through an hourglass...Right now there's a reservoir of goodwill, but it's depleting as time passes and impatience grows."
Lisa Irving runs through the polling that shows support from Democratic voters declining as well when it comes to immigration.
Miroff tells Sullivan (1:13:21 into their conversation) that "one of the interesting things about this current moment" is "the most stinging criticism" of Biden comes from two Rio Grande Valley Democrats, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, who "see they're in changing districts that went surprisingly toward more pro-Trump than folks anticipated. And they recognize the vulnerability they're facing."
Say it ain't so...
Bob Casimiro says Joe Biden's immigration expansion would hurt hard-working Americans.
Keli Goff appeared on Left, Right & Center to say (30 minutes into the podcast): "We can't unfortunately allow everyone to come in. Refugees are one thing but someone who wants to simply come here to find a better life - god bless them but the Black unemployment rates are also really bad...so we can't unfortunately open our borders to everyone who wants to come here for the American dream because there are a lot of people who were born here who are not achieving the dream."
Dave Gorak says we can't be all things to economically disadvantaged Americans and economically disadvantaged migrants at the same time.
Sullivan (1:08:35 into his conversation with Miroff) argues that the low-immigration decades of the 20th century were "good times for American labor," and suggests that instead of increasing immigration, a pause would especially benefit Black Americans, Latino Americans, working-class Americans, and unskilled labor.
The Realignment
Karol Markowicz looks at how the former Party of the working class now (quietly) work towards a policy of limitless low-wage competition.
Peggy Noonan says she left the GOP in part over immigration, but she sees a way for the GOP to come back as a pro-immigrant, working-class and reductionist party.
Mark Thies says a rebranded, working-class GOP will have to fight its donor class on immigration.
Neil Munro says Tim Scott's response to the State of the Union address indicates that Republican leadership has still not gotten the message on immigration.
They didn't think about that...
The Attorney General of Arizona, Mark Brnovich, is suing the Biden administration for violating the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) with its border policies, including their hasty roll back of the "Remain in Mexico" policy and border wall construction.
Julie Axelrod hopes more lawsuits will come, saying NEPA gives Americans a way to fight "unexamined immigration expansion actions forced on the public with no transparency and no hearings."
Rappaport takes a look at the "novel" approach.
Journalists doing math badly
Gary Wockner gives The New York Times an F-minus for its misleading, innumerate, and illogical reporting on the latest population projections from the Census Bureau.
The Washington Post editorial board, along with most of the establishment media, is fully on board with Biden's radical immigration expansion in order to accelerate U.S. population growth.
Joseph Chamie disagrees. Most Americans are opposed to increasing immigration, and slower rates "will make it far easier and less costly to tackle those worsening environmental conditions in the country." Moreover, the media pundits who think they can establish a permanently-young population through immigration are simply getting the math wrong.
Joe Guzzardi estimates Biden's immigration expansion would set the U.S. on a course to double our population within the lifetimes of many Americans alive today.
Roy Beck says neither Biden's proposal nor the status quo are sustainable.
Spread the word,
|
