Washington, D.C. (December 27, 2022) –The Biden administration doesn’t appear to have a plan on dealing with record numbers of aliens entering the United States illegally, aside from funneling increasing numbers of migrants into the country indefinitely. The logical explanation is that few Americans know the facts about the border, and much of Biden’s Democratic base doesn’t care about the illegal migration crisis, so he doesn’t care either.

While Biden has proven himself adept at ending successful border policies, he has shown little skill at crafting policies to control illegal immigration. Title 42 will eventually end  - with a predicted 14,000 migrants per day or more than five million per year entering the country illegally over the Southwest border - and there is no master plan ready to go to secure the border.

Andrew Arthur, the Center’s fellow in law and policy, writes, “Most Americans have no idea what’s occurring at the border, and are receiving their ‘news’ from outlets whose reporters either don’t know the facts themselves or don’t care. Many outlets are heavy on human-interest stories, but light on facts.”

A poll conducted by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and opinion outfits The Harris Poll and Harris asked: “How many border crossings by illegal immigrants do you think are occurring each year?”  In FY 2022, that answer was upwards of 2.8 million, or more people than live in Chicago, America’s third largest city.   More than 2.2 million of them were apprehended by Border Patrol agents after crossing, and an additional 599,000 evaded apprehension to enter illegally.   

87 percent of respondents in that poll underestimated how many illegal entrants there were last year, and more than half — 57 percent — were wrong by a factor of two.

Undoubtedly, many of those 87 percent are Democratic voters who get their “news” from outlets that elide the scope of the border disaster. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, concerns about immigration were not evenly split by party, with Republicans six times more likely to view immigration as the most important issue facing the country today than Democrats.

Arthur said, “Republicans may care more about immigration because they are exposed to more information about the border, or they may seek out more border facts because they’re more concerned about illegal immigration, with the obverse being true of Democrats.”