Politics Politics | How Biden’s Promises to Reverse Trump’s Immigration Policies Crumbled Share full article Log in

How Biden’s Promises to Reverse

Trump’s Immigration Policies
Crumbled
President Biden has tried to contain a surge ofmigration by
embracing, or at least tolerating, some of his predecessor’s
approaches.

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President Biden at the southern border in January. Mr. Biden’s handling of immigration has become one of
his biggest potential liabilities, with polls showing deep dissatisfaction among voters about how he deals
with the new arrivals. Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Michael D. Shear
Reporting from Washington
Oct. 6, 2023

Immigration was dead simple when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was

campaigning for president: It was an easy way to attack Donald J.
Trump as a racist, and it helped to rally Democrats with the
promise of a more humane border policy.
Nothing worked better than Mr. Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” that
he was building along the southern border. Its existence was as
much a metaphor for the polarization inside America as it was a
largely ineffective barrier against foreigners fleeing to the United
States from Central America.
“There will not be,” Mr. Biden proclaimed as he campaigned
against Mr. Trump in the summer of 2020, “another foot of wall
constructed.”
But a massive surge of migration in the Western Hemisphere has
scrambled the dynamics of an issue that has vexed presidents for
decades and radically reshaped the political pressures on Mr.
,

Biden and his administration. Instead of becoming the president

who quickly reversed his predecessor’s policies, Mr. Biden has
repeatedly tried to curtail the migration of a record number of
people — and the political fallout that has created — by embracing,
or at least tolerating, some of Mr. Trump’s anti-immigrant
approaches.
Even, it turns out, the wall.
On Thursday, Biden administration officials formally sought to
waive environmental regulations to allow construction of up to 20
additional miles of border wall in a part of Texas that is inundated
by illegal migration. The move was a stunning reversal on a
political and moral issue that had once galvanized Mr. Biden and
Democrats like no other.
The funds for the wall had been approved by Congress during Mr.
Trump’s tenure, and on Friday, the president said he had no power
to block their use.

Hundreds of those seeking asylum in the United States wait to be processed near the border wall in El Paso,
Texas. Justin Hamel for The New York Times

“The wall thing?” Mr. Biden asked reporters on Friday. “Yeah.

Well, I was told that I had no choice — that I, you know, Congress
passes legislation to build something, whether it’s an aircraft
carrier wall or provide for a tax cut. I can’t say, ‘I don’t like it. I’m
not going to do it.’”
White House officials said that they tried for years, without
success, to get Congress to redirect the wall money to other border
priorities. And they said Mr. Biden’s lawyers had advised that the
only way to get around the Impoundment Control Act, which
requires the president to spend money as Congress directs, was to
file a lawsuit. The administration chose not to do so.

The money had to be spent by the end of December, the officials

said.
Asked on Thursday whether he thought a border wall works, Mr.
Biden — who has long said a wall would not be effective — said
simply: “No.”

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human rights groups are furious, accusing the president of

Still, 36 Hours in
Florence, Italy
abandoning the principles on which he campaigned. They praise
him for opening new, legal opportunities for some migrants,
including thousands from Venezuela but question his recent ,
Don’t Let Rain
Cancel Your
reversals on enforcement policy. Workout

“It doesn’t help this administration politically, to continue policies

that they were very clear they were against,” said Vanessa
Cárdenas, the executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant
rights organization. “That muddles the message and undermines
the contrast that they’re trying to make when it comes to
Republicans.”
“This president came into office with a lot of moral clarity about
where the lines were,” she added, noting that he and his aides
“need to sort of decide who they are on this issue.”
Mr. Biden had previously adopted some of his predecessor’s
policies, including the pandemic-era Title 42 restrictions that
blocked most migrants at the border until they were lifted earlier
this year. Those have still failed to slow illegal immigration, and the
issue has become incendiary inside his own party, driving wedges
between Mr. Biden and some of the country’s most prominent
Democratic governors and mayors, whose communities are being
taxed by the cost of providing for the new arrivals.
Eric Adams, the Democratic mayor of New York, has blamed the
administration for a situation that he says could destroy his city.
J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois and an ally of Mr.
Biden, wrote this week in a letter to the president that a “lack of
intervention and coordination” by Mr. Biden’s government at the
border “has created an untenable situation for Illinois.”

Bedding for asylum seekers temporarily housed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Jamie Kelter
Davis for The New York Times

In comments to reporters at an event opposing book banning, Mr.

Pritzker said that he had recently “spoken with the White House”
on the matter “to make sure that they heard us.”
The moment underscores the new reality for the president as he
prepares to campaign for a second term. His handling of
immigration has become one of his biggest potential liabilities, with
polls showing deep dissatisfaction among voters about how he
deals with the new arrivals. With record numbers of migrants
streaming across the border, he can no longer portray it in the
simple terms he did a few years ago.
Since taking office, Mr. Biden has tried to balance his stated desire
for a more humane approach with strict enforcement that aides
believe is critical to ensure that migrants do not believe the border
is open to anyone.

This spring, the president announced new legal options for some
migrants from several countries — Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua
and Haiti. He also has expanded protections for hundreds of
thousands of migrants already in the United States, allowing more
of them to work while they are in the country temporarily.

But the more welcoming policies have been balanced by tougher

ones.
Earlier this year, Mr. Biden approved a new policy that had the
effect of denying most immigrants the ability to seek asylum in the
United States, a move that human rights groups noted was very
similar to an approach that Mr. Trump hailed as a way to “close the
border” to immigrants he wanted to keep out.
The president and his aides have responded to the increased
number of migrants by calling for more border patrol agents.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, bragged on
Wednesday about the surge in border enforcement that Mr. Biden
has pushed for.
“Let’s not forget,” she said. “The president got 25,000 Border
Patrol, additional Border Patrol law enforcement, at the border.”
In a budget request to Congress, the Biden administration has
asked for an additional $4 billion for border enforcement, including
4,000 more troops, 1,500 more border patrol agents, overtime pay
for federal border personnel and new technology to detect drug
trafficking.
And on Thursday, the administration announced that it would
resume deporting Venezuelans who arrive illegally, essentially
conceding that the policy of creating legal immigration options
from that country had failed to stem the tide of new arrivals like
they had expected.
Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, said Mr.
Biden proposed an immigration overhaul on his first day in office
that he noted has been blocked by Republican lawmakers.
“He has used every available lever — enforcement, deterrence and
diplomacy — to address historic migration across the Western
Hemisphere,” Mr. LaBolt said, adding that the administration is
“legally compelled” to spend the wall money. “President Biden has
consistently made clear that this is not the most effective approach
to securing our border.”

Despite early reports that the number of migrants had dropped

this summer, crossings have soared again this fall. Border Patrol
agents arrested about 200,000 migrants in September, the highest
number this year, according to an administration official who spoke
anonymously to confirm the preliminary data.
Still,the administration’s announcement about new construction of
a wall was a surprise to many of the president’s allies, who had
repeatedly heard Mr. Biden join them in condemning Mr. Trump for
trying to seal the country off from immigrants.

On Friday, the president, who has long insisted a wall would be ineffective, said he has no power to block
the use of funds already approved during Mr. Trump’s tenure. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

In a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday,

Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said that
easing environmental and other laws was necessary to expedite
construction of sections of a border wall in South Texas, where
thousands of migrants have been crossing the Rio Grande daily to
reach U.S. soil.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct
physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the
United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United
States,” Mr. Mayorkas said.
In a statement later, Mr. Mayorkas made clear the administration
would prefer to spend the money on other areas, “including state-of
the-art border surveillance technology and modernized ports of
entry.”
There have always been barriers at the border, and Democrats
have voted for funding to construct them. But before Mr. Trump
arrived on the scene, they were placed in high-traffic locations and
were often short fences or barriers designed to prevent cars from
crossing.
Mr. Trump changed that. He pushed for construction of a wall
across the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico, eventually
building or reinforcing barriers along roughly 450 miles And he .

insisted on a 30-foot tall wall made of steel bollards, painted black

to be more intimidating. At various points, Mr. Trump said he
wanted to install sharp, pointed spikes at the top of the wall to
skewer migrants who tried to climb over it.
The walls being constructed by Mr. Biden’s administration will be
different, border officials said. They will be 18 feet tall, not 30. And
they will be movable, not permanent, to allow more flexibility and
less environmental damage.
But the image of an ominous and even dangerous barrier —
designed to send a message of “keep out” to anyone who
approached — underscored the yearslong opposition from
Democrats, including Mr. Biden, to its construction. At the end of
2018, the federal government shut down for 35 days — the longest
in its history — over Democratic refusal to meet Mr. Trump’s
demands for $5.7 billion to build the wall.
For Mr. Biden, the politics of immigration have changed
significantly since then.
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York put it bluntly in a letter to the
president at the end of August, as New York City struggled to deal
with tens of thousands of new migrants.
“The challenges we face demand a much more vigorous federal
response,” she wrote. “It is the federal government’s direct
responsibility to manage and control the nation’s borders. Without
any capacity or responsibility to address the cause of the migrant
influx, New Yorkers cannot then shoulder these costs.”
Michael D. Shear is a White House correspondent for The New York Times, covering
President Biden and his administration. He has reported on politics for more than 30
years. More about Michael D. Shear
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 7, 2023 Section A Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline:
, ,

Migrant Wave Forcing Biden To Alter Stand . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper Subscribe |

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