On Thursday, the Biden administration released a 20-page plan to deal with the expected crush of illegal aliens at the border when Title 42 is repealed later in May.
Several vulnerable Democratic senators had asked Biden for details on how they were going to handle the expected 18,000 illegals trying to enter the U.S. every day. But the plan Biden delivered satisfied no one, and several Democrats indicated they would still prefer a delay in lifting Title 42 restrictions — public health rules that kept nearly a million illegals out of the country over the last two years.
Senator Maggie Hassan has been one of the most vocal Democrats about what exactly the Biden administration was going to do to address the crush of humanity that the Department of Homeland Security expects when Title 42 ends.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), who is up for reelection and recently traveled to the southern border, put it this way: “They still have work to do.” Hassan is among the Democrats supporting a legislative postponement of Biden’s May 23 policy change and she said she will “keep pushing for it.”
“What I didn’t hear [Tuesday] was specifics about numbers and deployment and really meeting the need,” she said. “I don’t have enough details from the administration about precisely how they are going to do that.”
There are no “specifics” per se. That’s because the “plan” isn’t meant to solve the problem at the border. It’s meant to solve a political problem. Biden wanted to give vulnerable Democrats some cover when he goes ahead with his plan to end Title 42.
It didn’t go over well.
And Hassan isn’t the only incumbent Democrat still raising the alarm. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said she still hasn’t seen a “comprehensive plan.” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) also remains unsatisfied, noting “there’s having things on a piece of paper and then what is going on on the southern border — and there is a huge disconnect.”
It’s still possible the courts could further forestall any coming changes at the border and save Democrats their internal fight, but until that happens the issue remains center stage in Congress. Republicans reiterated this week they want to force a vote on it, regardless of what any federal judge decides.
And that goes for Democrats, too, some of whom say Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer needs to give them a vote on the bipartisan bill that would preserve Covid-related curbs at the border.
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the chief Democratic co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill to delay repealing Title 42 restrictions, calls Biden’s plan “unrealistic.”
“Arizona communities continue to pay the price for the federal government’s failures at our border. The administration’s plan for the end of Title 42 is unrealistic by May 23rd, and incomplete implementation won’t properly protect the health and safety of Arizona communities and migrants,” Sinema said.
The political consequences of ending Title 42 would almost certainly mean a slaughter of Democrats at the polls. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), leader of the caucus’s campaign arm, recently delivered a speech to the entire House Democratic caucus where he warned that immigration was fast becoming an issue in battleground races regardless of whether the races were in border districts or not.
It appears at this point that the courts may give Democrats a stay of execution by forcing Biden to maintain Title 42 until an adequate plan to deal with the situation at the border is created. Then there are going to be lawsuits from border-state governors. But any attempt by Democrats to run out the clock on the ending of Title 42 will be unsuccessful and the more they delay, the bigger the impact of Biden’s lax immigration policies on the election.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member