Joe Biden’s border policies are being challenged in court on several fronts by both conservative and liberal entities. Any way you look at it, legal or not, his policies are failing spectacularly.
The Washington Post reports that arrests at the border shot up 30% in July to more than 130,000. And that doesn’t include the more than 50,000 asylum seekers who were allowed to enter the U.S. at a given point of entry via the CBP One phone app.
The Biden administration promised that the numbers of asylum seekers entering the United States using the app would be limited to an average of 1,000 a day. When that proved to be woefully inadequate, the administration expanded the number of appointments to 1,250 and then to 1,450. But the data shows that the Department of Homeland Security isn’t honoring those limits, either.
The CBP One app allows migrants to apply for asylum remotely on their phone as a way to streamline the asylum process and bring order to the southern border. Republicans such as Rep. Clay Higgins (La.) have criticized CBP One as part of a “shell game” that merely reclassifies would-be illegal border crossers and releases them into the U.S. interior.
But Biden in January touted the CBP One app as part of a “new process” that “is orderly … safe … and humane. And it works.” Those who are not approved on the app, Biden said, would be immediately deported.
The largest spike in arrests at the border was in the deserts of Southern Arizona. “U.S. agents there made about 40,000 arrests in July, the highest one-month total for the Tucson sector in 15 years, CBP data show,” reports the Post.
“The short term effects of the many legal pathways Biden has pushed to curb illegal immigration are failing,” one senior Department of Homeland Security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Washington Free Beacon. “One can only wonder what changes are coming to bring more would-be illegal aliens in legally. The slippery slope ends at open borders.”
The Biden administration is trying to put the best face on the crisis at the border. Erin Waters, a spokesperson for CBP, says the situation is much improved since the end of Title 42 in May.
“Unlawful border crossings have gone down since our border enforcement plan went into effect and remain well below the levels seen while Title 42 was in effect,” Waters said in a statement. “We remain vigilant and expect to see fluctuations, knowing that smugglers continue to use disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals.”
What the CBP spokesperson doesn’t say is that whatever improvement there is in the border situation is due to the re-imposition of Trump-era border policies, including the bar to allowing entry to asylum seekers who transit a third country before entering the U.S.
Related: Republicans Skewer DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Over Border Failures
The Biden administration has no new policy ideas to deal with the crisis. They have repackaged Trump-era rules and claim they’re more “humane” — whatever that means.
Both Republican-led states and immigration activists have filed lawsuits against the Biden administration’s recent immigration policies. Those lawsuits could spell doom for the CBP One app. Republicans allege it is an illegal power grab, while liberal groups have said the penalties for migrants who are denied on the app are too harsh.
What enforcement at the border is missing is the desire to actually protect our borders. The Biden administration’s half-hearted attempts at enforcement are to make a big show about shutting the front door while leaving the back door wide open for anyone to enter
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