It’s an auspicious sign for Donald Trump that immigration, his signature issue, is one of the dominant concerns of voters this election cycle. The reason is not mysterious. A historic flood of foreigners is overwhelming communities across the United States, and there is no doubt about who and what is to blame: Joe Biden and his willfully negligent open border policy. The mainstream media can work all kinds of narrative magic, but they can’t make this one disappear.
Suddenly, Biden wants to play border cop at the last possible minute. The always squishy Senate Republicans have been more than happy to help defuse the political timebomb Biden set for himself, but President Trump, naturally, is opposed to the idea.
Biden’s media sycophants are framing the Biden-McConnell “border bill” as a historic opportunity to finally solve an intractable problem—a problem that Biden and the media did not acknowledge even a moment ago. Now that the crisis has become a political liability for Biden, Republicans have an obligation to help salvage his presidency, or else! So goes the narrative.
The cynicism of this political moment is astonishing. We are being inundated with one of the biggest clichés in all of journalism: “obstructionist Republicans.” It’s amazingly audacious, since no president in history has done more to obstruct immigration enforcement than Biden. At any point in his long and destructive presidency, Biden could have taken reasonable steps to secure the border. Instead, he has deliberately inflamed the problem every step of the way while lying to Americans about the disaster they saw unfolding with their own eyes. Biden could secure the border right now if he wanted to, but then he would have to admit that Trump was right about something.
As a matter of basic fairness, Biden deserves to pay a political price for the incredible damage his open border has already done. It’s what people in democracies call accountability.
In any case, the bill itself is a joke. That’s because it isn’t designed to protect the American people. It’s designed to protect Biden.
Notably absent from the “border bill” is any mention of a physical barrier. Biden’s pledge to “shut down” the border is hard to take seriously when the bill requires at least 4,000 crossings per day before a “shutdown” may occur, and even then, 1,400 a day would still be permitted to press largely frivolous “asylum” claims.
This is an expedient, last-minute CYA move by a president in danger of losing reelection—nothing more, nothing less.
The bill’s Republican backers, in typical weak fashion, insist that Democrats will never agree to a stronger bill than this because Biden is vulnerable. But if this is the best we can do, no bill would be better. At least then, Washington wouldn’t be able to pretend that the issue had been resolved. At least then, they wouldn’t be able to insult us with their false magnanimity.
The “bi-partisan” Republican senators pushing this farce do not understand or care about their constituents. In fact, they are so out of touch, they confuse their voters’ desire for sovereignty with a Russian influence operation. Many of these Republicans would love nothing more than to be rid of Trump and the bothersome complaints of his supporters. Should Trump win power back, they will make him fight to get anything done.
The “border bill” lets Biden and his Republican enablers off the hook. If Biden wins another term, we will quickly learn—or rather, re-learn – how serious he is about immigration enforcement. The prospect of losing power is the only reason he is even feigning interest in securing the border in the first place. Another term for Biden would be a disaster for the border that would more than consume whatever marginal improvements are contained in the “border bill.” On the other hand, Trump only needs the executive pen to make substantive improvements because he has the will to do it.
House Republicans should not wilt at the charge of “playing politics” in an election year. Everything is political in an election year. Biden’s cynical “border bill” is no exception.