By Steve Levy
President Joe Biden must believe the American people are stupid or that the details of his so-called asylum reform order will never be seen by the public due to biased coverage from the mainstream media that has become a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party.
One thing is indisputable: For all his flaws, Donald Trump secured the border through his executive orders without relying on any legislation passed by Congress. The Remain in Mexico policy sent a message to those trying to scam the system by claiming asylum that they must do so at the first nation they arrive at after fleeing their homeland. It worked like a charm. https://cis.org/Bensman/Trumps-Remain-Mexico-Policy-Appears-Be-Working
On his first day in office, President Biden revoked that executive order and dozens of others as he bragged about reversing the Trump policies. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/09/biden-ends-remain-in-mexico-trump-policy
This came after he stated at a televised debate that he was encouraging people around the world to “surge” the border so that they can gain entry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYwLYMPLYbo
There is only one reason why this policy would be tolerated by the Biden administration staff, congressional Democrats and the Democratic-led media. It benefits the party tremendously by importing 10 million new people who would owe their allegiance to the party who opened the door for them.
The only reason Biden is taking this executive action now is to give an appearance that he recognizes there is a problem and he’s going to do something about it. But this is all so incredibly disingenuous since Biden has been lying to the American people for the last three years by claiming he had no authority to seal up the border and that he needed Congress to do it for him. https://cis.org/Oped/Biden-doesnt-need-bill-fix-border-he-just-refuses-enforce-law
Despite Biden’s authority to act unilaterally, House Republicans passed an incredibly tough bill fighting illegal immigration that did not receive a single vote from the Democrats and never receive a Democratic Senate sponsor. https://rollcall.com/2023/05/11/house-passed-border-bill-may-spark-bipartisan-immigration-talks/
Thereafter, Democrats huddled up with useful idiot Republican Senator James Langfortd to craft a truly abysmal bill. Biden declared this as a bipartisan effort, but, as soon as Republicans saw the guts of this bill, they refused to give an ounce of support. https://apnews.com/article/congress-border-deal-rejected-lankford-immigration-045fdf42d42b26270ee1f5f73e8bc1b0
It’s true that Trump came out against it, but it was not for the purposes of keeping the immigration issue alive. Rather, it was because passing this bill is actually worse than doing nothing. That’s because at present a president has the authority to shut the border at any time in his discretion the immigration flow becomes a national security threat. There is no number threshold associated with this authority.
President Trump used it in banning migration from certain hostile nations that were deemed supporting terrorists. The matter was contested by liberals, but Trump prevailed in a Supreme Court decision. That means a president does indeed hold the authority to close down the border at any time for national security purposes.
But did Biden utilize this tool as Trump did? Absolutely not. He and his Democratic colleagues came up with this ludicrous idea that he would only be authorized to close the border after 4,000 people a day crossed illegally. And he would not be forced to do anything until 5,000 illegals cross the border daily. That means, over the next decade, 18 million illegal aliens would’ve had the authority to come into this nation without the president being forced to do anything about it.
A future president would now be handcuffed until those massive numbers of illegal entries were first reached. Biden tries to appear tough in that he lowered the threshold from 4,000 illegal aliens a day to 2,500 a day. But how about zero a day? https://afn.net/ap/politics/republicans-dismiss-biden-s-border-announcement-as-a-political-stunt/
Can you imagine a scenario where anti-crime advocates were pushing weak DAs to prosecute those committing aggravated assault, rape or even shoplifting? Can you imagine the DA turning around and saying they will limit their authority to prosecute any of these people until the first 2,500 rapists or shoplifters have been led off scot-free? It’s absolutely ludicrous, but this is what the Biden bill would do.
Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com.