A member of the Texas National Guard stands guard on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, Dec. 20.
Photo:
JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ/REUTERS
In a span of about 20 months, the White House went from confidently dismissing the migrant surge at the southern border as a temporary, seasonal phenomenon to begging a federal judge to extend immigration controls implemented by the prior administration that were set to expire this week.
“The truth of the matter is, nothing has changed,” President Biden said at a news conference in March 2021 after he was asked why illegal border crossings were soaring. “It happens every single solitary year.”
Those statements haven’t aged well. Time and again, the White House has put partisanship ahead of pragmatism, and the result has been two years of escalating chaos at the border and record-shattering levels of illegal immigration.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, President Trump issued a health order under a law known as Title 42 that permits the U.S. Border Patrol to turn away illegal immigrants without allowing them to apply for asylum. The Trump administration also implemented a “Remain in Mexico” program that required people who were seeking asylum to wait outside the U.S. for their claims to be processed. Both measures help reduce pressure on the border, yet in a nod to progressive Democrats who want Trump-era policies reversed—regardless of their effectiveness—Mr. Biden has worked to end them. So far, court rulings have stalled the administration’s efforts, but millions of migrants from Latin America continue to trek north in hope that it eventually will succeed.
The White House and immigration activists want to obscure this reality, but the overwhelming majority of migrants rushing the border and asking for asylum aren’t traditional refugees. Rather, they are labor migrants posing as refugees to game our asylum laws. Typical is the Nicaraguan woman interviewed for a Journal news story last week. “My country is hard; there’s no…
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