America's Talking - Biden Announces ‘Border Security’ Measures Five Months Ahead of Election

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced what he dubbed a border security plan – five months ahead of the November election and after at least 11 million foreign nationals illegally entered the country since his inauguration. At a news conference at the White House, Biden said, “I’ve come here to do what Republicans in Congress have failed to do, take the necessary steps to secure our border. … Today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border.” The president said that foreign nationals illegally entering the country between ports of entry would be barred from receiving asylum.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_95eace28-22bb-11ef-9284-dfb452577a04.html   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, June 7th. Three and a half years into his term, and after more than 11 million foreign nationals crossed the border into the U.S., President Joe Biden this week took executive action to address the ongoing border crisis. During his announcement, Biden blamed the border crisis on Republicans in Congress, but Republicans and other critics of the president's immigration policies push back hard, claiming Biden's actions are too little, too late, and are being made only because of his poor polling numbers and the fact that the presidential election is now only five months away. Joining me to discuss, this is Casey Harper, the center square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Casey, let's start with what Biden says his border action will do.

Sure. I mean, so Biden is heralding this. And a pretty kind of a remarkable way, if you've been following this issue closely. The way the White House is framing this is the president comes out of the White House and he says, all right, House Republicans, I'm tired of waiting on you. I'm going to handle this issue. We're going to shut down the border. Right. And so that's how we're going to handle the border crisis, which is kind of incredible because,

one, House Republicans have been demanding and, you know, Republican governors have been demanding he do something about this for years since he took office. and he's only done actions to the contrary. It's also kind of incredible because his executive order doesn't really shut down the border. Also, and he's never admitted there's really a border crisis that needs to be dealt with, right? He and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had said there is no border crisis up until recently. Right. But now he's framing it as, you know, I've been waiting on House Republicans and they've refused to act.

So now I'm going to address the border. And so I don't think he really passes the smell test for most people. But what does he say his action will do? It essentially has to do with asylum seekers who are caught between what's called ports of entry. So, of course, asylum seekers are, you know, migrants who come into the U.S. and say, for one reason or another, they're not safe in their home country. There's a lot of reasons that could be the case. And, you know, of course, the United States wants to be kind to people who are actually coming from, you know, countries where they really aren't safe. maybe their religious minority where they'd be persecuted, or maybe they're coming from a war-torn country.

I mean, there are real reasons for that. But the asylum program has been exploited very heavily by the millions and millions of migrants, over 10 million, I think, since Biden took office. Right. And so what has kind of become the playbook for coyotes and for migrants coming across is try to sneak across the border. So between ports of entry, which means don't go through the checkpoints. try to sneak across.

And if you get caught, just tell them you're an asylum seeker, right? And so finally, this action is like, well, if you're an asylum seeker, you have to actually go through the ports of entry through the checkpoints. You can't just say after the fact you're an asylum seeker. That's basically what it does. But it doesn't undo the slew of other actions that Biden has taken to make it much easier to come into the U.S. and stay into the U.S., which we can talk a little bit about. But it's a drop in the bucket.

It's deflecting to Republicans. It's kind of incredible, actually, to see this happen. And Republicans, of course, weren't buying it, saying the actions won't stop the steady flow of illegal immigration into the U.S., saying Biden is only doing this because of his polling, trailing Donald Trump in general national polling, but also in most of the key swing states, were five months in advance of the election. Americans in polling have identified the border crisis as the top one or two issues of facing the nation along with inflation and the economy. Do you think Biden's actions here will have any impact on voters? Yeah, I mean, I think it will. People have been giving Biden a lot of flack. Like, oh, he's only doing this because it's an election year. I don't see that as really a bad thing. I mean, you know, submitting yourself to the will of the voters for political reasons.

I mean, that's kind of how our system is designed that leaders will have to do what the voters want, even if that's not really what they want to do. And polling, you know, we've talked about this polling day, and we've written about it at the center square.com. Polling shows again and again that inflation and the border are two of the main issues that voters are concerned about. Inflation, border, inflation, immigration, inflation and the border, right? So this has been consistent for a long time. It's been one of the main critiques against Biden. You know, I think that, you know, we'll see how effective it is. had to do something because especially if these debates he's having with Trump are actually going

to happen, he had to do something that was substantive to kind of help address the issue so that he's not so exposed for a broadside attack on immigration. So whatever he gets attacked, he can say, well, I did this. So I think it'll help give him some political cover. I think people who are following this you closely know that it's kind of smoking mirrors. I mean, for instance, Biden has made it almost impossible to deport people who come into the U.S. unless you have a pretty bad criminal record. He's, you know, refused to build the border wall, which, of course, Trump has supported. He has turned a lot of border patrol agents, taking them off the field and put them into offices

where they're processing migrants who are coming in. They still give them these court dates that are years in the future and say, hey, promise to come back, you know. There's so many, so many issues. And he blames Republicans because he said, I've asked for more money and they haven't given it to me. But that money usually comes with strings attached that make it even easier for people. to get in. So, you know, polling shows, Dan, that the voters trust certain parties on certain issues. I mean, voters trust, when it comes to health care and climate, voters trust Democrats more. We've seen that for years in polling. When it comes to the economy, voters trust Republicans more.

It's just how it all, it's how it is, it's how it's been for years. And I think the border now is an issue that voters trust Republicans on more. So even when a Democrat says, hey, I'm doing something, there's still a general skepticism and trust that Republicans, everyone knows that Republicans care about this issue more. Yeah, one of President Biden's harshest critics is Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Texas, of course, has borne the brunt of the border crisis, shares the longest border with Mexico, have seen millions of people illegally enter into Texas. One of Abbott's responses to President Biden's border action this week was,

if you're so interested in securing the border, why do you keep suing us? Why do you keep these ongoing legal actions against Operation Lone Star? Governor Abbott launched the border security effort Operation Lone Star back in the early days of the border crisis in 2021, and the federal government under the Biden administration has tried to halt or put obstacles up for those border security efforts. I think Governor Abbott has a pretty good point. Yeah, and to fully explain what that is, basically Texas is trying to put up border barriers and razor wire at the southern border to help secure the border. and the Biden administration has been aggressively preventing them from doing that, suing them, taking the border wire down, even as Texas is putting it up. So, you know, it does, of course, raises the question.

If you really are trying to secure the border, why are you taking down fences and razor wire right at the southern border? Thank you for joining us today, Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.