Immigration politics returns to the forefront as the 2024 US presidential race picks up pace
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The termination of a pandemic-era programme that allowed officials to swiftly expel migrants who enter the US illegally was expected to draw an additional 7,000 people a day.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – Border security, the issue that largely defined former US president Donald Trump’s victorious 2016 campaign, is back on the national agenda, a potential boost for Trump – and, for President Joe Biden, a headache with no simple remedy in either policy or politics.
The termination of a pandemic-era programme expected to draw an additional 7,000 people a day,
At a televised town hall event on Wednesday, Trump predicted that Friday would be a “day of infamy” as the policy known as Title 42 that he put in place came to an end.
He used the same fearmongering rhetoric of his earlier campaigns to describe migrants in broad and inaccurate strokes as “released from prisons” and “mental institutions”.
The Biden administration announced policies beginning in February to blunt the surge, and so far, there have not been signs of disorder since the policy expired.
But Trump, Republican officials and conservative media in recent days have escalated their years-long attacks over border security, claiming Mr Biden has ignored a burgeoning crisis.
Fox News employed a countdown clock to observe the end of Title 42 while broadcasting overhead video from a “Fox flight team” of thousands of migrants in a tent camp who a correspondent said were “waiting until Title 42 drops to cross over illegally”.
Ms Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and 2024 presidential candidate, told far-right outlet Newsmax that what she saw on a border visit was “unbelievable”, citing cartels trafficking people and fentanyl, the lethal opioid that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and has become a primary theme of Republican attacks on Mr Biden’s policies.
“Along with inflation, an out-of-control border is one of the administration’s greatest vulnerabilities,” said Mr Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “If you watch Fox News, there are few other issues that are as important for the federal government to address.”
The lifting of Title 42, he added, was an issue “gift-wrapped with a beautiful bow” for Trump.
White House and Biden campaign officials largely scoffed at this analysis, citing past efforts by Republicans and conservative media to turn caravans of migrants heading towards the border into election-year crises.
For the most part, Mr Biden has avoided focusing attention on the border, with polls showing that immigration motivates far more Republican voters than Democrats.
Still, there is a broad recognition even among Mr Biden’s allies that perceptions of chaos at the southern border are a political liability – although strategists are optimistic that by the time the 2024 ballots are cast, voters will have moved on to other topics.
The expected migrant surge is “coming at a good time because it’s not coming in June or May of 2024”, said Mr Matt Barreto, who conducts polling for Mr Biden’s White House. “The election is not happening in June of 2023. So you’re going to see an extremely well-managed process with the resources we have.”
Although there is potential for the administration to spin the handling of the situation as a show of competence, Mr Biden’s record will be scrutinised.
On his first day in office, he proposed an immigration package that offered a path to citizenship for 11 million people living in the country illegally, protected so-called Dreamers – migrants who were taken to the United States illegally as children – and added technology to help secure the southern border. The Bill, faced with solid Republican opposition, went nowhere.
As a candidate, Mr Biden had promised not to separate families at the border
Mr Biden’s more humane message and policies, along with the waning of the Covid-19 pandemic, have led to a rise in the number of people trying to enter the country unlawfully, contributing to a large increase in border apprehensions.
Now, with the end of Title 42, the administration has introduced stricter asylum rules to turn back those crossing without permission and sent 1,500 active-duty troops to support the Border Patrol.
Even some Democrats aligned with Mr Biden have criticised him for not doing more to control the border and for failing to highlight his policies more forcefully.
“All of us who work in Democratic politics have been dreading this moment for two years,” said Ms Lanae Erickson, who runs the public opinion and social policy division at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think-tank. “It is very evident that Republicans still have an upper hand on immigration, and people don’t think that Democrats particularly care about securing the border.”
Polls show broad dissatisfaction with Mr Biden’s handling of immigration. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll earlier in 2023, just 28 per cent of Americans approved of Mr Biden’s handling of the southern border.
In a Fox News poll in April of registered voters, 66 per cent of white voters without a college degree said the White House was not tough enough on unlawful immigration.
A majority of Hispanic voters, 55 per cent, said Mr Biden was not tough enough.
Mr Jon Seaton, a Republican strategist who works in Arizona, said the latest surge of migrants was severely straining government services in parts of the border state and that the issue could play a role in tipping Arizona away from Mr Biden in 2024, after he defeated Trump there by the slimmest of margins.
Arizona’s large bloc of independent voters view immigration through a lens that is less ideological and more about government competency, Mr Seaton said.
“These images are not just on Fox News. They’re on local news. They’re fairly pervasive,” he said of scenes of people crossing the border and filling the streets of US border cities.
“When they see things like what’s happening, it’s really a potential problem for President Biden and his re-election, and for Democrats up and down the ticket.” NYTIMES
