I wouldn't blame you if you had forgotten about the ongoing crisis at our southern border. Under President Donald Trump, the number of illegal immigrant “encounters” as Border Patrol refers to them, was only at 458,088 inscidents. Perhaps this is a result of President Trump being vocal about his more restrictive immigration policies.
Now compare that to the policies of the Biden administration, where our illegal border crossings have skyrocketed. According to The Washington Examiner, the number of Border Patrol encounters with illegal immigrants spiked to 1,743,686 in 2020 and more than 2,300,000 in fiscal year 2022. When we consider the soft-on-crime and tolerant attitude the Biden administration has towards law breakers, is it any wonder why the number of border crossings has spiked in recent years?
And it's not just Republicans who have been critical of Biden's border policies. In a recent Quinnipiac poll of Presidential job approval, Biden's handling of the border was viewed as his worst policy. As recently as October, 2021, more than 68% of respondants disapproved of Biden's border policies.
Now, as the 2024 election looms, it seems that Biden wants to chance his stance on the border. In January, Biden visited the southwestern border for the first time in his presidency, signalling a pivot to a harder stance on illegal immigration. He also promised that he would tighten asylum requirements for people illegally immigrating from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti.
Unfortunately for Biden, the damage has already been done. We've already had millions of illegal immigrants pour into our southern border, and Biben has no plan to address the crisis that this situation naturally creates. If you'd like to read more about the ongoing crisis at the southern border, please read this article from The Washington Examiner. An excerpt from the article has been copied below:
More than two years ago, during the transition when he was president-elect, Joe Biden mused what might happen if he mishandled immigration policy. If he got it wrong, Biden said, if he too quickly opened up access to the United States after former President Donald Trump's more restrictive policies, we could “end up with 2 million people on our border.” That would be a catastrophe.
And that is exactly what happened! That is precisely what Biden did when he became President Joe Biden. Illegal border crossers began rushing to the border to take advantage of Biden's new open policy. What the Border Patrol calls “encounters” of illegal crossers on the U.S.-Mexico border rose from 458,088 in fiscal 2020 to 1,734,686 in fiscal 2021 to 2,378,944 in fiscal 2022. Biden had outdone himself — unlike his prediction, there were actually more than 2 million people on the border. And all had come in the belief, correct in many cases, that the Biden administration would allow them to remain in the U.S.
