Biden’s (Risky) Gamble on Immigration

Joe Biden has struck out on his own with two executive orders from the White House. With the first, he imposed a virtual ban on requests for asylum; none will be granted if arrivals in the U.S. exceed 1,500 a day. With the second, he opened a path to citizenship for immigrants without documentation who have been living in the U.S. for at least 10 years and are married to an American citizen.

One week from a face-to-face TV debate with Donald Trump, Joe Biden is seeking subjects that will get his adversary into trouble around abortion, Trump's legal problems, and his scant respect for democratic structures — issues that please Trump fans but terrify a major part of moderate America. However, the president will also have to defend himself on his own weak points, such as the U.S. role in the Gaza conflict, but more importantly, the increase in prices (a global issue with the pandemic, but a shock for middle America, which, for various reasons, did not even know the meaning of the word inflation) and illegal immigration. With inflation now tamed — though the damage inflicted in 2022-2023 remains — Biden, having wrongly ignored the problem for two years, is focusing on the now overwhelming immigration issue, the crisis that alarms citizens the most, according to opinion polls. The president sought to put a brake on entries into the country by imposing a restrictive law that Republicans support. An agreement that was made, but never passed; Trump loyalists in Congress admitted that the former president torpedoed the bill. Seeking to base his presidential campaign platform on the chaos at the Mexican border, Trump had no wish to see anyone defuse the immigration crisis.

Biden has thus struck out on his own with two executive orders from the White House. With the first, he imposed a virtual ban on requests for asylum: none will be granted if arrivals in the U.S. exceed 1,500 a day. With the second, he opened a path to citizenship for immigrants without documentation who have been living in the U.S. for at least 10 years and are married to an American citizen. The president is following in the footsteps of Barack Obama who, after being called the “Deporter-in-Chief” for the high number of deportations he ordered, opened a window during the 2012 presidential campaign for Dreamers, people brought to the United States illegally as children by family.*

Obama won. Will Biden succeed, too? The general impression is that the risks are great: Latinos, who are the most sensitive about immigration issues, are continuing to drain away from Biden toward Trump, while the right and the left are attacking Biden’s most seemingly well-balanced policies. On the right, Trumpists from America First Legal decried Biden’s immigration move as “one of the largest executive amnesties in American history.” On the left, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued Biden, accusing him of denying a fundamental human right to asylum seekers fleeing from brutal dictatorships.

*Editor’s note: The term dreamers is derived from never-passed legislation called the DREAM Act, short for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, which would have allowed young immigrants in the U.S. illegally to remain if they met certain requirements.