In the 2023 fiscal year, over 2.47 million incidents occurred along the Mexico border. US Customs and Border Protection data reveals that in October, the latest month with available statistics, over 240,000 migrants were apprehended. Since Biden took office, more than 5.4 million illegal immigrants have been identified, while an estimated 1.5 eluded border patrol and escaped into the nation’s interior.
Cities and states are feeling the strain as they are flooded with illegal immigrants, and Americans are fed up with the Biden administration’s refusal to close the floodgates. A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll showed that only 38% of voters approved the president’s handling of the issue. In a separate survey by Monmouth University, just 26% expressed approval of the president’s immigration policies.
As per the Department of Homeland Security, in the current fiscal year 2023, encounters at the Southwest border have increased by more than 40 percent compared to 2021 and by 4 percent since 2022. This exceeds the more than 100 percent surge observed since 2019, the last fiscal year before President Biden assumed office.
Consistently, polling shows that immigration is Biden’s Waterloo. Support for the Biden administration is declining among Latinos, Blacks, and Democratic voters. Only 27% of likely voters trust Democrats with border issues, while 45% believe Republicans have a better handle on immigration.
With no end in sight, Democrats are proposing weak solutions that will do nothing to stem the influx at the border. Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) suggested the Biden administration publicize the number of deportations to dissuade border crashers from making the trip. In October, New York City Mayor Eric Adams traveled to Latin America to tell citizens his city was “out of the room.” Biden has begged illegal immigrants to stay home. Democrats seem amazed that verbally ordering immigrants away from the border has done nothing to stop the crisis.
Unsurprisingly, the promise of free benefits outweighs Democrats’ hollow words, and illegal immigration is alive and well at both the southern and northern United States border.
The Biden campaign is alarmed, not at the sheer numbers of illegals entering the country, but at the idea that the sitting president will be blamed for the crisis.
On Tuesday, Representative Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Politico that “people are frustrated” by the ongoing crisis. Escobar, one of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign co-chairs, worries that somehow Democrats will be blamed for the disaster.
“Unfortunately, Democrats are getting the brunt of that right now, and people have brainwashed themselves into thinking that somehow Donald Trump solves this,” Escobar lamented in the interview.
Escobar noted that Democrat-led cities, like New York and Chicago, are “sounding the alarm” and, in her opinion, are beginning to “sound like Republicans.” She claims that Americans want a simple solution to a “complex” problem that has no answer.
Escobar emphasizes that Biden’s policies are not to blame. Republicans are.
Republicans are focused on finding solutions for the unchecked mass illegal immigration crisis, critics claim, and not on “fixing” the “broken immigration system.”
Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said that Republicans are embracing MAGA and campaigning based on Donald Trump’s legacy, which he claimed included “family separation, detaining children, and not presenting substantive solutions.”
But border control was, in fact, a winning Trump legacy marked by “remain in Mexico” policies, building a border wall, and enforcing Title 42.
In October, Biden resumed construction of Trump’s wall. While he says he was forced to use the money allocated for the construction to finish the project, many Americans feel that it is a “too little, too late” attempt to claim a border victory on the back of a winning Trump strategy. After all, Biden didn’t let procedural worries stop him from selling off supplies and materials from the unfinished wall in August.
When asked by Politico if she feared political consequences for the Biden reelection campaign due to the border situation, Escobar responded, “I hope not, but I’m afraid of that.” She went on to say that she is concerned that Democrats will get blamed for the crisis “simply because the president is in the White House.”
Escobar is right to be concerned. The most recent poll from The Wall Street Journal highlights that immigration and border-related issues are emerging as top issues among voters. While the Biden campaign focuses on abortion and LGTBQ issues, Americans are reprioritizing their concerns in ways the administration never expected. Admittedly, his illegal immigrant population can cast fraudulent votes in his favor, but chances are, it won’t be enough to override the voice of increasingly concerned American citizens.
