Republicans see immigration as a clear vulnerability for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election and will attempt to use the border crisis as an example of a failure by the White House to secure the U.S. from an invasion of migrants. 

Biden tapped Vice President Kamala Harris in 2021 to lead his administration’s effort to take control of the issue. But Harris no longer talks about that task after receiving tough criticism from Republicans, including presidential candidate Nikki Haley who called for Harris to be fired.

“She has failed to secure the border and has emboldened cartels. We need real leadership,” Haley tweeted.

Donald Trump, the former president, announced during a CNN town hall that last Friday would be a day that lives in “infamy” after Title 42 came to an end. 

Title 42 was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control during the COVID-19 outbreak and empowers federal health authorities to prohibit migrants from entering the country if these agencies determined that these migrants could be infected with a contagious disease. The Biden administration has worked to overturn the policy.

Blas Nunez-Neto, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, announced Monday that 2,400 people had been returned to Mexico since the bill expired. Thus far there has not been a major uptick in border crossings since the bill’s expirations.

The New York Times noted that Biden took office vowing to offer a path to 11 million so-called Dreamers, but said the bill faced “solid Republican opposition and went nowhere.” The paper noted that Biden’s lackluster record on immigration drew criticism from Democrats.

Lanae Erickson, who runs the public opinion and social policy division at Third Way, a think tank, said, “All of us who work in Democratic politics have been dreading this moment for two years.”

“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,” she said. 

TREND FORECAST: As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, the border crisis in the United States and across the globe will escalate. We maintain our forecast for the growth of nationalistic anti-immigration, anti-tax, and anti-establishment political parties. 

These border crossings will continue to worsen as these underdeveloped countries face more economic hardships due to soaring inflation. 

The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the dire economic realities that has led to the jump in border crossings. (See “AS FORECAST: ARRESTS AT U.S. BORDER HIT RECORD HIGH. IT WILL GET WORSE,” “U.S. BORDER PATROL: CHILD BORDER CROSSINGS SPIKING”, and “IMMIGRANT CHILDREN CRISIS AT U.S. BORDER.”)

Beyond the United States, developed countries around the world are grappling with an influx of migrants from poor countries with decaying economies, government corruption, crime, violence, and people escaping war-torn nations. (See “ANTI-IMMIGRATION: NYC HAS “NO MORE ROOM” 17 Jan 2023, “UKRAINIAN REFUGEES FLOODING EUROPE: POPULIST PARTY SURGE NEXT” 6 Dec 2022, and “AS UKRAINE WAR RAGES, REFUGEE CRISIS IN EUROPE WORSENS” 29 Nov 2022.)

For many countries and cities, the price tag to house these migrants is unsustainable. New York City spends about $8 million a day to house and care for these individuals, Real Clear Investigations reported. (See “SPOTLIGHT ON NEW WORLD DISORDER TOP TREND” 28 Mar 2023.)

TRENDPOST: The New York Times noted how Democrats tend to take a more nuanced approach to the border issue, while Republicans simply call to increase security. 

Biden seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. He faces criticism from Republicans for being too soft on the border, while a faction of Democrats call him too tough.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Biden and claimed his policies largely mimic his predecessor’s.

“The asylum bans were cruel and illegal then, and nothing has changed now,” Katrina Eiland, managing attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, in a statement.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an immigration bill that required those who immigrated to the U.S. to do so on the “basis of their skills and their close relationship” to those already in the country. 

The bill, H.R. 2580, which passed in 1965, amended the Immigration and Nationality Act that enforced a “national origins system” to determine what foreigners could immigrate to the U.S.

“Those who can contribute most to this country—to its growth, to its strength, to its spirit—will be the first that are admitted to this land,” he said at the bill’s signing on New York’s Liberty Island. “The fairness of this standard is so self-evident that we may well wonder that it has not always been applied.”

It is worth noting that Johnson’s immigration policy took hold during the Vietnam War, when the U.S. economy needed workers to fill jobs left vacant by the nearly 2 million young men that were drafted and the scores of millions that went to college to beat the draft during the military campaign. 

The U.S. economy experienced a period of growth during the 1960s, and Johnson recognized the need for immigrant labor to meet the demands of various industries. He put in place these policies to attract skilled workers and professionals to contribute to the country’s workforce.

The Congressional Quarterly Almanac said the law, without the amendment, heavily favored British, Irish, and German immigrants, with hundreds of thousands admitted into the U.S. each year from European countries. The report noted that most of the Asian and African nations had quotas of only 100 persons a year.

Johnson said at the bill signing: “When the earliest settlers poured into a wild continent there was no one to ask them where they came from. The only question was: Were they sturdy enough to make the journey, were they strong enough to clear the land, were they enduring enough to make a home for freedom, and were they brave enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so?”