The "Biden Administration" immediately tried to repeal Title 42 which would have saved us from much of this mess. It was eventually lifted in 2023, only after court battles. That administration also got rid of Rodney Scott who was the head of BP during Trump's first term. The immediate aftermath was essentially a free for all at the border. Specifically not following the law and expelling migrants that crossed illegally and allowing millions who have no legal claim to asylum to claim asylum at the border of the U.S., and not in a third safe country. Those things in and of themselves show that no, they were not "following the law", they were sidestepping the law to let their constituents into the country. No study or paper can prove otherwise.
When you say things like "he tried to go about things the proper way (through Congress)" you are not being objective. That is a form of dishonesty here. Nobody cares about feelings, mine or yours. What right is right, what's not is wrong. What you are doing is repeating the party line, we have to have some new deal on immigration and the border because our current laws are not adequate. They are. If you want the laws to change (bring millions of random foreigners who vote socialist until this is a socialist country) then vote for politicians who will repeal current policy. Otherwise, we are stuck following the law as it is already. The border is not a mystery. Immigration and asylum cases are not a mystery. It's like saying we need a series of articles to study bank fraud, or trespassing. I remember the studies on Obamacare that predicted healthcare costs would drastically fall over the next decade. When I was a kid studies showed the rainforest was going to be gone by 2020, sea levels were going to rise to the point our coastal areas would be underwater. Studies and articles don't mean anything.
The reason I put "Biden Administration" in parentheses is because an objective person should be able to tell by watching him speak that he was not coherent. Biden did not know what was going on. Others behind the scene were clearly pulling the strings. Plenty of stories about that on the internet too.
Before you get any ideas about me, I’m not a socialist. I also don't support illegals voting in any elections for obvious reasons, but is there any other evidence of massive voter fraud on a large enough scale to influence elections? Utah recently
reviewed their voting records and only found 486 active unverified voters, due to lack of information, and only one confirmed non-citizen registered (who never voted and has since been removed). I’m not saying that represents the entire US, but Utah has a lot of immigrants. Personally, I think this is a boogeyman/scare tactic, but need to see more evidence.
(Also, where does this notion come from that immigrants from Central and South America will vote for socialism when they are very conservative and overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the last election? Especially the ones fleeing failed socialist projects…)
Biden’s administration was reportedly conflicted on Title 42. I suspect he couldn’t get his cabinet in line on it. The courts complicated things with legal challenges, as you mentioned. As an incumbent, Biden himself said he did not plan on repealing it and the
data from CBP shows that he utilized it even more than Trump did. Title 42’s major challenge in the courts was that it was a pandemic measure—a pandemic which officially ended in 2023—so what justification remained to keep it? It was a good policy, but needed to be replaced with something permanent and not tied to COVID, imo.
What replaced Title 42? The previous laws (specifically Title 8) and the introduction of the CBP One app. Biden was actually highly criticized by the left and immigration advocacy groups because this new standard was more strict than Title 42 (harsher punishments for illegal crossings and you now needed an appointment through the app or you would automatically be turned away).
The CBP data just doesn’t support the claim that the borders were open under Biden. Expulsions, interior and border detentions, air flight removals, etc. all increased under Biden. He removed more people in total than Trump, yet the numbers were still increasing. Why? Immigration was already at a 21 year high before Biden was ever in office and the system could not handle the volume.
When I said (slightly in jest of Trump, who so far leads mainly through EO) that Biden was doing things the proper way by going through Congress, it’s because that is what is needed in order to change the system long term. Doing things like increasing the budget, the amount of BP agents, judges, detention centers, increasing the standard for asylum, etc., were all things that would have helped the system handle the increased load it was under.
People are always very quick to blame the other sides guy for problems that are usually caused by a multitude of factors unrelated to the actual politician, and I just think the data shows that immigration is one of those complicated problems. Why has volume increased over the last 21 years? What can we do to ensure our borders are secure and our immigration system is a well oiled machine that brings in talented, hard working people that align with the spirit and values of this country? It seems to me that Biden’s bill would have addressed many of those issues and Trump called an audible to stop it just so he could campaign on the issue.
The democrats own a big part of this, IMO. In 2015, Obama awarded Tom Homan for deporting more people than Trump has. What has changed? The answer is Trump. A big part of this is politics and TDS causing the mayor and governor to keep this stirred up, which is encouraging people to obstruct justice. They could assist with immigration instead of getting in the way.
I would argue that Trump wasn’t the only thing that changed. The methods and scale of deportation have also changed. Hiring standards and length of training have also decreased, which might be contributing to the current chaotic environment. I don’t think as many people would have nearly as much of a problem (see immigration under Obama, Biden) if legals and citizens were not getting caught in the crosshairs, if more care were being taken to follow the Constitution. I personally don’t know anyone who wants open borders, although I’m not that far left. People like me want secure borders and legal pathways that provide ample opportunity for others to come and contribute to the American project. We don’t want people being disappeared or for the administration to operate without oversight and accountability. If more care were being taken and less people were having their rights violated, I doubt that the number of people protesting Trump’s deportation efforts would be any more than the amount that criticized Obama/Biden. These ends don’t justify the means for me, personally.