Biden's Second 100 Days
A look at continuing immigration policy changes
By Robert Law on August 16, 2021
Robert Law is the director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. He would like to thank Adam Morys for his research contributions for this Backgrounder.
A new president’s first 100 days has become an unofficial benchmark for measuring accomplishments since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term. Media outlets and policy organizations, including the Center for Immigration Studies, routinely issue 100-day reports for a new administration. Rarely does the president receive a subsequent comprehensive analysis of his administration’s actions until the midterm elections. With August 7 having marked President Biden’s 200th day in office, the Center takes a renewed look at what has transpired since April 29 (Biden’s 100th day). Consistent with the Center’s 100-day report, this report does not grade or score the Biden administration’s performance. Instead, it analyzes the impact of policy changes in the following areas:
Border Security;
Interior Enforcement; and
Immigration Benefits.
Border Security
Record-Level Apprehensions. The Biden administration has overseen a historic, and worsening, crisis at the southern border that it continues to refuse to take responsibility for. In February 2021, the president’s first full month in office, there were 101,095 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encounters at the Southwest border (revised up from the initially reported 100,441), a 15-year record high for the month of February. Instead of being alarmed by this bucking of historical trends of decreased border-crossing attempts in the winter, the Biden administration attempted to deflect by claiming the numbers reflect a seasonal trend. Led by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Biden administration refused to call the border situation a crisis, instead opting to call it a “challenge” in an attempt to downplay what was happening on its watch. In the first 100 days, President Biden tapped Vice President Harris and former Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson as co-border czars. Illegal aliens kept coming in droves, as CBP encountered 173,265 aliens in March and 178,850 in April. Jacobson subsequently quit on Biden’s 100th day.
Remarkably, the crisis has worsened during Biden’s second 100 days in office. In fact, CBP encounters at the Southern Border have continued to climb each month of the Biden presidency. In May, CBP encountered 180,641 aliens, with Border Patrol apprehending 172,011 aliens within that total. As the numbers continued to skyrocket, and buck another historical trend of decreased crossing attempts after May, the Biden administration delayed publishing the June figures. Once they were finally released, the American people learned that CBP encountered just under 189,000 aliens at the Southern Border, with 178,416 apprehensions. In July, CBP encountered about 212,000 aliens, the highest number in more than 20 years. Within this total, about 19,000 are unaccompanied alien children (UACs), reflecting yet another record high (the Biden administration held the previous high, from March 2021, at 18,877 UACs). Family units (FMU) accounted for nearly 83,000, up from 55,805. The only “good” news for the Biden administration is that the FMU apprehensions are slightly lower than the record 88,857 from May 2019.
https://cis.org/Report/Bidens-Second-100-Days
