Biden’s Border Policies Have No ‘Limiting Principle’ to Control Illegal Entries
And that’s a big problem. Either the policies will give way, or the country will.
By Andrew R. Arthur on December 8, 2023
During an appearance with host Poppy Harlow on CNN this week, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas suggested that certain proposals being made by Senate Republicans in negotiations over Ukraine funding – like asylum reform and limiting the parole power – would do “violence to our fundamental principles”. Mayorkas never identified the “principles” in question, but his statement raises a larger and more important point about President Biden’s immigration policies: they have no “limiting principle” that would control the number of aliens who can enter. That’s a problem for the White House and the American people, because either those policies will give way, or the country will.
The Wall Cutters
The best evidence of this point is physical: smugglers who are currently cutting through the barriers erected to prevent the entry of illegal migrants, drugs, and other contraband at the Southwest border.
So-called “walls” were a cornerstone of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign (“wall” was shorthand for his immigration promises), and so almost reflexively, Democrats – even ones who had previously voted for border barrier construction – derided the effectiveness of such barriers.
One of those Democrats was then-candidate Joe Biden, who on his campaign’s immigration website asserted: “A wall is not a serious deterrent for sophisticated criminal organizations that employ border tunnels, semi-submersible vessels, and aerial technology to overcome physical barriers at the border–or even for individuals with a reciprocating saw.”
In the run-up to that election, I called into question much of that statement, and the saw point in particular:
https://cis.org/Arthur/Bidens-Border-Policies-Have-No-Limiting-Principle-Control-Illegal-Entries
