Biden Must Commit to Border Security to Win 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

With the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election around the corner, Joe Biden and the Democrats must get their immigration policy right to have a shot at re-election. President Biden is being pressurized to control the border and tackle the influx of migrants “humanely”. 

The Democrats, activists and NGOs are urging him to embrace the issue with compassion, common sense and take a lawful approach to U.S’s immigration policy. Biden’s campaign for the 2020 Presidential Campaign was progressive. He had a great promise and passion about restoring America’s moral standing in the world and the nation’s historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum seekers, unlike the Trump administration. 

The Biden-Harris Administration announced new enforcement measures to increase security at the border and reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully between ports of entry. The measures expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration. The U.S. will also deploy additional resources to the border and the region, scale up its anti-smuggling operations, and expand coordination, and support for border cities and NGOs. 

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More Needs to Be Done

However, these measures haven’t been enough. A survey highlights that 35 percent of registered voters and only 28 percent of independents approve of the president’s handling of immigration. This comes despite the Biden administration bringing about a drop in illegal migrant crossing at the southern border from 10,000 to 3,500 per day in the six weeks since Title 42 ended. 

It should be noted that the current government replaced the Trump-era public-health rule with punitive deterrence measures via limited legal pathways for asylum seekers. Experts say so-called legal pathways have decreased illegal migrations, but the eligibility of asylum grantees is questionable. And illegal crossings remain very high. 

In June, the Supreme Court revived Biden’s immigration enforcement policy. It allows immigration officers to focus limited resources and enforcement actions on those who pose a threat to the U.S’s national security, public safety, and border security. 

Human rights organizations and activists have not been pleased with Biden’s immigration policy either. They believe the Biden administration recycled one Trump policy after another, resulting in countless abuses of migrants of color. The Human Rights Watch said Biden’s new plan integrates elements from Trump policies, including Title 42 and the asylum third country transit ban, found unlawful by two federal courts under the Trump administration. 

Immigration remains a top issue in the United States. A strategy is needed. Former U.S. diplomat Chris Richardson believes America needs a leader like Theodore Roosevelt, or Ronald Reagan to break through the logjam. He highlighted that the crisis at the border is essentially a crisis of leadership. No U.S presidents in the last decade have tried to forge consensus and risk political capital on this matter.