Biden's Immigration Executive Order Takes Another Page from Trump's Playbook

Biden has Resumed Building the Wall, Extended Trump Era Immigration Policies and is Now Attempting to Close the Border

Getting to the truth about immigration is a difficult task. Both parties have their own PR on how they sell their immigration policy. This buries the truth deep into the ground and mainstream media makes it hard to exhume. In terms of immigration, the Republicans play the role of hardliners, while the Democrats play the role of the compassionate sympathizer. This gives the illusion that the borders were sealed shut under Trump and wide open under Biden. It has also created a belief that the Democrats undid all of Trump’s border policies. The Republicans boast about deportations, while the Democrats also embrace deportations, but try to hide it. Both parties benefit from these opposing narratives.

The purpose of this article is not to take a pro or anti-immigration stance, it is to examine Biden’s new immigration executive order in the context of the last three administrations. This will show that while there is different rhetoric, the actual policies are similar. This is, of course, a nice way of saying there’s lots of “smoke and mirrors”.

Biden’s executive order from last week is a deviation from past Democratic statements on immigration. Biden announced an executive order to temporarily close the border. Trump attempted to temporarily close the border as well in 2018, but it was overturned by Federal Judges. Biden immediately began to spin his executive order in a more “compassionate" way, as quoted by the NY Times on June 4, 2024:

“We continue to work closely with our Mexican neighbors instead of attacking them,” Mr. Biden said. He said he would never refer to immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, as Mr. Trump has done.”

In other words, “we will close the border like Trump did, but we won’t be crude about it like Trump”.

This is no surprise. This is Joe Biden, Authoritarian. He always was and continues to be now. This is same man who has called for social security to be cut several times in the past. This is Joe Biden, the war cheerleader and war monger. This is Joe Biden, presiding over and refusing to end a genocide. This is Joe Biden, the man who allowed white phosphorous to be used on civilians. And of, course, this is the man who has created a censorship complex that has been challenged and heard by the Supreme Court.

Biden’s executive order allows the border to be closed when the number of migrants entering between entry points goes above 2500. This means the border will be closed immediately, since the US is currently over that threshold. It will stay closed until that number falls below 1500 and does not rise for two weeks. The order also reduces the amount of time that a migrant is allowed to obtain counsel. The current timeframe is 24 hours. This order reduces the timeframe to four hours. If they haven’t found counsel, they can try in court without one or they will be turned back immediately. This is ongoing policy, not a one-time temporary measure.

Biden’s executive order invokes the same law that Trump used in his bid to temporarily shut the border. It was a law that allows a president to shut down borders to any class of people if it “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States”. The ACLU successfully challenged Trump’s order and have already announced their plans to challenge Biden’s as well.

When Trump tried to close the border, the outrage from the Democrats was palpable, Democratic house rep Hakeem Jeffries called Trump the “Xenophobe in Chief”.

US Democratic Senator Tim Kaine tweeted this after Trump made the announcement:

Pathetic attempt to shift blame from his Visible Incompetence to an Invisible Enemy. The President needs to reread the Declaration of Independence, criticizing King George for restricting immigration to America.

Policies from the Trump era have stayed in effect in the Biden era. For example, under Trump, the Federal law “Title 42” was invoked. Title 42 is an obscure federal law that allows the United States to block foreigners with a “communicable disease” from entering the country. The CDC issued the controversial order because of the Covid pandemic. Trump’s Immigration advisor Stephen Miller was key in orchestrating the action.

When Biden became president, he made an intentionally feeble and impotent attempt to reverse the CDC’s ruling. The following year, Biden went to court not only to renew the law, but he also added additional countries to the list of those being restricted. Title 42 lapsed once the health emergency ended.

Biden’s executive order is actually stricter than title 42. Under title 42, a person could try to enter the US again after being rejected, without any consequences. With the current executive order, a person caught trying to re-enter within 5 years is subject to criminal prosecution.

This brings us to one of the unfortunate litmus tests for evaluating immigration policy: Are kids still in cages? Thats a murky question and a highly politicized one at that. The famous picture of “kids in cages” turned out to be from the Obama era. Conditions haven’t changed much since.

Trump started the “zero tolerance policy” The purpose was to separate immigrant parents from their children. Trump and Miller described the policy as a deterrent for to illegally cross into the United States. The Trump Justice department ended the policy.

While this policy may have ended, mistreatment of children is ongoing. For example, CBS news has reported in the past that due to overcrowding, children have been separated from their parents for days a time. Numerous reports agree that children are being held in squalor.

Migrant children have been exploited by being placed into the labor force. The NY times reported in April 2023:

Over the past two years, more than 250,000 migrant children have come alone to the United States. Thousands of children have ended up in punishing jobs across the country — working overnight in slaughterhouses, replacing roofs, operating machinery in factories — all in violation of child labor laws.

The last discussion point is perhaps the most divisive topic of the 2016 election: Building a wall. Trump started construction of the southern border wall. It was a political hot potato that was discontinued once Biden got into office. Eventually, blue states became shelters for migrants and the Biden administration suddenly reversed course, announcing in October 2023 that the wall construction on the southern border would resume.

When Trump planned to build the wall, the Democrats sued in court to try to stop him from funding it.

The press conference for this announcement is almost comical. Jean-Pierre refuses to admit that this is intentional policy by Biden. The main takeaway from this press conference is a claim that Biden doesn’t want to build a wall and knows that they don’t work, but he is authorizing it anyway. Jean-Pierre insisted that the funds allocated for the wall couldn’t be reappropriated by congress, so that to comply with law, the wall has to be built.

This is one hell of a lie. What law are they complying with? The Federal Register (a publication that shows major actions for the different government branches of government) has the entire executive order. A key passage reveals:

In section 102(a) of IIRIRA, Congress provided that the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take such actions as may be necessary to install additional physical barriers and roads (including the removal of obstacles to detection of illegal entrants) in the vicinity of the United States border to deter illegal crossings in areas of “high illegal entry” into the United States.

This law is discretionary. It states, “shall take such actions as may be necessary…”. An administration decides If it is necessary. If this was a law that Biden needed to comply with, why did he stop construction of the wall in the first place? If this is the law, why were Democrats outraged when Trump ordered it to be built?

A statistic on Obama deportations vs. Trump deportations. This graph was built from various sources on the web. This is an example of reality not matching partisan propaganda. This is why DHS nicknamed Obama “The Deporter in Chief”.

The new executive order prompts an important question. Considering that Trump’s attempt at shutting the borders was shot down by federal judges, is this a serious effort by the Biden Administration? Or was it a dog-and-pony-show to convince Americans, in an election year that he is cracking down on immigration? What happens if this executive order is shot down? Will Biden shrug it off by saying “I Tried”? Will Biden continue to echo Trump policies to try and win? That remains to be seen.

Best comment award for the last publication goes to:

Feral Finster

The Russian leadership clearly do not want to accept this basic fact - they do not have a misunderstanding with the West. The West actively seeks to do them harm. Not only that, but no matter how reasonable they act, no matter how accommodating, the West will only see this as contemptible weakness. Russia will always be hated and feared, and never will be allowed to join The Club. The Russian leadership do not want to admit this.”