At the White House on Jan. 31, President Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, hosted the annual meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA). During nearly an hour of tooting their own horns on all the good the dynamic duo has done, Biden bragged about his leadership and advances made for the American people. He even claimed to be the world leader on immigration. But what has the president really done to serve the citizens?
Biden made the following statement: America is leading “the world on everything from the environment to dealing with the issues of immigration.” Yet, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data filed in January, 2021 was drastically higher in illegal apprehensions than 2020.
In December last year, there were 178,840 migrant encounters. A month earlier, in November, there were 173,620. And in October, there were 164,753. For comparison, these numbers are doubled from the prior year. In 2020, November saw 72,113 apprehensions, and December had 73,994.
According to Border Report:
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures now show that more than 2 million unauthorized migrants came across the Mexican border in the calendar year [2021] and were apprehended or turned themselves in — in addition to those not stopped or detected.”
The illegal migrants are not being returned to their countries, either. As Liberty Nation’s Managing Editor Mark Angelides reported, the Biden administration has been flying immigrants to other states, trying to ease the load at the border. Much of the time, this is done under cover of darkness, without the knowledge or approval of local lawmakers.
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
How is this leading in immigration unless you consider record-high illegal crossings and apprehensions as a positive occurrence? The president’s strategy to control the situation is to get to the “root” causes, which apparently have nothing to do with the United States. All these issues are happening in other countries, and Harris has been tasked with solving them. “We’re working with a lot of neighboring countries,” Biden said. “A lot to do.”
Although the vice president didn’t address immigration at the meeting, Harris did recently get back from a trip to Honduras, where she attended the inauguration of new President Xiomara Castro, and promised lots of money to help combat the “root” issues behind the U.S. immigration crisis.
Biden hinted at other ideas the administration might be revealing sometime in the future:
“I think one of the fundamental things we’ve got to do in addition to some of the changes we’ll make, which we won’t get into it today, is that if we figure out why they’re leaving in the first place. It’s not like people sit around and say, in Guadalajara, ‘I got a great idea, let’s sell everything we have, give it to a coyote, take us across the border, leave us in the desert in a country that doesn’t want us. We don’t speak the language. Won’t that be fun?’”
Tooting the Horn
The president told the assembly of governors: “We are doing better than any nation in the world.” He talked about COVID and the actions lawmakers had put into place, saying, “America’s one of those nations, I think the only nation, that’s come out of every crisis stronger than when it went into the crisis.”
The president’s opinion on what constitutes a “success” may not jibe with that of the American people. Recent polling by ABCNews/Ipsos suggests that only 34% feel Biden is doing a good job on immigration. With 64% saying they disapprove of the president’s handling of the border, perhaps it’s time for those who surround the commander-in-chief to let him know that his assessment of what constitutes “leadership” may need a slight readjustment.
~ Read more from Kelli Ballard.
