Donald Trump missed the boat
Earlier this year, Donald Trump shut down a bipartisan border bill because he didn’t want the border issue resolved, as that is his main talking point. Now, people are claiming that President Biden has an “open border” policy. This claim rises primarily from Biden’s overturning some of Trump’s policies that bordered on being inhumane and separating children from families. PolitiFact insists that the term “open border” is being misconstrued and used incorrectly. Based on what they found, PolitiFact said that “open borders” is “a lack of enforcement measures,” which it claimed as “inconsistent with Biden’s policy positions.” To better understand these differences in policy, I consulted an article from Newsweek called “Comparing Biden and Trump’s Immigration Policies in 12 Charts.”
Newsweek reported that while migrants crossing at the border with Mexico have increased since Biden took office, recent crackdowns and deportations are making a difference. As part of his platform, Trump plans more deportations and a return to the policies he enacted while in office the first time. When Biden lifted Title 42, the highest number of crossings came in 2023. He didn’t introduce new measures until 2024. U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 3.2 million encounters, which eclipsed the 1.4 million that came in during the Trump era. Of the 3.2 million who crossed, 808,340 were Mexican, but that number has fallen dramatically, as Biden began to enact criminal laws that resulted in arrests. Of course, if you listen to Donald Trump, all those crossing the border are criminal and increased the crime rate in the U.S. Newsweek said that’s not true: “Studies have shown that America citizens were more likely to commit crimes than new migrant arrivals.” The New York Times weighed in on the “migrants commit crimes” mantra of the Republican party.
Apparently, the subject of “migrant crime” was bandied about the RNC for the past three days. According to Greg Abbott: “President Biden has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists, and the price that we have paid has all been deadly,” while Ted Cruz proclaimed: “Every day, Americans are dying.” NYT completely debunked these claims, as did Newsweek. NYT said there has been no crime surge and added: “In fact, U.S. rates of crime and immigration have moved in opposite directions in recent years.” Even as immigration decreased, the murder rate rose. At the same time, Newsweek reported that deportations have “soared” under President Biden. Over 1.4 million were deported in 2022, and just this week, U.S. Immigration officials said they have deported a record number of illegal migrants. But this is the way of Republican politics-scare people into voting for you because you have nothing else to offer.
Trump didn’t want Biden to continue his progress with illegal immigration because he has nothing else. He doesn’t care about the people, and he doesn’t care about much of anything unless it benefits him in some way. As these numbers reveal, President Biden has been working on strengthening laws against illegal immigration. If everyone in Washington, D.C. put the country before party, that progress would have been even better.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years