Over the last several days and reaching a crescendo today, the mainstream media has been sounding the newsroom equivalent of a four-alarm fire over the growing chaos at the southern border, because the Biden team are persisting with their Baghdad Bob act over the matter. See, for example, how the morning news shows depicted the matter:
All of the media stories right now should be understood as memos from the PR wing to Biden and the rest of the Democratic leadership that the chaos at the southern border threatens political catastrophe.
Start with this New York Times story:
The surge appears to have surprised the Biden administration, as Doris Meissner of the Migration Policy Institute, who ran the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the 1990s, told me. Republicans have pounced, accusing Democrats of favoring an “open border.”
Some Democrats are unhappy, too. Biden’s policy “incentivizes droves of people to come, and the only way to slow it down is by changing policy at our doorstep,” Representative Vicente Gonzalezof Texas told The Washington Post. Henry Cuellar, another House Democrat from Texas, said the administration was sending “a terrible message.”
It all stems from the fact that the Democratic Party no longer has a clear policy on immigration.
Reminds me a little of the scene from “Yes, Prime Minister” where Jim Hacker says, “Our policy is not to have a policy!” More:
Polls show that while public opinion favors a pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, it also favors rigorous border security and the enforcement of existing immigration laws.
I’m not even sure that these views should be described as conservative. Historically, many progressives supported immigration restrictions as a way to keep U.S. wages high. Today, working-class Americans — including many Asian-American, Black and Latino voters — tend to favor more restrictions than progressive Democrats, who are often high-earning professionals, do. This contrast may play a role in Republicans’ recent gains among minority voters.
The Washington Post is also alarmed at the growing political vulnerability of Democrats:
The moment leaves many Democrats with few good options.
I predict that by degrees, the Biden Administration will slowly ease its way back to employing many of Trump’s policies, though they will disguise this and sugarcoat it, and enforce it half-heartedly and only half the time. Biden is already leaning on Mexico as Trump did to reduce the flow of migrants transiting the country. Look for the next step to be making asylum seekers stay on the Mexico side of the border. In fact, the New York Times reports this is already being done:
When 149 migrants were escorted onto a bridge by U.S. Border Patrol agents, they had no idea where they were being taken. Many collapsed, crying, when they learned they were back in Mexico.
Faces contorted from confusion to anguish. Many of the parents started sobbing, tears of frustration falling on the children they cradled.
“They cheated us!” yelled one parent.
“They promised they would help us!” wailed another.
Yes, well, Democrat promises are often like that in practice.
Heck, Biden might even start patching up and extending the Border wall, though he’ll call it a “fence,” because good fences make good neighbors and such.
UPDATE by JOHN: A couple of hours ago, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tried to spin chaos at the border into a positive–children are “presenting at the border” because they are “fleeing persecution,” so there is no crisis:
Biden's Press Secretary Jen Psaki doubles down that there’s “not a crisis” on the border https://t.co/ZCPgz38Si8 pic.twitter.com/C2aLDih5P4
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 22, 2021
Good luck with that, Jen.
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