Joe Biden tackles migrant crisis after his 2019 promise to “absorb” two million asylum seekers

(CNN) — During his 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised a clear departure from the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

That means a 100-day period on deportation after he takes office. Also protect sanctuary cities from federal law enforcement agencies. and harsh criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of undocumented immigrants at the southern border, saying the United States has the ability to “absorb people” while calling for asylum seekers to “invade” the border.

“We can afford to take two million in the blink of an eye,” Biden said at an event in August 2019. A country of 330 million people cannot absorb people who are in desperate situations and justifiably fleeing. Tyranny is quite strange.

An estimated three million migrants have lived in the United States on the southern border since Biden took office in January 2021, according to data from the Biden administration.

But the massive influx of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border has strained US immigration resources significantly. And it became a key political issue for President Biden, which former President Donald Trump is trying to exploit. In a recent CNN poll, Biden’s handling of immigration received his lowest approval rating, with only 30% of Americans expressing approval of his handling of the border.

That led Biden to dramatically change the way he talked about the situation at the border, moving away from the more liberal positions on immigration he supported as a presidential candidate and back to the more centrist views he held as senator and vice president.

More recently, the White House has shifted its rhetoric toward sanctuary cities, urging law enforcement authorities to follow up on immigrants who have committed crimes. And Biden has adopted a now stalled border bill that would have significantly tightened asylum laws and included other conservative agenda items.

“For too long, we all knew the border was broken,” Biden said in January in support of the bill. “It’s time to fix it.”

In many ways, Biden’s shift closely aligns with previous positions on immigration that he has maintained throughout his political tenure. During his decades as a US senator and in his previous presidential bid, Biden held more centrist positions. It was primarily in response to Trump administration policies that Biden began to take a significantly progressive stance on immigration during the 2020 presidential campaign.

In a statement to CNN, a White House spokesman reiterated the administration’s call for congressional Republicans to support the bipartisan border bill.

“In the absence of action from Congress and as we experience historic global migration, this administration has led the largest expansion of legal pathways in decades, worked with partners across the region to address irregular migration and enforce our laws,” he explained.

In a sign of how important immigration is as an issue in the 2024 election, both Biden and Trump made campaign appearances on the southern border last week, with Trump traveling to Eagle Pass and Biden about 300 miles to Brownsville, Texas.

Biden directly called on Trump to support the border bill and encourage Republicans to take it up in Congress.

President Joe Biden receives a briefing on the US-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas on February 29. (Kevin Lamarck/Reuters)

“So here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump: Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of asking members of Congress to block this legislation, join me. Or I’ll say to you, “We urge Congress to pass this. Bipartisan Border Security Bill. We can do it together. You and I know this is the toughest, most efficient and most effective border security bill this country has ever seen,” Biden said. “So instead of playing politics with this issue, why don’t we do it together?”

President Biden is also expected to address the crisis on immigration and the border during his State of the Union address to Congress on Thursday afternoon.

Biden’s rhetorical shift on immigration reflects a broader shift among Democrats. Last week, Rep. Republican Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York. Sworn in after winning a special election to replace George Santos.

As county executive, Suozzi ran on a platform that included cracking down on the border despite boasting about “expelling US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Nassau County” in 2022. But in his 2024 special election, he ran ads supporting the Border Patrol and border security.

In a Democratic debate in September 2019, Biden said he would do “a lot more things” as president.

“In fact, I’m going to make sure that’s the case; we’re going to the border immediately for all those people to apply for asylum. They deserve to be heard. That’s who we are,” Biden said.

“We are a nation that says, ‘If you want to be saved and you are fleeing oppression, you should come,'” he added.

During his 2020 presidential campaign against Donald Trump, Biden was in a very different position, as illegal border crossings were significantly lower than they are today.

Much of Biden’s rhetoric at the time came in response to then-President Trump’s tough rhetoric and border-related policies. In 2018, a year before launching his campaign, the Trump administration unveiled a “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.

Under Trump, the Justice Department announced it would file criminal charges against all adults who cross the border illegally. This separated countless families, including those with babies just a few months old, because children could not be detained with their parents in federal prisons.

US President Joe Biden greets US Border Patrol agents during a visit to the US-Mexico border on February 29, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas. (Credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

The policies faced widespread opposition and backlash and played a significant role in that year’s Democratic primaries. And Biden has been grappling with his own record on immigration — both as vice president and senator — where he has supported significantly tougher policies and the country has seen record deportations. Those policies drew criticism from those on his left in the party’s primaries.

“No great country can say it is secure without being able to protect its borders!” Biden said during a campaign stop while running for president in 2007.

In the lead-up to and during that campaign in 2008, Biden talked about jailing “illegal” employers, said sanctuary cities should not be allowed to violate federal law, and argued that “a fence is needed to stop tons of entry.” Trafficking drugs into the country from corrupt Mexico.”

Vows to reverse Trump’s policies and welcome asylum seekers

While Biden did not go as far as some of his opponents in the Democratic primaries, in speeches and debates he promised to reverse Trump’s asylum policies.

“The fact is, look, we shouldn’t be locking people up,” Biden said in a June 2019 Democratic primary debate. “We have to make sure we change the circumstances, like we did, of why they went in the first place.” “And for those who come seeking asylum, we must have the capacity to absorb them immediately, keep them safe until they are heard.”

“Our Statue of Liberty, not far from here, invites us to welcome the tired, the poor, those who want to be free,” he said in a speech in July 2019. ” he added.

After taking office, Biden issued executive orders ending border wall construction; repealed the so-called Muslim ban, which prohibited travel to many Muslim-majority countries; directed law enforcement agencies to reduce the pool of undocumented immigrants vulnerable to arrest, detention, and removal; and increased the maximum refugee resettlement limit to 125,000 people.

The Biden administration also canceled the so-called “stay in Mexico” program, which required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were reviewed by US immigration courts, and ended the Title 42 health order established by Trump. In the spring of 2023, expelling migrants without hearing their asylum requests.

After ending Title 42, the government returned to its decades-old section of the US Code, known as Title 8. The Biden administration then implemented new, stricter rules barring asylum claims for migrants who passed through on their way to seek asylum in another country. U.S. Those who book their appointments online were exempted.