“Politics finally got the better of his politics”

WASHINGTON – Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts called the Border Patrol a “blatant white supremacist.” Representative Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Said it was “worse than what we’ve seen in slavery.”

The couple have spent years targeting similar criticisms against former President Donald Trump for his handling of the border. But this time, they were talking about the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden, which continues to deport Haitian migrants and other asylum seekers at the southern border of the United States under a controversial public health order. of the Trump era.

Trump has polarized immigration policy in a way that makes Biden’s border particularly difficult. To many in the Biden Base, any kind of immigration enforcement action can sound like Trumpism. And for many Republicans, any attempt at reform is tantamount to giving up the country.

Biden is caught between his own party’s immigration advocates on one side and Republicans, who insist he is still not doing enough to control the border, on the other, leaving House White politically isolated and without clear refuge.

“President Biden needs to show moral clarity right now,” said Julián Castro, former Obama cabinet member and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. “If he doesn’t, the coalition that elected him will collapse.

There were no snakes or alligators, as Trump wanted on the US-Mexico border. But footage of border patrol agents on horseback chasing Haitian asylum seekers attempting to cross the Rio Grande has many of Biden’s allies comparing him to his predecessor and questioning his commitment to the broader reform project. .

The administration tried to distance itself from the actions carried out under its control.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called the footage “gruesome and gruesome,” and the White House said horses would no longer be used in the region.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been tasked with dealing with some border issues, posted a frowning reading of a call she had with Mayorkas to her nominal subordinate of the same way she could do it with a hostile foreign ruler.

But none of this seems to have helped much.

The senior administration envoy to Haiti resigned to protest the “inhuman and counterproductive decision” to expel Haitian refugees to a country everyone apparently agrees to be dangerous as it grapples with. political turmoil and the aftermath of a hurricane and earthquake.

And Republicans still insist that Biden is encouraging “uncontrolled illegal immigration into the country,” as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said during a hearing with Mayorkas.

For some, like Frank Sharry, the longtime leader of immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, it’s all too familiar to see a Democrat see his dreams – and his backbone – crushed by a media storm on a immigration flashpoint.

“I’ve been in this debate for 40 years, and I feel like it’s a groundhog,” Sharry said, noting that every president for decades has had to deal with influxes of Haitian and Central American migrants.

In March, as another wave of migrants made the news, many of the questions asked at Biden’s first press conference were about the border. The new president has maintained his regional approach plan to stem the flow of migrants, repair the asylum system and “reverse the moral and national shame of the previous administration”.

But since then, Biden has faced challenge after challenge, from pandemic to withdrawal from Afghanistan, with his poll count dwindling as well as the prospects for his national legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, leaving little political capital for a fight over one of the country’s most controversial issues.

“Politics finally got the better of his political vision,” Sharry said. “In my opinion, they kept their cool. And last week they choked on each other.

“The American Promise”

Biden is now in a position similar to that of his predecessor and former running mate, Barack Obama, who was elected by positioning himself to the left of Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, but ended up being labeled a “deporter in chief “for deportation. more migrants than previous presidents.

In the long run-up to Clinton’s second presidential candidacy in 2016, one of the first signs of unrest for his fledgling campaign came in the return of his comments that unaccompanied minors who crossed the border without permission had to be sent back where they came from. of.

Biden continues to receive criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.

Immigration advocates blame Biden for using public health order to deny migrants in the name of containing Covid-19; Fox News wonders why migrants don’t have to show proof of vaccination like diners in New York City restaurants.

With so much on Biden’s plate, it was always going to take a long time for him to succeed where so many previous presidents have failed.

Republicans and moderate Democrats in Congress have shown no appetite to embrace Biden’s comprehensive proposals, and no one thinks a major immigration reform agenda would come through this Congress.

Democrats failed to implement a small part of this package last week by making it part of the vast infrastructure and jobs package passing through Congress.

Courts have blocked efforts to use executive authority in a way that allows Biden to bypass Congress, as Obama did with his deferred action policy for children’s arrivals, which was interrupted by a Texas federal judge in July.

And Biden inherited a bureaucracy gutted and rebuilt by Trump and his former aides like immigration hardliner Stephen Miller, who sought to change both the policies and the culture of the agencies that now report to Biden, barely eight months after the start of his mandate.

“Our goal is not to keep politics as it is, which is broken, which is not achievable in the long term,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday, adding that the president wanted “a new immigration policy that is humane, that is orderly, that has robust asylum treatment.”

Still, immigration advocates note that the Biden administration has continued to deport migrants under what’s known as Title 42, a Trump-era public health order that allows the government to bypass the rights generally granted to asylum seekers and to speed up their expulsions.

The administration even went to court to defend the policy against civil rights groups. “We are still under Title 42 because we are in a global pandemic, so we continue to operationalize it,” Psaki said.

Civil rights leaders met with Biden on Thursday to demand an end to the Title 42 deportations, which NAACP Chairman Derrick Johnson said “mocks the American promise” by deporting the migrants even before they are released. they have the possibility to apply for asylum.

“Let’s be clear: asylum seekers are not illegal,” said Nana Gyamfi, executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration, after leaving the White House meeting. “It is a violation of international law to return asylum seekers to the country they are fleeing.