The Biden Border Crisis

Author: Double_R

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#91
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If the Republican Party plays it’s hand right (spoiler it probably won’t) 

You  should not be surprised what desperate people allow. Literally no-one expected the GOP to have 8 years of Reagan.
#92
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Also let's not be delusional about why illegals come here in the fist place. It isn't primarily about validating skin color for them, it's about the color green. Illegals don't give a shit about the 1619 project. Even old cultural axes can be buried temporarily in the wake of a massive inflation epidemic. GOP is poised to make a massive pendulum overcorrection, and everyone should be on guard.
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#93
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@thett3
These levels are unprecedented. The purpose of a country = to establish a claim to a certain territory and defend it militarily from outsiders.
These levels are not categorically different from what we saw in 2019. And very little apart from the details has changed since then. I’m just saying it is dramatic to the point of unseriousness to claim that we had a border in 2019 and not now.

I would square it by pointing out that Trump pursued pretty cut throat policies such as prosecuting all illegal border crossers…
But clearly it wasn’t working according to your own metrics.

When we experience a surge under Biden, it’s because of his policies. When we experience a surge under Trump, it’s in spite of his policies. The surges are not that far apart from each other, and there are plenty of other factors you don’t even seem to take into account. So I’m just trying to understand if there is any real justification for putting this all on Biden, because this really just looks like political expediency.

#94
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@Double_R
These levels are not categorically different from what we saw in 2019. And very little apart from the details has changed since then. I’m just saying it is dramatic to the point of unseriousness to claim that we had a border in 2019 and not now.
I guess I'll go one step further: I consider Biden and the Democrats to be actively aiding and abetting this migration. They want this to happen


But clearly it wasn’t working according to your own metrics.

When we experience a surge under Biden, it’s because of his policies. When we experience a surge under Trump, it’s in spite of his policies. The surges are not that far apart from each other, and there are plenty of other factors you don’t even seem to take into account. So I’m just trying to understand if there is any real justification for putting this all on Biden, because this really just looks like political expediency.
I don't know why you'd make a comment like this with the numbers have been posted in this thread again and again and again, but here they are for the last three fiscal years and the beginning of this one: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters It in fact clearly WAS working. Border crossings were touching record lows in early 2020 before the pandemic.

You can see quite clearly that there was a spike in 2019, that peaked at BELOW the ongoing numbers we've had for over NINE MONTHS STRAIGHT now with Biden, and quickly dissipated. You can argue that people don't respond to incentives and so ending catch and release, summarily expelling everyone caught, forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico instead of being released into our country, strong-arming the countries of origin to keep their people in line, etc didn't matter. But I think that's a truly ridiculous statement. The question asked in your OP has been answered: Yes, there is a border crisis, and yes it is unprecedented. Given that there were SIGNIFICANT policy changes between Biden and Trump it seems totally plausible that Biden bears a huge portion of the responsibility. I haven't seen any leftist on this thread argue differently, just various denials that its happening
#95
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@Double_R
And in case you are thinking oh well maybe this is just a return to normal and Trumps rhetoric made things slow down, no. Here are the numbers going back 20 years. Illegal immigration was historically overwhelmingly from Mexico and overwhelmingly adults looking for work, and pretty much stopped after the Great Recession. Now it’s from around the world and to a large extent is families seeking welfare benefits 

And keep in mind the numbers have stayed the same since July…this isn’t at all normal 

#96
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President Trump had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.

I can see why Christian's love Trump. He is just like Jesus.
#97
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At this point I think it’s a safe assumption that a democratic administration = your country doesn’t get to have a border. 
Not that long ago, the Democratic Party had generally the same view toward border security that the GOP has. I even recall Bernie Sanders having a different stance. Then, through a combination of PC ideology, political expediency, and the desire to oppose Trump on everything, that changed to what we currently have.

As I stated on page one, the desire of the Biden admin to disincentivize immigration from Cuba, from where immigrants tend to be anti-leftism, shows how cynical and political their immigration policy is.
#98
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Not that long ago, the Democratic Party had generally the same view toward border security that the GOP has. I even recall Bernie Sanders having a different stance. Then, through a combination of PC ideology, political expediency, and the desire to oppose Trump on everything, that changed to what we currently have.
Also they are completely sold on the emerging democratic majority hypothesis that immigrants will make it impossible for the GOP to win ever again. I’m not a believer in that really but it explains their behavior a little 
#99
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a democratic administration = your country doesn’t get to have a border. I will be voting Republican for the foreseeable future no matter who is the nominee, and no matter what other policy issues are at stake. [...] This is now a question of sovereignty. Do the American people have the right to say no to over a million people forcing entry into our country each year, or not?
Politicians don't see beyond the next election. Fear of the latino vote keeps that border open. Nobody is going to do anything about it. There was a whimpering yelp from Trump, but he couldn't fix it without funding. It was too little, too late. Don't worry though, you can always renounce your citizenship at an American embassy inside a country that's party to the 1954 UN convention on statelessness and be entitled to residency and a work permit as a stateless person.
#100
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Politicians don't see beyond the next election. Fear of the latino vote keeps that border open. Nobody is going to do anything about it. There was a whimpering yelp from Trump, but he couldn't fix it without funding. It was too little, too late.
The current issue can’t be fixed without congress changing the asylum laws, but Trumps policies did fix the problem. The issue is that the next President can just change the policy back. I don’t see any evidence that Hispanic voters want illegal immigration, democrats are going to get absolutely blown out all across the border in 2022
#101
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The current issue can’t be fixed without congress changing the asylum laws, but Trumps policies did fix the problem. 
*can’t be fixed PERMANENTLY
#102
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2 million in 2021 that we know of so far.
#103
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I hear you, as Christian's we shouldn't let poor people into our country. We should only let in Slovenian strippers on Einstein visa's.
#104
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Which is why we have open borders, so that the ultra rich can exploit the ultra poor at the expense of all other Americans not part of the Harvard club.
#105
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Leave it to the Democrats to kill Americans with 2 million infected illegal invaders a year while also printing money to pay to take care of them all.

Death count go brrr..  Inflation go brrrr... Elite monopoly consolidation of markets go brrr....

Great Reset could only happen under a Democrat.
#106
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#107
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#108
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You can see quite clearly that there was a spike in 2019, that peaked at BELOW the ongoing numbers we've had for over NINE MONTHS STRAIGHT now with Biden, and quickly dissipated. You can argue that people don't respond to incentives and so ending catch and release, summarily expelling everyone caught, forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico instead of being released into our country, strong-arming the countries of origin to keep their people in line, etc didn't matter. But I think that's a truly ridiculous statement. 
I never argued any of that. I’m arguing that your rhetoric is over-dramatic nonsense.

According to your source we saw a 77% increase in encounters from 2019 to 2021. That’s not nothing, and it’s certainly not something for the administration to ignore. But the increase amounts to a difference of one quarter of one percent of our population, and matches the same number of illegal crossings we were seeing 20 years ago when none of this was even considered a political priority. So to say as you have, that Trump solved the immigration problem but now under Biden we don’t have a border any more is just absurd.

The question asked in your OP has been answered: Yes, there is a border crisis, and yes it is unprecedented. Given that there were SIGNIFICANT policy changes between Biden and Trump it seems totally plausible that Biden bears a huge portion of the responsibility.
The OP hasn’t been answered, because correlation is not causation. You have done nothing to show that the policy changes you point to account for any significant portion of the increase, and ignore the fact that while our sudden increase in illegal immigration is unprecedented so are the circumstances surrounding it. When was the last time the world economy was shut down by a pandemic? When was the last time that economic conditions in South America were this bad while the US faces a labor shortage? All Biden can do is deal with the influx of crossers, he has little to do with the conditions driving them here in the first place, if you actually care about keeping these numbers down that is where you should be focused.

And to that point, you continually blame the crisis on the perception that the US border is wide open without addressing where the majority of that perception comes from. Hint: you won’t hear the words “open borders” uttered very much on MSNBC.

All of this has been pointed out to you repeatedly.
#109
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@Double_R
According to your source we saw a 77% increase in encounters from 2019 to 2021. That’s not nothing, and it’s certainly not something for the administration to ignore. But the increase amounts to a difference of one quarter of one percent of our population, and matches the same number of illegal crossings we were seeing 20 years ago when none of this was even considered a political priority. So to say as you have, that Trump solved the immigration problem but now under Biden we don’t have a border any more is just absurd.
Yes, 77% increase from what was previously the worst year on record. More importantly it represents a huge increase from record lows that were more recent 

As far as my statement goes I don’t care if you think it’s over the top because I didn’t make it to convince anyone, but rather to explain why I’m voting Republican literally no matter what. I believe that the democrats fundamentally don’t believe in having a border, and believe that changing the demographics of this country by hook or by crook will give them a permanent majority. Their behavior and rhetoric more than indicates that. Having a border is something extremely important to me

The OP hasn’t been answered, because correlation is not causation. You have done nothing to show that the policy changes you point to account for any significant portion of the increase, and ignore the fact that while our sudden increase in illegal immigration is unprecedented so are the circumstances surrounding it. When was the last time the world economy was shut down by a pandemic? When was the last time that economic conditions in South America were this bad while the US faces a labor shortage? All Biden can do is deal with the influx of crossers, he has little to do with the conditions driving them here in the first place, if you actually care about keeping these numbers down that is where you should be focused.
“Correlation =/= causation” is a pretty weak argument though. Imagine if you argued that the number of uninsured Americans has gone down 41% since passing the affordable care act, that you think this is because the act provided subsidized healthcare to people who otherwise couldn’t afford it, increased the age at which parents could keep their kids on their health insurance, expanded Medicare, and helped people with pre existing conditions. And in response to that I just said well, correlation doesn’t equal causation. 

I’ve given you like ten policy changes that Biden made that caused the change. Yes, the incentive to hop the border was always going to be higher at this time than it was in 2020. But we have tools for dealing with this that Biden has actively eschewed. Addressing the root causes of why people feel the need to migrate is important for a long term solution but it does absolutely nothing to fix the here and now. 

And to that point, you continually blame the crisis on the perception that the US border is wide open without addressing where the majority of that perception comes from. Hint: you won’t hear the words “open borders” uttered very much on MSNBC.

All of this has been pointed out to you repeatedly.
I don’t remember making that point but this is a very old thread. But if you’re suggesting that illegal immigrants are all watching Fox News and that has more to do with why they’re coming over than policy changes I think that’s laughable 
#110
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Yes, 77% increase from what was previously the worst year on record. More importantly it represents a huge increase from record lows that were more recent 
Also these numbers represent nothing but encounters and so obscure a huge and important difference. Under Trump, everyone that could legally be expelled was expelled and Trump implemented policies to allow more immediate expulsions. Consequently attempts to cross the border dropped. Under Biden most of these people are being LET IN
#111
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But the increase amounts to a difference of one quarter of one percent of our population, and matches the same number of illegal crossings we were seeing 20 years ago when none of this was even considered a political priority.
I missed this part. You and your party can pretend that having far more illegal immigration than legal immigration is acceptable and represents anything other than a fucking slap in the face of the body politic if you’d like. But that’s a good way to lose 60+ house seats and 5+ senate seats as well as turn certain constituencies against you for a generation. Illegal immigration was a HUGE issue in the 2000s. You’re older than me so I’m sure you remember 
#112
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The reason I’m so fervently and dramatically opposed to illegal (and legal but especially illegal) immigration is because it’s proponents are extremely open about what the goal is. The goal is to import more people so that people with my ethnic background are outnumbered, with the purpose of ensuring that the politics I support will be crushed. Supporting these migrants is to be financed by people of my economic station, and the migration will take place even in complete defiance of my countries laws. 

It is quite literally demographic warfare against me. The evidence has to be overwhelming that they are wrong and their plans will backfire for me not to oppose this with absolutely everything I have. 
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#113
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“Correlation =/= causation” is a pretty weak argument though. 
Not when you ignore the fact that the conditions today are nothing like any conditions we have seen in our lifetime. A valid argument needs to consider the whole picture.

Again, I’m not arguing that Biden’s roll back of Trump’s  policies don’t account for any of it, I’m just asking those who are branding this as a problem almost entirely of Biden’s creation substantiate that claim.

Addressing the root causes of why people feel the need to migrate is important for a long term solution but it does absolutely nothing to fix the here and now
No, it probably wouldn’t but whether you accept it or not that is the issue. Biden’s policies wouldn’t mean a damn thing if these people didn’t find their conditions so horrible that they would literally risk their lives and that of their families to trek across an entire country to possibly be let into a land completely foreign to them in the hopes that they might find a better life for themselves. Folks like yourself talk as if these people are just hopping in vans and going for a joyride. The issue is much bigger than “let’s deter them by making them wait in Mexico”.

But if you’re suggesting that illegal immigrants are all watching Fox News and that has more to do with why they’re coming over than policy changes I think that’s laughable
It’s your claim. You’re the one arguing that their perception of what’s happening at the border is driving them to come here. Where do you think that perception comes from? You think these people are reading printouts of Biden’s executive orders? You think they’re consulting with their attorneys before jumping in their caravans? Of course not. It’s mostly word of mouth, and talking points like “open borders”, “amnesty”, and “they care more about illegals than US citizens” spread amongst South America every bit as much as Biden’s actual policies.

it’s proponents are extremely open about what the goal is. The goal is to import more people so that people with my ethnic background are outnumbered, with the purpose of ensuring that the politics I support will be crushed.
Can you provide an example or two of a prominent left wing figure that has openly stated this?

It is quite literally demographic warfare against me
Yeah, I was waiting for this. It’s a war against White people. Got it.

#114
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#115
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@Double_R
Again, I’m not arguing that Biden’s roll back of Trump’s  policies don’t account for any of it, I’m just asking those who are branding this as a problem almost entirely of Biden’s creation substantiate that claim.
So the vast majority of these people are coming are here to claim asylum. They started doing this en masse in 2018/2019 because there is a giant loophole in our asylum laws, which pretty much ensures that people must receive a hearing. This sounds nice when you're talking about political dissidents and such, but it's not so nice when millions of people take advantage of this and make asylum claims that are 99% false. Trump implemented a ton of policies aimed at destroying the incentive to make bogus asylum claims, including but not limited to forcing people to wait in Mexico until their hearing, punishing people for crossing illegally (which is a crime), pressuring other governments to make sure that migrants couldn't get to the border in the first place, and expelling almost everyone due to title 42. So the incentive to try and come became rather low, as you weren't going to make it into the country. Crossings went down to near multi decade lows even before the pandemic

Biden came in office and reversed every single one of these policies. Now people come to the border and they are released into the country, often times without a court date. Thus the incentive to illegally immigrate went way, way up. The numbers followed and they haven't slowed down yet. I'm not dishonest so I am perfectly willing to admit that at least part of the surge is driven by the economic circumstances we're in. But that's no reason to think that actually letting most of these people in doesn't just encourage more to come! I think if Biden had continued Trump's policies there would have been a surge early on that would have dissipated after people realized there was no policy change and they can't just get in. Attempts to cross would still be higher than 2020 lows, but not very far outside of the post-great recession norm.
 

No, it probably wouldn’t but whether you accept it or not that is the issue. Biden’s policies wouldn’t mean a damn thing if these people didn’t find their conditions so horrible that they would literally risk their lives and that of their families to trek across an entire country to possibly be let into a land completely foreign to them in the hopes that they might find a better life for themselves. Folks like yourself talk as if these people are just hopping in vans and going for a joyride. The issue is much bigger than “let’s deter them by making them wait in Mexico”.
I do accept that it would be better for everyone if their countries were made safer and more prosperous. But it's not an either or thing, and I don't know what the US can reasonably do to help. Maybe ending the drug war or something, I don't know. I know it doesn't seem like it, and I do a very poor job of conveying it, but I do have genuine sympathy for people who are suffering. However we need to have a border, the rule of law can't be subverted because of feelings. There are hundreds of millions of poor and suffering people out there, we can't take in them all without destroying our country. 

Yeah, I was waiting for this. It’s a war against White people. Got it.

Well, it's a war against conservatives more than white people. If recent immigrants were an overwhelmingly GOP group Biden would be bringing the hammer down on legal and illegal immigration, regardless of race. What would you call it if one group subverts the law whenever they are in office, for the purpose of damaging the prospects of another group? And a lot of the stuff I hear is very racially coded. Idk how else I should be expected to feel about it

Can you provide an example or two of a prominent left wing figure that has openly stated this?
There was a book that came out in the early 2000s called "The Emerging Democratic Majority" which argued, essentially, that demographics = destiny and that changing Americas demographics would ensure that Democrats would solidly win most elections in the future. The book was extremely well received and widely read. I don't know if Democrats thought about race and immigration in this way before the book or not because I was far too young to be paying attention, but it seems to be the genesis of the current positions on immigration by party. Do you think they would be so fervently pro-immigration (legal and illegal) if immigrants voted 70%+ GOP 

The emerging democratic majority is probably bunk FWIW. The politics of the country will change a lot but it's a lot more likely that hispanics and working class whites will form a coalition that freezes out upper class liberal and business conservative whites and black people imo. I don't think most people see it this way yet though
#116
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The emerging democratic majority is probably bunk FWIW. The politics of the country will change a lot but it's a lot more likely that hispanics and working class whites will form a coalition that freezes out upper class liberal and business conservative whites and black people imo. I don't think most people see it this way yet though
In case anyone is wondering here is how I see it 

Trump 2020 was the absolute worst candidate for suburban/upper class white people due to his general obnoxious and improper behavior. You can like it or dislike it, but it’s simply a fact that propriety is very important to middle class voters. But Trump still won like 42-45% of college educated whites. It’s possible that number slips further but with a sane candidate I kind of doubt it. This group will probably be largely irrelevant for the next few cycles without a lot of shifting 

Meanwhile Biden made big gains with white working class voters who believed he was a moderate, who now disapprove of his performance. Despite Biden making inroads with working class whites, and this groups relative share continuing to decline, Trump still almost won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Dems still have a lot of room to fall in these states and I expect them to be reliable Republican states pretty soon. 

The way dems had planned to counter that was through winning sun belt states like Georgia, Texas, and Arizona. But if Hispanics continue to shift R (and I think they will, especially when the GOP eventually ditches zombie Reaganesque economic policies) that locks down Texas and Florida, and brings Arizona and possibly Nevada back into the fold. ESPECIALLY if there’s even a dash of recovery among college educated whites. Georgia will probably stay dem. There’s your coalition right there, Trumps 2016 map minus Georgia and maybe plus Nevada 
#117
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Well, it's a war against conservatives more than white people. If recent immigrants were an overwhelmingly GOP group Biden would be bringing the hammer down on legal and illegal immigration, regardless of race. What would you call it if one group subverts the law whenever they are in office, for the purpose of damaging the prospects of another group? And a lot of the stuff I hear is very racially coded. Idk how else I should be expected to feel about it.


Brown Cubans can get fucked if you are a Democrat.
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#118
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Now people come to the border and they are released into the country, often times without a court date. Thus the incentive to illegally immigrate went way, way up.
Biden rolling back Trump’s policies means we end up right back to the same laws we’ve had in place for the past few decades. I get that you find Trump’s policies better by comparison, but once again, you are blaming the surge on Biden and his policies when there has been no significant change to any longstanding US policy on this. So if we weren’t seeing these numbers with the same policies before, why is the surge Biden’s fault now? This is what I’m talking about when I point to correlation =/= causation.

And not for nothing, but do you not think Trump’s hyper-focus on this issue has had something to do with this as well? I mean the guy rambles on and on about how stupid our immigration laws are all the time. Before he came along I had no idea what asylum laws were, and most people had never even heard the term. Now it’s a prominent national debate the whole world is talking about. You can’t argue that this has had nothing to do with it, especially while you simultaneously argue that migrant awareness of our laws is a major catalyst here.

What would you call it if one group subverts the law whenever they are in office, for the purpose of damaging the prospects of another group?
Hmm, voting rights, SC nominations in an election year, using legislation to strip the other side of their power… I’d call it the republican playbook.

I don't know if Democrats thought about race and immigration in this way before the book or not because I was far too young to be paying attention, but it seems to be the genesis of the current positions on immigration by party. Do you think they would be so fervently pro-immigration (legal and illegal) if immigrants voted 70%+ GOP
Well first off, you claimed that the left was open about their nefarious intentions, I still haven’t seen any examples of this.

I don’t doubt that the fact that immigrants voting overwhelmingly Democratic has a big influence on the policies championed by the left. But this issue really wasn’t front and center until Trump came along, and to attribute it all to that is just confirmation bias. The left’s passion for defending immigrants is more of a backlash to the blatantly apparent racism fueling much of the right on this. I mean seriously, Trump began his campaign by calling Mexican migrants criminals and rapists, and all that did was make him more popular with the base.

What I see happening here is that the left is simply reacting to what the right is fomenting while the right pretends that there is no context to the left’s reactions. Well, in the absence of that context sure it looks like this is all about winning elections and diluting conservatism. It’s a classic projectionist tactic. The reality is that what you keep pointing to is mostly a defense of a group the left sees as being under attack, not a war against conservatism.

And that’s not to suggest that there isn’t some of this the other way around. Like I just explained, the right has become far more entrenched in this because of their view of what the left is doing so I’m not arguing that it’s all racism or any other nefarious motivation, but if we’re trying to get an accurate picture of what exactly this is we need to ask ourselves where this “react to the other side” battle really began. I’ve been following politics for years, immigration has never been a left wing issue, it’s always been a focus on the right.
#119
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@Double_R
Biden rolling back Trump’s policies means we end up right back to the same laws we’ve had in place for the past few decades. I get that you find Trump’s policies better by comparison, but once again, you are blaming the surge on Biden and his policies when there has been no significant change to any longstanding US policy on this. So if we weren’t seeing these numbers with the same policies before, why is the surge Biden’s fault now? This is what I’m talking about when I point to correlation =/= causation.
I’m not sure why the bogus asylum claim crisis became an issue in the late 2010s and not before, even though the laws hadn’t changed. I guess word just got around that this loophole existed. Or maybe people always knew about it but things in Central America got really bad in the late 2010s. I really don’t know. But the crisis did start happening at that point when it didn’t exist before—those are just the facts. That the law didn’t change doesn’t change the fact that Trumps patchwork of solutions did seem to work, unless we can come up with some other reason that the crisis dissipated rather quickly, and restarted as soon as those polices were repeated. The issue with the policies was that they came from executive action instead of congress and so an open borders President can just repeal them. Which is exactly what happened 

As far as the long standing policies go, I would absolutely LOVE to change our asylum laws to make sure this can’t happen again. Is Biden pushing for that, or did he just tear off the band aid without trying to address the underlying issue? 

And not for nothing, but do you not think Trump’s hyper-focus on this issue has had something to do with this as well? I mean the guy rambles on and on about how stupid our immigration laws are all the time. Before he came along I had no idea what asylum laws were, and most people had never even heard the term. Now it’s a prominent national debate the whole world is talking about. You can’t argue that this has had nothing to do with it, especially while you simultaneously argue that migrant awareness of our laws is a major catalyst here.
I don’t know but I doubt that potential illegals were watching Trump campaign rallies.  A lot of this stuff comes from open borders NGO’s who coach migrants into having the best odds of getting in. making false asylum claims here happened only a few years after it became an issue in Europe in 2015, so I imagine it was inspired by that in some way 

As far as the other stuff you said I’m sure the right isn’t blameless. I shouldn’t have made those posts, I was just in a bad mood at that point. The policy conversation is more interesting 
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@thett3
I don’t see any evidence that Hispanic voters want illegal immigration
More specifically the notion is that Hispanic voters might be sympathetic to the interests of the illegal immigrants who are already here. I did look it up, and apparently you are correct on that point. The sympathy just isn't there. Though, it does seem to me that the idea that such sympathy might exist nonetheless guides political decisions. It seems that way to me, anyway, as I can't figure out why the GoP really hasn't done anything about it since Eisenhower.