Speaking Before Congress, President Biden Blames Everyone but Himself for the Illegal Immigration Crisis
As President Biden addressed Congress and the nation in his State of the Union address on March 7, polls showed that American voters cited the border crisis and illegal immigration as their top issue of concern. The polls also show that a majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of immigration and the border.
After three years of insisting that our borders are secure, and refusing to even acknowledge that we have an illegal immigration crisis that is undermining the security and vital interests of the American people, the White House has come to recognize that it is a political liability for the president. However, rather than offering concrete proposals to fix the problems, President Biden used the address to shirk responsibility, blame Congress and promote legislation that would simply make mass illegal immigration a little more orderly.
“In November, my team began serious negotiations with a bipartisan group of Senators,” President Biden stated, neglecting to mention that at that point there had already been, including “gotaways,” some 10 million illegal border crossings under his watch. He then went on to claim falsely, “The result was a bipartisan bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen in this country.” Only four Republican senators supported a procedural vote that would have been necessary to bring the bill to the floor. And not only wasn’t it the “toughest” border security bill, it hardly qualified as border security at all.
Even though President Biden has had all the authority he needs to secure our borders – or even shut them down entirely – since precisely at noon on January 20, 2021, he continued to insist that he is powerless to act unless Congress approves the bill that failed in the Senate. “It would also give me as President new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming,” he said.
The president also continued to promote mass amnesty as a solution to the illegal immigration crisis his administration has created. He used the address to call on Congress to pass a mass amnesty proposal he laid out on his first day in office. That bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act, would provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens, import thousands more foreign workers, and contains no meaningful provisions to secure our borders.
Not surprisingly, absent from President Biden’s speech was any mention of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which was passed by the House last year. Among its many provisions, that bill, which is stalled in the Democratic-led Senate, does address large-scale asylum and parole abuse, ends catch-and-release policies, cracks down on state and local sanctuary policies, and requires completion of the border wall.