Biden’s Trick: Changing “Illegal” to “Legal” and Hiding Mass Volumes of Immigration

Future presidential scholars will likely cite June 2023 as the month the Biden administration finally revealed — two and a half years after the election — its official doctrine on immigration; “We’re letting them all in, one way or another.”

It’s succinct, clear, and forthright — impressive actually for government work…and atrocious. While the doctrine isn’t published anywhere, it is being actively applied and obvious for all to see.

Faced with overwhelming public disapproval over 5.5 million migrants crossing the border since Biden took office, administration officials recently announced their “solution.”  CBP One phone apps would be distributed to illegal aliens so that they can be used to make reservations at legal ports of entry — the immigration version of making dinner plans on Open Table.

“Very good sir, I see you have a party of ten reserved to take advantage of our new admission policy at the El Paso station. Right this way.”

Of course just because migrants present themselves at an official border station doesn’t mean that under the law they are allowed to come in and stay. To circumvent that, Biden is resorting to, and blatantly abusing, 8 CFR § 212.5, “Parole of aliens into the United States.” This federal authority was never designed to admit broad categories of migrants, but rather is  justified only on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit.” Despite that, the Biden administration is turning parole authority into America’s second rail of legal immigration without congressional approval.

As expected, illegal crossings dropped along the border, yet massive migrant flows have simply shifted to ports of entry where they’re ushered in and labeled as legal entries to the lapdog media like Reuters, which happily report that “Mexican border crossings are down 50% since Title 42 expiration, homeland security chief says.”  It’s a sleight-of-hand the Biden administration thinks the American public is stupid enough to believe has solved a problem.

It hasn’t, and nobody is buying it. As FAIR’s President, Dan Stein, noted, “The Biden administration’s strategy is to make illegal immigration less visible to the American public, not to rein in the unprecedented flow of migrants. This is illegal entry under the guise of legality. The Biden administration doesn’t want to end the crisis, they want to launder it.”

A surprisingly candid new report from CBS News reveals the magnitude of Biden’s abuse of parole authority, noting that it represents, “the largest expansion of legal immigration in modern U.S. history.” Over 541,000 migrants have been paroled over the past two years with even more expected. Roughly half of them are from Ukraine and Afghanistan and the remainder from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other Latin American nations.

Given that the Obama administration also abused parole authority, it’s not surprising that Leon Rodriguez, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director at the time, now thinks “parole is a necessity because the Biden administration has recognized it cannot address migration flows through deterrence alone.”

That’s because Biden does not, and will not, DO deterrence.

The shell game is in motion and the challenge is to stay focused on what immigration law requires, not what Biden allows. But, just as important, it’s necessary to not lose sight of the dramatically rising volume of all forms of migration into the U.S., and its impact on every facet of society. Indeed, that concern is the core of the true immigration reform movement, and the premise of FAIR’s founding in 1979, “seeking out solutions that help reduce the negative impact of uncontrolled immigration on the nation’s security, economy, workforce, education, healthcare, and environment.”

Each year about 1 million immigrate legally, another 1 million are here on various types of foreign guest worker visas, 684,000 people overstay their visas, 650,000 illegal aliens cross the border and elude border officials, and let’s not forget that 16.8 million illegal aliens currently reside in the U.S. Add to this massive increases in admissions under Biden’s illegitimate use of parole and the total volume of arriving human beings is difficult to comprehend on top of America’s current population of 332 million.

For decades, Congress has made explicitly clear its concern for interior and perimeter immigration enforcement, adherence to the law, and the administration of humane policies. Yet sensible limitations to maintain and further the broad public interest are being deliberately subverted by an ideologically driven administration.  So while Biden is asserting his illegitimate authority to use parole as a basis to redefine legal immigration, Congress, and the courts, have an urgent need to use their legitimate authority to rein him in.

If not, then dangerously lost in Biden’s deceitful shuffling of legal versus illegal will be another important, and much needed, concept integral to America’s future: Any prospect of ever reducing immigration to more traditional levels.