The current political environment is terrible for Democrats — and that is putting it mildly. Poll after poll shows that Americans disapprove of President Biden’s performance. On two key issues, Mr. Biden is so far underwater that he needs scuba gear. His handling of the economy has an approval rating of just 29%, with 69% disapproving. Likewise on immigration, only 37% of Americans think he is doing a good job, compared with 60% who disapprove.
Not surprisingly, polls show that the GOP has a 3.5-point advantage in the 2022 generic congressional ballot. With the border crisis raging and prices rising, and little being done to address either, it is all but certain that Republicans will take control of one or both chambers in November.
The Biden administration has created an unprecedented border crisis affecting our entire nation. This has galvanized public opposition, creating a united front of state and local governments, former immigration officials, and public interest groups demanding that the administration stop its sabotage of border and interior immigration enforcement.
With the turn of the calendar and the unofficial start of the 2024 campaign cycle, President Biden took two steps designed to quell the growing furor over his handling of the raging, self-inflicted border crisis.
President Biden, who came to office two years ago with some of the lowest levels of illegal immigration in modern history, largely ignored the historic border crisis he created by devoting only a few lines to it in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
America’s surging illegal alien population now costs U.S. taxpayers $151 billion a year. An exhaustive study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform finds that an estimated 15.5 million illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children consume about $182 billion a year in federal, state and local benefits and services, which are offset by only $31 billion in taxes paid. The net 2022 cost of illegal immigration represents a 30% increase over the 2017 cost of $116 billion.
Proving the adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, America’s policy of allowing unaccompanied alien children, known as UACs, who arrive at our border to enter and remain here is inflicting grievous harm on the children themselves and on communities across the country where they are placed.
In an alternative universe – otherwise known as Capitol Hill – the 8.9 million largely low- and unskilled, illegal migrants who have poured across our borders since President Biden took office is still not enough to satisfy the insatiable demands of the U.S. business lobby for low-wage labor. As legislators race to approve some funding mechanism to keep our federal government operating past 11:59 pm on Saturday, they have somehow managed to find the time and the chutzpah to champion provisions that will massively expand the number of temporary low-skilled guest workers that will be available to business interests.
Israel’s expected ground offensive in Gaza has yet to begin, but we are already hearing calls for the Biden administration to welcome Gaza residents to the United States using immigration parole authority. Doing so, in the midst of an already raging migration crisis, would be both illegal and ill-conceived.
Border security and immigration reform are hanging in the balance while a new “gang” of Senate members is working behind closed doors to devise a solution. Senate Republicans have vowed that there would be no foreign aid package approved unless meaningful border and immigration policy changes were included. The next few weeks will test their resolve.
Read FAIR President Dan Stein’s op-ed with Congressman Clay Higgins (R-La.) in the Daily Caller
Recently, the House of Representatives formally initiated impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. This effort is not a political witch hunt or an election year stunt.