President Joe Biden visited the U.S.-Mexican border town of Brownsville, Texas, on Thursday to emphasize his increasing focus — and increasingly hawkish posture — on immigration. His visit had an aura of political drama around it because it was on the same day former President Donald Trump visited a separate border town and hammered home the false narrative that the U.S. is overrun by dangerous migrants.
The conventional wisdom among horse race pundits and campaign reporters is that Biden’s border visit, the second of his presidency, reflects a defensive, nervous energy because he’s alarmingly vulnerable on the issue of immigration. Consider how The New York Times, in the run-up to Biden’s visit, framed it for readers:
Immigration has become one of Mr. Biden’s biggest political liabilities as millions of migrants overwhelm the underfunded and underresourced system, something that Republicans like Mr. Trump are keen to highlight. A Gallup poll released on Tuesday found that Americans are most likely to name immigration as the most important problem in the country.
Worrying, right? But a closer look at that poll almost suggests the opposite of what the Times is suggesting: that immigration is not a huge concern for the people Biden should be most concerned about as 2024 approaches. And there’s a lesson in there for how Biden should think about immigration in general.
All this underscores how Biden’s rapid swing to the right on immigration is ill-advised.
The Gallup poll, which ranks what Americans view as the most important issues facing the country on a monthly basis, did show a big uptick in concern with immigration as the top issue in February. But the surge in concern about immigration is mostly among Republicans that Biden has little to no chance of winning anyway. “Currently, 57% of Republicans, up from 37% in January, say immigration is the top problem. Independents show a modest uptick, from 16% in January to 22% now, while there has been…
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