During his 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised a stark departure from the immigration policies of the Trump administration.
He pledged a 100-day moratorium on deportations after taking office. He promised to protect sanctuary cities from federal law enforcement agencies. And he harshly criticized the Trump administration’s treatment of undocumented immigrants at the southern border, asserting that America had the capacity to “absorb people” while calling on asylum seekers to “surge” to the border
“We could afford to take in a heartbeat another two million,” Biden said at one event in August 2019. “The idea that a country of 330 million people cannot absorb people who are in desperate need and who are justifiably fleeing oppression is absolutely bizarre.”
An estimated 3 million migrants who have been encountered at the southern border since Biden took office in January 2021 remain in the US, according to figures flagged by the Biden administration.
But the mass influx of asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border has significantly strained US immigration resources. And turned into a significant political problem for President Biden—one that former President Donald Trump is seeking to capitalize on. In a recent CNN poll, Biden’s handling of immigration garnered his lowest approval rating, with only 30% of Americans expressing approval of how he was dealing with the border.
That’s led Biden to dramatically change the way he talks about the situation at the border, shifting away from the more liberal immigration positions he espoused as a presidential contender and returning to more centrist views he held as a senator and vice president.
Most recently, the White House shifted its rhetoric on sanctuary cities, urging the cities to comply with law…
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