Tipsheet

The White House Is Sticking With This Narrative on Border Security

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  April 29, 2024 8:30 PM

The Biden White House has gone back and forth plenty of times teasing as to if the president will actually do anything when it comes to fixing the crisis at the southern border. Even though what negotiators in the Senate came up with was objectively a bad border bill killed almost three months ago now, the White House is still trying to bring back the idea of voting on and passing such a bill, rather than having Biden take executive action. 

On Monday morning, POLITICO published an article highlighting how "Biden said he’d take another stab at a border bill — but nothing appears in the works." It already was a foolhardy idea, but the headline isn't doing the president any favors. "It was news to those involved in the first round of negotiations over the bill," the piece mentions early on.

The idea came after Congress passed a foreign aid package into law, which President Joe Biden signed on Wednesday. It passed the Senate last Tuesday, and had passed the House on the Saturday before that. 

As the POLITICO piece mentions:

Talks around resuscitating the bipartisan border compromise that senators struck in February have been nonexistent in Washington. And despite the president’s proclamation, administration officials and immigration policy experts both say it’s highly unlikely any legislative momentum for border security materializes between now and November.

“They pulled a rabbit out of a hat on Ukraine, but there’s no chance they’re getting anything out of Mike Johnson’s House on border security,” said an immigration advocate familiar with the White House’s thinking, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations with administration officials. “They’ve known that since December, when they realized they had to count votes in the House. There’s no chance of legislation on this, and they know that. It’s rhetorical posturing.”

Biden’s comments last week underscored the administration’s desire to try and turn the politics of the border — long an albatross for Democrats — into something more advantageous. After former President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers tanked the compromise bill, the White House moved to put blame for the crisis at their feet. The president has openly weighed the possibility of taking executive action and, as he did upon signing the foreign aid bill, talked up the need to revisit the legislation.

“I proposed and negotiated and agreed to the strongest border security bill this country has ever, ever, ever seen,” he said last week, speaking about its exclusion from the foreign aid package. “It was bipartisan. It should have been included in this bill, and I’m determined to get it done for the American people.”

But, in reality, there’s been no behind-the-scenes jockeying from the White House to restart talks, in part because the White House believes that the migration crisis has temporarily stabilized, with illegal border crossings dipping again in March to 137,000.

That the White House actually "believes that the migration crisis has temporarily stabilized" shows how tone deaf they are on the immigration issue. Then again, at least they're transparent about how much they don't care. This is not a good luck for the president in an election year. In fact, polls continue to show that it's one of Biden's worst. RealClearPolling has him at a 32.5 percent approval rating on immigration, while 63.2 percent disapprove of his handling of this issue that is still top of mind for many voters. 

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As U.S. Customs and Border patrol shared earlier this month about the March numbers, "CBP had a total of 189,372 encounters along the southwest border in March 2024." It's still higher than the encounters during the Trump administration. A concerning takeaway from the March numbers, as Sarah covered at the time, is how the Biden administration has flown 404,000 illegal immigrants into the country thanks to the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.

The Biden administration still holds the distinction for record high encounters, as they did in December 2023, a record which was set before the month was even over. 

The March numbers were released on April 12. In the weeks before and that same week that those numbers were released, the Axios Vibes survey was conducted by The Harris Poll, as Leah covered last week. Those numbers are also not good for Biden. 

As the Axios write-up mentioned, not bothering to hide their pro-Biden apologetics:

Why it matters: Americans are open to former President Trump's harshest immigration plans, spurred on by a record surge of illegal border crossings and a relentless messaging war waged by Republicans.

  • President Biden is keenly aware the crisis threatens his re-election. He's sought to flip the script by accusing Trump of sabotaging Congress' most conservative bipartisan immigration bill in decades.
  • But when it comes to blame, Biden so far has failed to shift the narrative: 32% of respondents say his administration is "most responsible" for the crisis, outranking any other political or structural factor.

Axios Vibe Check: Amid a record number of border crossings, nearly two-thirds of Americans said illegal immigration is a real crisis, not a politically driven media narrative.

Actually, it would seem that Biden is not "keenly aware," given his continuous fumbles and indecision on this issue. If he was "keenly aware," he'd do something to get the numbers up on his worst issue. 

When it comes to the point mentioned by POLITICO about how Biden "has openly weighed the possibility of taking executive action and, as he did upon signing the foreign aid bill, talked up the need to revisit the legislation," White House Press Secretary predictably had nothing to offer reporters during Monday's briefing when merely asked for "an update."

Jean-Pierre sang the praises of the bad border bill while also blaming former and potentially future President Donald Trump, as is a constant refrain. "In the meantime, we always said we don't believe moving with an executive action [on border security] is a way to go, but we're always going to look at all options," she also unhelpfully offered. "I don't have a decision to be made, I don't have anything to announce, but, you know, we're going to continue to call on, call on Republicans, call on Congress to move that Senate, that bipartisan Senate proposal." 

Of course, Biden had no problem issuing executive actions throughout his presidency, starting on his very first day in office, that made the crisis even worse.