Biden’s New Immigrant Law as a Political Strategy

By Ashley Moreno & Olivia Cabarroca

In November 2024, the United States is holding elections, where American voters will decide who will be the next U.S President and how this will shift the U.S order. However, before going to the polls, the President Joe Biden is trying to ensure reelection, so he has been working on the implementation of new laws that guarantee that. A significant measure that the Biden Administration has announced is the enforcement of migration law in order to secure the southern border, as far as Immigration is the highest concern of the American people. 

(List of Concerns in the United States, GALLUP, 2024)

Biden’s new proposal will bar migrants who cross the southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum. Whereas the U.S Department of Homeland Security has said that there are some exceptions to this new law such as unaccompanied children, victims of a severe form of trafficking and noncitizens who use a secretary-approved process, such as the CBP one mobile app (2024). However, this proposal is full of loopholes and even prompts migrants to ask for protection from deportation. This is not really different from what Biden did in December 2022 when he decided it was time to close the southern border, at least temporarily. Nonetheless, this move did not reduce the number of migrants entering the U.S illegally, actuallyt, this just increased the quantity.

Conn Carroll, a writer from the Washington Examiner, has stated that there has been no change. The southern border is just as fully open now after Biden’s executive order as it was without Biden’s executive order, and this is all true. Migrants arrested for illegally crossing the southern border are not to be admitted unless they qualify under the same loopholes that they are being released into the United States today, so there´s not really a change referent to this concern. We can see that the problem of migration is not going to be solved by short-term policies used as a strategy to gain votes or popularity. Instead, these kinds of measures have been very often a move well played by politicians in the U.S.  

 

We think that this decision comes from a position of despair and uncertainty due the fact that Joe Biden is competing against a strong opponent, Donald Trump. Donald Trump´s strategic plan has presented a better future for the American people, with lower levels of inflation, an improved foreign policy outcome, and of course, stricter control of immigration. A recent report made by Reuters showed almost 59% of Americans disapprove of the president Joe Biden and his administration of the country (2024).  We can say that Biden is taking decisions based on Americans' concerns and taking advantage on them. At the same time, this exhibits a clear lack of control of the recent events that the United States has gone through and how the promises from the Republican could be a threat for the possible reelection of the Democrat.   

 

(Biden Approval Polling Tracker, Reuters, 2024). 

The new law enforcement is temporary, the Biden Administration said, so we consider that he has decided to apply this new law just for the upcoming elections. Joe Biden has been in office for almost four years without implementing anything to relieve the southern border since then. Now that he must guarantee a second term, he is responding desperately to political pressures from public opinion and the rest of the Congress. The fact that this measure is temporary is just evidence that the main concern is not to secure the border, reduce the number of asylum seekers or find a long-term solution for immigration, but rather securing another 4 years in the White House. 

In a way, we believe that Joe Biden’s new strategy to secure reelection is similar to what former President Donald Trump has proposed in his recent speeches during his political campaign. According to CNN, Trump plans to massively deport migrants if he wins the elections (2024). Of course, this is not the same as what Biden has suggested, but at the end, they both have the same idea. However, this comes from the same concern Americans have, even though the approach is different, these solutions are not viable long-term solution, but rather just a plan to obtain more votes and maintaining power.