Immigration has been a defining challenge of Joe Biden’s presidency, marked by a record number of asylum seekers and of migrants who arrived at the southern border between the United States and Mexico.
President Biden pledged to modernize the country’s immigration system and rebuild a refugee resettlement program that had reached historic lows under the previous administration.
But despite issuing a record number of immigration-related executive actions, surpassing Donald Trump’s first administration, Biden’s efforts drew criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Critics on the right said the administration was being too lenient, while those on the left said it was too harsh.
The Biden administration inherited a fractured immigration system, including a backlog of asylum cases, a reduction in refugee processing capacity, and policies like the Title 42, that significantly shaped migration patterns.
During a webinar, Muzaffar Chishti, senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), provided an overview of the Biden administration’s record. He noted that the Democrat’s approach to enforcement outside the border has largely been viewed as favorable by immigration experts and advocates.
He further explained that Biden administration officials focused on law enforcement guidelines, rather than trying to deport everyone, but the crisis at the border cast a long shadow over their legacy.
Chishti emphasized the success of legal immigration under Biden, pointing to the high number of visas issued, the record number of naturalizations and the resurgence of refugee admissions.
About “3.5 million people were naturalized under the Biden administration, the highest number of any single-term presidency,” he said by way of explanation.
However, Chishti appreciated that the administration’s handling of border security was less successful. The administration faced an overwhelming number of migrants, many of whom arrived from countries beyond Mexico and Central America.
“The Biden presidency came into office with a crisis at the border, which was precipitated by the COVID crisis and Title 42,” he said. The administration’s failure to call the situation a crisis, he added, contributed to the perception of mishandling, despite efforts to manage it through new programs like the CBP One app and various parole initiatives. [Parole].
Border management
Marielena Hincapié, a visiting professor at Cornell University Law School who participated in the webinar, praised efforts under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security to increase naturalization rates, expedite work permit processing and implement policies innovative measures such as deferred action for undocumented workers who had experienced labor disputes.
These measures, he said, benefited not only immigrants, but also the U.S. workforce and economy in general.
Hincapié also criticized the administration’s handling of border issues, calling it mismanagement.
He highlighted the role of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in exacerbating the crisis by transporting thousands of migrants by bus and plane to New York, Chicago and other places.
Hincapié also pointed to additional involvement at the state level, saying, “There is not only the busing and flying of migrants, as DeSantis did, but also the litigation.”
“And I really see this as Biden’s inner circle, his political and communications people, not understanding that this was a narrative war and the fact that they refused to call it a crisis when that’s what voters were seeing. “They stayed silent and decided not to prioritize immigration, and in doing so, they gave way to the narrative,” he said.
Migration changes
The Biden administration also faced changes in immigration patterns.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at MPI, said the reality at the U.S.-Mexico border changed once again during Biden’s term with migrants arriving in large numbers from across the Western Hemisphere and from countries around the world. everyone.
The demographics of migrants also changed, he said, from single adults to families, and many were seeking asylum, further complicating border processing.
U.S. law offers asylum to people who face persecution in their home countries based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular group.
Although there are two types of asylum, affirmative and defensive, not all asylum requests come from immigrants arriving at the border. Immigrants can apply for affirmative asylum within one year of their last arrival in the United States or apply for defensive asylum while fighting a deportation order.
“All of this resulted in a large number of immigrants released into the interior of the United States,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said.
This brought the border crisis to the interior of the nation, with large numbers of newly arrived immigrants concentrated in cities like New York, Chicago and Denver, cities already facing housing shortages.
Putzel-Kavanaugh also praised the Biden administration’s work to combine increased law enforcement with options for orderly legal migration.
“We saw the introduction of programs like the CBP One app, which allowed migrants to make appointments at ports of entry along the border, and the probation program [Parole humanitario] for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela,” he said.
Putzel-Kavanaugh said that despite these efforts, many viewed the measures as “too little, too late.”
But that shift in migrant arrivals from irregular crossings to legal arrivals at ports of entry has been one of the few success stories of Biden’s border management strategies.
Monthly encounters with migrants fell significantly from the December 2022 highs, with a decline from more than 300,000 encounters to about 106,000 in October 2024, according to CBP figures.
A problem for the coming years
While Biden’s efforts to modernize immigration systems and address asylum claims were significant, experts said the ongoing challenges of irregular migration and border security will remain a focal point in US immigration policy in the next few years.
“I think, in short, we have two really major crises in our country,” Chishti said. “We have a labor market crisis in all occupations, from low, medium and high levels [y una crisis fronteriza]. Therefore, many of these people who have arrived, even if they have done so irregularly, have been absorbed.”
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Chishti mentioned comments made in 2022 by Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, about the US labor market and its dynamics. Powell said immigration is a key source of labor supply and that the significant decline in immigration levels during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the mismatch between labor supply and demand.
That immigration shortfall resulted in fewer workers available to fill jobs, particularly in sectors that traditionally rely on immigrant labor, such as health care, hospitality and agriculture. Powell acknowledged that addressing labor supply constraints, including through immigration policy, could help ease pressure to raise wages and reduce inflation without significantly harming employment levels.
“The reason there is no change or reform happening in our legal immigration system — so we can get more people legally to meet the needs of our labor market — is the border crisis,” Chishti said.
“These are twin crises, but they are interrelated,” he said. “Unless we get the border crisis under control, we won’t be able to address our labor market crisis.”
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