Joe Biden juggles immigration in the United States

2023 begins with a thorny issue for Joe Biden: immigration. For the first time since the beginning of his term two years ago, the US president traveled on Sunday, January 8, to the border with Mexico, in the Texas city of El Paso, one of the largest entry points for migrants to the United States.

Received by the state’s governor, the conservative Greg Abbott, he met with border police officers, visited an immigrant reception center before heading to the huge bridge that connects the city with its Mexican twin, Juárez.

That same afternoon, he flew to Mexico City to attend a summit with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. There, once again, the migration issue would be at the center of the debates.

Before this unprecedented trip, the White House had already announced new measures in this regard on Thursday. Up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – among the main nationalities that transit the Mexican border daily – will be able to enter the United States each month. However, they will have to meet several conditions. Among them, arriving by plane, “so as not to increase the workload of the border guards on the ground,” according to the Executive; and be financially sponsored by someone who already lives in the United States.

These thousands of authorized immigrants will be able to stay in the United States for two years and receive a work permit. On the other hand, those who cross the border illegally will be immediately deported and banned from entering the country for five years.

In parallel, Washington wants to launch a mobile application in which migrants will have to register to have the opportunity to cross the border legally. According to the White House, this is a way to fight more effectively against illegal smuggling.

“Don’t come to the border” without first starting a legal procedure, summed up Joe Biden.

A subject absent for two years

“So many moves and announcements show that Joe Biden wants to address this burning issue again,” said Jean-Eric Branaa, a specialist in the United States and professor at the University of Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas.

When he arrived at the White House, the Democratic president announced that he wanted to carry out a deep immigration reform. “America is safer, stronger and more prosperous with a healthy and humane immigration system that welcomes immigrants and enables them to contribute to the progress of our country,” he said.

In fact, on the day of his inauguration, on January 20, 2021, he sought to distance himself from his predecessor by suspending the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico and lifting the ban on entry to the United States of nationals of majority Muslim countries. two key measures in the term of Republican Donald Trump.

But since then, aside from an executive order addressing family separation at the border, the president has been largely silent on the issue, delegating it mostly to his vice president, Kamala Harris. “For good reason, this is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous issues for the president: he is heavily manipulated by his opponents in the Republican Party and is very sensitive to public opinion,” explains the specialist. “And in a context marked by an economic crisis, galloping inflation and the Covid-19 crisis, he preferred to focus on domestic policy issues.”

The issue has become increasingly sensitive because, since his election, there have never been so many migrants trying their luck in the United States. Some 2.15 million illegal migrants were detained at the Mexican border in 2022, according to statistics published in September by the border police, compared to 1.7 million in 2021. And 27% of these arrests were directed at migrants who they had already attempted to cross the border several times in the previous twelve months. In November alone, 230,000 arrests were recorded.

“Faced with this, the immigration crisis was one of the main levers of the Republicans during the mid-term electoral campaign. They regularly accused the Democrats of being responsible for the situation. Let us remember the elected officials who sent convoys of thousands of migrants to Democratic cities last spring…”, adds Olivier Richomme, a specialist in the United States and professor at the University of Lyon II.

A wink step to the Republicans “to avoid the blockade”

However, by coming out of his silence on January 5, Joe Biden has generated great discontent in his own party and in immigrant defense associations. The main reason: against his expectations, the American president seems to choose to maintain “Title 42”. This decree, launched by Donald Trump at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, allows migrants to be deported at the border in the name of the risk of spreading the disease, an immediate measure, which does not provide for legal recourse.

“For many of us who work in the immigration field, we expected the Biden administration to end Title 42 and restore the right to asylum. This is disappointing,” he told ‘Guardian’ Alex Miller, campaign manager for the Immigration Council.

“With these measures, access to asylum will be limited to those with the appropriate nationalities, means and support…”, he added. “And the mandatory use of a mobile application risks making the procedure even more difficult for all migrants who do not have access to digital tools or who do not speak English or Spanish.”

“It’s racist and classist,” he said. ‘United We Dream’, an association of young migrants. “Keeping Title 42 in effect will hurt the very people the government says it wants to protect.”

“We must not forget that, from the beginning of his presidency, Joe Biden has been systematically slowed down by Congress on all immigration-related issues,” says Jean-Eric Branaa. “Of course, 30,000 people a month is small compared to the number arriving at the border each day, but it is already a step in the right direction. By proposing these half-hearted measures, Joe Biden is juggling. He is taking a step towards the Republicans and hopes to get around the blockades.

“These announcements also come at a time when Title 42 is at the center of a legal battle: the Supreme Court decided at the end of December to postpone its decision on whether or not to maintain it,” adds Olivier Richomme. “However, Republicans constantly argue that a sudden lifting of this measure would cause a massive influx at the borders. Initially, Title 42 was supposed to be suspended on December 21. The date was postponed due to the appeal filed by about twenty conservative states. ”

“Donald Trump’s only policy was to close the borders to migration. Joe Biden admits that there is a humanitarian crisis. But he plays with a subtle position, which tries to say: ‘We know that this crisis exists and we are going to manage it in the most reasoned way possible'”, sums up the specialist.

The ‘Dreamers’ in the spotlight

According to Jean-Eric Braana, Joe Biden hopes to weaken the Republicans in his favor on another immigration issue, that of the ‘Dreamers’, the hundreds of thousands of migrant children often born in the United States to parents in an irregular situation. “Since the Obama Administration, these minors, who often only know the United States and no longer have relatives in their country of origin, have benefited from a temporary status that allowed them to study and work. Joe Biden promised to give them permanent status and pave the way for them the path to citizenship,” he says. “By agreeing to take a strong hand on illegal immigration, he no doubt hopes to give himself a little more leeway on this issue and to be able to pass at least one flagship bill in his second term.”

Finally, this Monday in Mexico, Joe Biden will have to work on another project: to strengthen cooperation with his neighbors on this immigration issue. If Mexico has already agreed to receive 30,000 people a month in the opposite direction, expelled from the United States for being in an irregular situation, the task could continue to be difficult.

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, decided to ignore the last Summit of the Americas, organized in Los Angeles last June, whose objective was precisely to harmonize the fight against illegal immigration between the United States and Latin America. A decision that responded to Washington’s determination to refuse to invite three other important countries on this issue: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

This article has been adapted from its original French version