This NYT Story Gets Everything Wrong About Dems, Immigration

There isn’t a single reason to continue giving Democrats the benefit of doubt on their destructive, anti-American policies, least of all on immigration, and yet The New York Times is here this week to do just that.

In an unnecessarily long article out Sunday, Times reporter Christopher Flavelle sought to recast the Joe Biden era’s catastrophic mess at the Southern border as a matter of misjudgment and political failure rather than what it really was — deliberate harm inflicted on the nation. “How Biden Ignored Warnings and Lost Americans’ Faith in Immigration,” reads the headline for Flavelle’s story. In it he asserts that Biden was repeatedly advised to get some kind of handle on the influx of destitute foreigners coming to America — though he never says exactly how or in what way — while also saying that Biden as president “seemed to grasp the risk,” but simply “failed to act. …”

Laughable. The day Democrats can be trusted on immigration is the day they can identify a single illegal alien they’re willing to deport. They don’t want to do that. That’s not their position. Their position is the opposite. It’s why a sitting Democrat senator this year literally flew to Central America for the explicit purpose of re-importing a professed illegal alien who had been sent back to his home country. That Democrats are the party of open borders is a matter of record.

Nevertheless, Flavelle wrote that Biden “and his closest advisers repeatedly rebuffed recommendations that could have addressed the border crisis faster” and that his administration “made two crucial errors.” (Just two!)

The first of those “errors” was that Biden supposedly “underestimated the scale of migration that was coming.” Right, because when he ran for president and said on live national television, “You should come,” he reasonably must have thought only a few dozen Guatemalans and Hondurans would take him up on the offer.

The second alleged error was that “they failed to appreciate the political reaction to that migration — believing that stronger enforcement would alienate Latino and progressive voters, and also that a border surge would not be an important issue to most voters.” Admittedly, there may be some merit to this point. Because Democrats are incapable of viewing minorities as individuals motivated by self-interest — but rather as only pack animals driven by group identity — it’s probably true that they didn’t anticipate migrants already living here not being too thrilled with yet more foreigners dumped into their schools and community centers, sucking up public resources with the power of 20 million industrial vacuums.

Throughout the story, Flavelle repeats over and over that Biden was “warned” of oncoming political peril as it related to immigration and that his advisers were “cautioning” him on the border, apparently to create the impression that the issue is highly complicated and dramatic for Democrats. But it’s not because the issue is dramatic or complicated. A border is either open or it’s secure. A nation either tolerates an unabated flow of impoverished people across its borders or it doesn’t. And that there’s no mistaking this simple truth is more or less admitted in the very article.

“Soon after being sworn in, Mr. Biden issued a 100-day pause on deportations,” wrote Flavelle. “He drastically narrowed the categories of unauthorized immigrants targeted for arrest. He directed his government to stop building the border wall, a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s agenda.”

It’s so complicated! High drama!

Biden “suspended Remain in Mexico,” Flavelle continued, referring to Trump’s first-term policy requiring asylum seekers trying to enter to wait for their hearings on the Mexican side of the border. “He sent draft legislation to Congress to create a citizenship pathway for people in the country illegally. He kept Title 42 in place, but stopped using it to turn back children who crossed the border alone.” (Title 42 permitted the president to reject virtually all foreigners trying to enter the country on the grounds of there being a national health emergency.)

The most hilarious part of the article comes at nearly the midway point. “Aides described Mr. Biden as having no strong positions on immigration beyond two key areas,” wrote Flavelle, who apparently just takes whatever Democrat aides say to him at face value, even when it ends up making him look very stupid. “He resisted anything that looked like Mr. Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy. And he did not want to send children back across the border.” This is one of those times when it makes him look very stupid. To say Biden had “no strong positions on immigration” except for those “two key areas” is like saying, “I really don’t drink unless I’m awake.”

The “Remain in Mexico” policy was a moderate policy, to a fault. It simply allowed the president to slow down the obscene waves of migrants crushing their way through the border, so as to give the system a chance to hear and process asylum claims, without effectively giving amnesty to anyone and everyone who showed up wanting to be here and stay. If Biden opposed that, he opposed all checks on migration. That’s doubly true if he wouldn’t turn children away, given that almost everyone who was coming across the border was coming with children. And, as we all know, Democrats vehemently opposed separating “families.” (They often weren’t even related.)

Ask any Democrat leader today what she supports and opposes as it relates to immigration policy. Invariably, she’ll go into a speech about “pathway to citizenship” and “comprehensive reform.” To the extent she’ll utter a word about actual border security, it will be a “need” for some vague “technology,” which will never be for the purpose of keeping people out, but only to continue the never-ending process of bringing them in.

There’s no need for a lengthy investigation into the Democrat Party’s immigration position. We know what it is. We saw it in action for four years. There were no errors or failures, at least so far as their intentions go. They did what they did on purpose, and their only real regret, if they’re honest, is that it was unpopular.