As members of President Joe Biden’s party started to turn on him for his handling of the border crisis, Biden tried once again this week to place the blame elsewhere.
It’s former President Donald Trump’s fault, Biden said during an interview with NBC, taped Thursday. He claimed that the Trump administration delayed cooperating with the incoming administration’s post-election transition team and failed to prepare for the “seasonal” spike in illegal border crossings, making it impossible for Biden’s administration to control the surge that arrived at the border in January, he said.
“The two departments that didn’t give us access to virtually anything were the immigration and the Defense Department,” Biden said, without specifying which immigration agency.
“They didn’t have beds,” he continued. “They didn’t plan for the overflow.”
If the Trump administration wasn’t preparing for a migration overflow, it’s because there was no overflow for which to prepare. Trump had implemented a number of successful policies that helped immigration agents get control of the 2019 humanitarian crisis and prevent it from happening again. His “Remain in Mexico” policy made sure border facilities weren’t overrun by migrants seeking asylum. His decision to end “catch and release” allowed officials to process and deport migrants quickly who did not qualify for asylum in the U.S. Both of these policies also protected border towns from being overwhelmed by migrants who needed assistance while awaiting court hearings.
All Biden had to do was sit back and allow these policies to continue running their course. Instead, Biden repealed many of the policies that had been preventing the overflow he now bemoans. His action encouraged tens of thousands of immigrants to try their luck at the border by promising not to turn them away. He single-handedly created another humanitarian crisis, one that is statistically much worse than Trump’s.
Biden can try to blame Trump for the crisis he created (and now refuses to fix), but no one is buying it. Nearly half blame Biden for the border crisis, according to a recent poll, and just 29% of the public approves of the way he’s handled it. Members of Biden’s own party have bucked him on this issue as well. Arizona Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly wants Biden to do something to help struggling border towns. Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar wants to know why Biden’s administration is still holding unaccompanied children in facilities that lack basic necessities.
Rather than addressing these legitimate concerns, Biden is busy pointing the finger at Trump. Except this time, no one else wants to play along.
