President Joe Biden is trialing a new message both on the campaign trail and in the White House. “If you believe, as I do, that we must secure the border now, doing nothing is not an option,” he stated Sunday.
This followed a significant announcement from a bipartisan coalition of senators who unveiled the text of a bill intended to bolster security on the southern border. The $118 billion legislative package represents the most comprehensive immigration reform Congress has pursued in decades.
It’s a painstakingly negotiated bill that combines Republican national security and border concerns with emergency aid for Ukraine and Israel that Democrats are seeking, among other things.
Republicans in the Senate, where the negotiations occurred, have hailed the emerging agreement as a historic opportunity for the GOP. The bill may come up for a procedural vote on Wednesday.
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It aims to enact long-sought conservative policies to address migrants streaming into the U.S. from the southern border. Former President Donald Trump, whose entire campaign is shaping up to be a referendum on the border, is attempting to scuttle the deal.
He is pressuring House Republicans to refuse anything other than a package of hard-line GOP policy priorities. Biden’s response is clear: Send the immigration bill to my desk to sign, and I’ll shut down the border immediately.
“If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly,” he emphasized to a crowd of supporters in South Carolina last week. This newly aggressive messaging is likely a necessary tone for an issue that has overtaken the economy as the No. 1 concern among voters.
“It’s pretty clear that this is a major area of vulnerability for President Biden because large numbers of voters in surveys around the country as well as in exit polls from the primaries that we’ve seen so far identify immigration and border security as a core issue for them,” says Matthew Wilson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University.
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Indeed, Trump secured victory in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, aided by Republicans who cited immigration as their primary concern. In Iowa, approximately 9 in 10 supported building a border wall, and three-quarters believed immigrants do more harm than good to the United States, according to AP VoteCast.
Similarly, among those in New Hampshire who prioritized immigration, about three-quarters backed Trump. “Obviously, Biden regards that as very problematic,” Wilson explains.
“That’s why I think you’re seeing a renewed focus on this. That’s why you’re seeing him try to talk and act tougher about border security. But it’s also why Trump really wants to focus on this as a core issue in the fall campaigns because it’s one where he thinks he has a major advantage over Biden.”
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The deal reached on Sunday includes provisions to raise the threshold for migrants to receive asylum status. It would also automatically shut down the southern border to migrants if crossings hit certain counts per day and provide billions in aid to Ukraine, Israel, and for U.S. border security.
The core of the legislation will focus on addressing the growing number of people seeking asylum from racial, religious, or political persecution. However, the system has become overwhelmed, leading to years-long waits for cases to be heard. Additionally, an increasing number of migrants are failing to prove their asylum status, or they fail to show up for their hearing at all.
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