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September 23, 2023 - 8:00am
Scenes of chaos on the southern border of the United States have been a recurrent spectacle of the Biden administration. But in recent weeks, the challenge has become a lot worse: big cities and small towns across the country are experiencing a significant influx of migrants.
In order to help some municipalities and states deal with the surge of asylum seekers, the Biden administration has announced that it will extend “temporary protected status” (TPS) to Venezuelan migrants who entered the country prior to 31 July 2023. This decision reveals the competing imperatives of the White House’s approach to migration — and suggests how Biden’s policies may create incentives that heighten the border crisis.
Currently, select nationals from 16 countries can receive TPS. Washington is hostile to Nicolás Maduro’s autocratic regime in Venezuela, so TPS has been extended to Venezuelan nationals in the past. Over 240,000 Venezuelan nationals currently have TPS, and the Department of Homeland Security estimates that another 472,000 people may qualify under this extension of the programme. Receiving TPS grants immediate work authorisation, which is in part why this announcement has been greeted with acclaim by Democratic mayors and governors.
An unprecedented surge of migrants has put strain on the states and cities with more expansive social welfare programmes. This can be an expensive proposition: New York’s Mayor Eric Adams estimated recently that the migrant surge could cost the city more than $12 billion over three years. Policymakers hope that the granting of TPS will allow more migrants to earn an income and reduce their need to rely on government programmes.
However, by holding out the prospect of a work permit, the expansion of TPS may encourage more would-be migrants (from Venezuela and elsewhere) to make the dangerous journey across the southern border. According to one analysis, the number of Venezuelan migrants spiked after DHS announced TPS protections for citizens of that troubled country in March 2021.
This announcement compounds other immigration policy incentives of the Biden years. Earlier this year, the Biden administration ended the use of Title 42, which had been implemented during the pandemic to turn back border-crossers. In September 2021, DHS head Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memo essentially suspending immigration enforcement against most people who had entered the United States illegally before November 2020. Under current policy, asylum-seekers are given long-distant court dates to plead their cases, and a lack of interior enforcement provides a further incentive to ignore immigration laws.
There are considerable political risks here for Biden. A CBS News poll from earlier in September found that 66% of voters disapprove of how he has handled immigration — his weakest issue other than inflation. Along with economic anxieties, the migrant crisis could add to doubts in the electorate that Biden will be able to restore the “normalcy” that he campaigned on in 2020. And that could pose dangers to his reelection bid.
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SubscribeI am sorry but Biden can’t even discern between Russia and Iraq, or where he was on 09/11, surely he’s a confused senile puppet and assigning any agency to him is just a figure of speech.
That may be, but his handlers – of the Uni-Party (Democrats) have planned this from the beginning. He is merely a puppet on a string. That said, he is a disgusting human being. Trump irritated me, and his personality would preclude us breaking bread, but I’d take mean X’s over anyone in the Democrat party.
Utter madness. Incomprehensibly bad policy. The TPS program will drive down wages for the most marginalized American citizens. The Dems used to support tighter immigration for this very reason. Open borders are great for the upper middle class though, those who need nannies and gardeners.
Surely this is just the same as Labour being ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’ (cue offstage chuckle) ?
Any link between the ‘left’ and the working class was jettisoned years ago in favour of ‘oppressed’ identity groups with less and less relevance to the general population.
They want the immigrants to be there, and they want the immigrants to be in legal limbo so they don’t have to pay them as much or worry about them becoming citizens and unionizing or voting for populist candidates.
I disagree. They vote for democrats and are already being given voting rights in local elections. Heck Colorado even registers everyone who gets a driver’s license to vote; they’ve been getting licenses for years.
The hypocrisy of Joe Biden joining a UAW picket line to show support for workers while helping to depress the wages of American workers by allowing people who crossed the border illegally seeking asylum form a failed state to work here is monumental.
Yes, but how many will notice the contradiction?
I wish I was not so cynical to think that the Democratic political machine was happy enough to allow Biden to make more and more of a crisis over immigration so that when he is medically retired the next Democrat Presidential Nominee can be much tougher on immigration in comparison.
There’s a trade off between the risks of an increasingly fragile Biden and the risks of a Kamala Harris tail end Presidency. But I suspect that at some point the Biden puppet show will grind to an end, plotted or not.
He will be put to pastures very soon as he has served his purpose and now is becoming an embarrassment (which he already was to start with) The Democrats owe the world an apology as they allowed Putin to invade Ukraine and create an existential crisis world wide. All planned to destroy America from within.
As to becoming tougher on immigration, I somehow doubt it as they needed to create a crisis to “steal” the 2024 election. They have already got 1/2 a million new democrat voters by issuing the Venezuelans ID cards. Who will they vote for? That is how the ANC in South Africa maintains their dominance here… Half the population get government grants and they are scared to lose them so will vote ANC.
Back in August there was a very interesting article by Ben Domenech in The Spectator: We’re living through Barack Obama’s third term.
Domenech suggests that Obama continues to exert covert influence over Biden’s presidency. This could help explain why the US government is so determinedly woke under the hopelessly dazed and confused Joe Biden. As Domenech points out, Biden was moderate on many issues prior to his presidency. Once in office his administration moved unexpectedly to the woke left.
I think Biden has demonstrated throughout the years that he has no ideological beliefs – he changes as the wind blows. Obama may be running the show, but Biden has no core values other than power and influence.
…and money. The Biden family craves money. His niece was arrested in 2018 for stealing $100K using someone else’s credit card. She got a slap on the wrist. When a family friend offered her a $80K job afterwards she turned her nose up at it. The there’s everything-up-the-nose Hunter whose shaken down numerous governments; NINE Biden family members have received wire payments from China – even kids in the family – what did they do to earn that money? It’s absolutely disgusting and even treasonous…Biden would sell the country down the road for a buck.
Ever since Clinton figured out that it was a more lucrative proposition to be the party of Wall Street than of Main Street, the Democrats have essentially been the political wing of the banks and hedge funds. Hence Obama’s failure to hold anyone to account for the scams that led to the 2008 crash.
Joe Biden, with his open border non-policy, has sown the wind. He richly deserves to reap the whirlwind.
The man is – and always has been – an empty suit, a political prestidigitator of the first order, master of misdirection. The only byproducts left in his wake are hot air, chaos, and scandal.
It says a lot about the present state of the United States that such a man could actually be elected as President.
Biden will not recognize a reckoning if it slapped him in the face! But the Uni-Party hopefully will, but I doubt it as they have the elections under control. The Republicans have probably left too late to to compete as the Rino’s in the party were put there to make sure they never can. The Uni-Party has crated the a fifth column who control the country via their appointees in the monolith of Federal and State bureaucracies.
Free thinkers of the world are in great peril. I’m approaching my Autumn years and for the first time I’m not that unhappy about that as I’m absolutely certain i could never live in the world the Elites (WEF) are going to create if not checked. But who will stand up and be counted to do so?
Hopefully you have oodles of children to do so.
Alas I have none as I (and my then wife) consciously decided not to procreate, which looking at the bleak future in this zeitgeist I feel we made the right choice.
A terrible situation but these Venezuelans still sound infinitely preferable to the hordes arriving in Lampedusa.
They are not the only ones coming though.,.8k per day was reported a few days ago.
I am sure the average American will be happy to compete against hundreds of thousands of new job seekers.
“Average”? Not sure who are the average Americans. Their middle class (as in most westerns countries) being quickly put out to pastures by either using another countries cheaper labour or robotics. AI is rapidly becoming a threat to many disciplines and not everyone has the aptitude to become coders or any of the high end careers. Only the those at the top of their game will survive into the foreseeable future.
None of this was unanticipated. It’s part of the plan, a regrettable but necessary step in the effort to undo America from root to branch.
Nothing that has happened on the border hasn’t been foreseen and accepted beforehand. Veterans turned out of motels to make room for illegals? Yeah, lets do that. Exponential rise in drug deaths and addiction? OK. Vagrancy? Oh, well..
No one knows what’s going to happen next except administration operatives and their associates in the NGO and agency superstructure. They knew last year because they planned it.
The Maoist method of cultural revolution aka Western Marxism/globalism is to breakdown & disrupt, followed by offering a new unity to scared and exhausted populations. We are in phase 1…
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This would be a national emergency if the Press actually covered Biden with any integrity.
Oh they covered Biden saying the border crisis is due to (not making this up) MAGA Republicans.
Lord help us all, this is all a terrible ,dystopian situation that seems to be getting worse for all concerned. This is a very worrying situation and frankly I can’t see it ending any time soon.
The purpose of left and “liberal” governments in the west seems to be to bale water enthusiastically into a sinking ship.
It won’t matter how the populace feels, we are facing our own replacements. This administration has no interest in our opinion. Once they start having babies it’s over. Biden said on a campaign stop that we could easily absorb 3 million. I can’t believe the opposition media is not dragging out that clip.
The best thing Biden could do vis a vis Venezuelans is to get rid of the unfair sanctions on Venezuela, and to work with the legitimate Venezuelan government for mutual benefit.
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