Who is responsible for the border crisis?

Republicans claim that the Biden administration caused it by rolling back Trump-era border security measures, and the administration blames the Republicans for not supporting Biden’s $4 billion border security funding request and his immigration reform bill.

The situation at the border is very bad. Illegal border crossing apprehensions have increased during Biden’s presidency from 458,088 in fiscal 2020 to 2,378,944 in fiscal 2022. And there were 1.2 million gotaways. Gotaways are illegal crossers who are detected but not apprehended.

Are the Republicans right that the administration’s rollback of Trump’s border security measures caused the increase in illegal crossings? This certainly was a contributing factor, but it’s not the entire explanation.

Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols program

Under the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP program, individuals who arrive at the southern border and ask for asylum can be sent back to Mexico to wait for their asylum hearings instead of being allowed to wait in the United States. 

This discourages migrants who do not have good asylum claims and are just trying to get into the United States. The Biden administration’s restricted use of the program virtually eliminated this deterrent value.

When Biden became president on January 20, 2021, he ordered his administration to stop sending asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait for their hearings and to start winding down the program. By March, the MPP refugee camp in Mexico had been emptied out and nearly everyone in it had been released into the United States.

Then, on June 1, 2021, the administration terminated the program.

The states of Texas and Missouri successfully challenged the termination in federal court. On August 15, 2021, a federal judge issued an injunction ordering the administration to start the MPP program again and execute it in good faith.

The administration resumed the program but limited it almost exclusively to young men from Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba.

A year later, a federal judge lifted the injunction, and the administration resumed its efforts to terminate the program.

Trump’s Title 42 order

The administration has not been able to rescind the Title 42 order yet, but it has never fully complied with it.


Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/who-...en-republicans

Published original on Fox News

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an executive branch immigration law expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at: https://nolanhillop-eds.blogspot.com