The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“The Senate’s bipartisan agreement on border security was released in detailed bill form Sunday, and all sober analyses indicate it is even more of a complete capitulation by the Biden administration to longstanding Republican demands than predicted. Yet House Republican leadership and many hard-right GOP senators have escalated their frontal assault on the agreement, which began before it was even formalized. . . .
“As we and others have noted during negotiations on the agreement, [Donald] Trump has effectively ordered his congressional followers to kill this or any border agreement with Democrats. He has generally not even bothered concealing his self-serving nihilism on the topic: He wants the southern border to remain as chaotic as possible so he can use it against President Joe Biden in the coming presidential campaign.
“Still, it’s astonishing to watch Republicans forcefully reject an agreement that does virtually everything they have demanded regarding border control, while offering almost nothing to Democrats’ priorities.
The agreement would speed up the asylum process, which currently can take years, to no more than six months, in part by funding thousands of new asylum officers.
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement would receive almost $8 billion in emergency funding — nearly doubling the agency’s current annual budget — with much of it earmarked for expanded detention capabilities. Another $7 billion would be added for Border Patrol, including hiring additional patrol agents.
“The legislation would require Homeland Security to shut down the border if daily illegal crossings top 5,000 migrants on average, and couldn’t re-open again until illegal crossings drop by 75 percent after hitting those numbers. . . . The bill would pair approval of those border reforms with foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine, expenditures no responsible legislator should oppose. . . .
“In short, President Joe Biden — whether driven by dire poll numbers on the border issue, genuine determination to address the crisis, or some combination of both — has decided to embark on what is technically known in political negotiation jargon as giving away the store. . . .” — Biden Is Giving Away the Store on Immigration. Republicans Still Say No. Editorial Board, St. Louis Post Dispatch, 2/7/24 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This editorial is truly breathtaking in its disregard of truth and reality. It claims that the Senate bill, which now appears dead, was a measure which would have forced the Biden Administration to control the border. But unscrupulous Republicans opposed it because they wanted an out-of-control border as a campaign issue.
That’s an interesting speculation. But if the Post editorialists had wanted to speculate further on political motives, they might have considered the more likely possibility that a large number of Democrats want an open border to admit people they envision as a future voting bloc for their party.
After his election President Biden immediately began to dismantle Trump’s border reforms. If Biden truly cared to control the border, he wouldn’t have needed the Senate bill. He could simply reinstate Trumps’ reforms and enforce the immigration laws already on the books.
It is true that the Senate bill had some provisions for border control, but overall its effects would have been negative. It’s like pointing to the health benefits of the vitamins and minerals in a beverage without noting that it also has a fatal dose of arsenic. And the alleged benefits of the Senate bill probably wouldn’t have played out as well as its sponsors suggested.
Take for example the provisions to increase the Border Patrol and provide more space for detention. What good are more Border Patrol agents if the administration continues to use them as gate-greeters for illegal aliens rather than as law enforcement officers? Also there was nothing in the bill to require the administration to use the expanded detention space.
The provision to shut down the border if daily crossings exceeded 5,000 was temporary, riddled with loopholes, and still would have allowed allowed a high number of crossings. (For a detailed discussion of this issue click here.)
Interestingly, the editorialists endorse the provision in the bill to fund Ukraine, the amount totaling $60 billion. At the same time they are comfortable with a bill that gives just $15 billion to ICE and the Border Patrol. If they think that the security of Ukraine, measured in dollars, is four-times important as American security, then one can question the sincerity of their concern about our border..
Another ground for doubting their sincerity is that their failure to mention that the bill does nothing to reverse Biden’s basic open-border policies. The leading example is the parallel immigration system he has set up outside existing law to promote settlement of illegal aliens in the U.S. under the bogus premise that most of them are legitimate asylum seekers. President Trump’s remain-in-Mexico policy did much to prevent fake asylum claims, but the Senate bill didn’t reinstate this policy.
The Post editorialists are simply shilling for the Biden Administration and open borders. Most of the “mainstream” media follow this same path of misinformation and deception. It’s their stock in trade.