Biden’s failure on border, immigration was even worse than we knew | Opinion

When Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, it was obvious that the complete change in direction he promised on immigration policy would lead to a surge of asylum requests and attempted illegal entries at the border with Mexico.

So obvious, in fact, that even Biden and his aides knew it.

Fresh reporting shows that before he was even sworn in, Biden was told the widespread damage his ideas would cause, and he charged ahead anyway. An extensive reconstruction by New York Times reporter Christopher Flavelle lays out how the new administration understood that millions of people might come to the U.S. as a result. Politics prevented them from changing course — even though, it turned out, they badly misread the political incentives and consequences.

The story also shows how Texas Gov. Greg Abbott finally changed their minds with his ingenious policy of busing newly arrived immigrants to Democratic-led jurisdictions so their governors and mayors could taste what the new policies were force-feeding Texas communities. Abbott’s campaign should pay to have a copy of the report mailed to every voter in Texas.

This is not a matter of looking backward. President Donald Trump has largely clamped down on illegal entry. But the crisis could repeat, and lessons must be learned.

Democrats should note that Biden and his team got illegal immigration wrong in just about every way possible.

On the substance, they badly miscalculated how many people would come to the U.S., how the system for adjudicating asylum claims would stand up, the effect on communities receiving thousands of newly arrived poor people, and the dangers created for those they wanted to help: the migrants themselves.

The Times surfaces a Biden campaign memo from August 2020 that predicted “a humanitarian crisis” from a surge of migration that would overwhelm the government’s capacity to process people.

Officials have long known that new arrivals claim they need protection from persecution in their home countries even if the claims were specious. Asylum claims are now so numerous that anyone who makes one could stay in the U.S. for a decade before getting a court hearing.

Biden aides recommended steps such as creating detention centers or transferring claimants to other countries, The Times reports. But Biden, siding with the most progressive voices in his ear, did not want to take any step that resembled anything Trump might do.

It took years for the White House to finally accept the disaster and change course, and even then, it bungled efforts in Congress to address immigration. It’s fair to ask if this is yet another sign of an administration calcified by the stubbornness of the declining president at the top.

Biden, aides got immigration politics, Hispanic voters wrong

The gobsmacking part of the whole affair is that it was driven by a specific perceived political need — one that Biden and everyone around him got wrong.

They figured that to avoid angering Hispanic voters, long an important Democratic constituency but increasingly a swing group, they had to throw the country’s doors open. What they didn’t count on is that Hispanic Americans largely mirror other voters in believing that, while migrants should not be mistreated, the systems for coming or staying here must be orderly. Those whose families came here legally often resent those who take the law into their own hands.

Democrats missed an important escalation factor, too. The more the border seemed out of control, the tougher Americans wanted their government to get. Without realizing it, they shifted the terrain even further toward Trump.

There’s a moral component, too. It’s not good for the country or the migrants themselves to have millions of people, many of them unvetted young men, arrive and often struggle to find work or make ends meet. It strains government and charitable services. It makes life easier for human traffickers to exploit children, who were often seen as an express ticket into the U.S. How many young boys and girls suffered horrific danger and abuse along the way?

Why the Biden border failure still matters

The Times deserves great credit for shedding so much light on the topic, especially because so many figures involved in these flawed decisions spoke on the record about what happened. The repercussions will last.

It will take years to deal with the long-term cases of those allowed entry. Asylum courts will never catch up, and logistically, deporting all or even most of Biden’s beneficiaries isn’t possible. What happens to those people?

How do we prevent something like this from happening again? Border security has receded as an issue, thanks to Trump’s effective policies. But consider that part of what motivated Biden was to take steps ostentatiously different from Trump’s. In 2028, Democratic candidates will again climb over each other to show primary voters how much of Trump’s agenda they’ll undo.

Perhaps they’ll be more careful than the 2020 field was when, asked for a show of hands, every major presidential candidate promised a health care plan that would cover people in the country illegally. At one point, all but one candidate pledged to decriminalize the act of crossing the border without authorization. So, open borders will probably be on the menu again as candidates jockey for the “most progressive” prize.

We know, in great detail, how Biden willfully failed on immigration. Even if future candidates moderate, or at least try to talk a good game, voters will have to decide if they really learned the lesson.

This story was originally published December 13, 2025 at 4:25 AM.