Mr. Biden’s box-check visit to a humanitarian crisis

President Biden has been asked about the humanitarian crisis at the southern U.S. border many times since his presidency began. During a CNN Town Hall more than 14 months ago, in October 2021, he said:

“I’ve been there before. I mean, I know it well,” Biden told an audience in Baltimore: “I guess I should go down but the whole point of it is, I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down.” 

Actually, Joe Biden does not “know it well.” To do that, he would have had to visit it at some point during his more than 50 years in government, but that has never happened. 

Things got somewhere between comical and insulting when then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki was challenged on Biden’s assertion that he had visited the border before, for which no one had any record. 

“He did drive through the border when he was on the campaign trail in 2008. And he is certainly familiar with the fact — and it stuck with him — with the fact that in El Paso, the border goes right through the center of town,” Psaki said with a straight face in October 2021. 

So, since Biden “did drive through the border” in a motorcade on his way to a campaign stop in New Mexico nearly 15 years ago, that somehow counts as a trip to assess border security, speak to Border Patrol agents about conditions on the ground, and tour border facilities. 

None of which happened, of course — because Biden simply landed in El Paso, got in a car and went to New Mexico for a speech that had nothing to do with immigration or the border. 

So, after the president announced that he will visit the border today, one can’t help but wonder what the result will be in terms of finding solutions. His accusatory (and dishonest) comments last week left little room for optimism: “We need more resources at the border, but yet again extreme Republicans have said no. It’s time to stop listening to their inflammatory talk.”

The president added that Republicans “haven’t been serious at all” about the border crisis — an interesting argument, since almost all GOP lawmakers have talked about the crisis, often while visiting the border, long before the commander in chief ever did. 

Rhetoric and finger-pointing aside, the numbers are staggering: Approximately 5 million migrants reportedly have crossed the border in the first two years of this presidency alone. For perspective, that’s about seven times the population of Washington, D.C., or Boston or Denver. 

Nearly 100 of those who have crossed are on the federal terror watchlist — and those are just the ones we’ve caught.  

Fentanyl continues to pour across the border, largely fueling opioid deaths to the point that it is the leading killer of those between the ages of 18 and 49. 

Fourteen border agents have committed suicide this year. 

More than 850 migrants have died attempting to enter U.S. soil.

Even some Democratic leaders are calling on the Biden administration to take this issue head-on. “One time we had to deal with Republican governors sending migrants to New York. Now we’re dealing with Democratic governors sending migrants to New York,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said at a recent press conference. 

“What’s callous is how we have been ignored as a city. And now I have to make tough decisions on the resources of New York … it is time for the federal government to step up,” he added. 

On the other side of the country, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California also is sounding the alarm. “The fact is, what we’ve got right now is not working and is about to break in a post-(Title) 42 world unless we take some responsibility and ownership,” he told ABC News last month. 

Three major things need to be done to bring the border crisis back to the manageable levels we saw before this administration took office: 

• Restart border wall construction, which was halted in January 2021;

• Reinstate the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry on the border to be returned to Mexico to wait until their U.S. immigration proceedings are complete;

• End the catch-and-release of illegal border-crossers. 

The key here is seeing where the president will visit: If it was Eagle Pass or Del Rio, Texas, then he might be serious about addressing this issue, given those are where the largest influxes of migrants are pouring in. But the president chose El Paso instead, because the optics are simply less bad (although still not great). 

Ahead of the visit, the president did announce some measures to slow the flow. Per Reuters: “The United States will expand Trump-era restrictions to rapidly expel Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. At the same time, the United States will allow up to 30,000 people from those three countries plus Venezuela to enter the country by air each month.”

Biden acknowledged that expanding Trump-era policy will not end the crisis but will help “a good deal in managing what is a difficult challenge.” So, if that’s the case, why wait two years to do something, until things got out of control? 

Once this visit is complete, ask yourself this: Will the response continue to be the same in terms of pointing to an ambiguous “immigration reform plan” that doesn’t include a border wall, the “Remain in Mexico” policy and an increase in the number of Border Patrol agents needed to manage the crisis? Because this administration will never agree to at least two of the first three proposals, as both would alienate Biden’s base ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign. 

Instead, it’s easy to see Biden making this statement: “In order to be serious about this issue, I call on Republicans in Congress to join my Democratic colleagues in passing comprehensive immigration reform. They have the majority in the House now, and the problem can only be fixed starting in the Congress. The time for cheap talk is over.”

In other words, punt with no real incentive to negotiate. 

The catastrophe at the southern border has become so bad that Biden finally is making his first visit there. But don’t expect the man billed as a great unifier to work with the other side to address it in a serious way. Instead, expect what Washington does best: Grandstanding, blame-games and photo-ops. 

There is a presidential election in 667 days, after all. 

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.