President Joe Biden removed all doubt this week: The crisis on our southern border is due to his weakness, and far-Left activists truly are running the White House.
Biden’s administration announced this week that it will repeal Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy, by the end of May. Title 42 is a public health order, originally recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that allows United States Border Patrol to turn away migrants at the border.
Because Biden has dismantled every other border protection tool, Title 42 is the only line of defense we have from being overrun by migrants from every country on Earth. In fact, the only reason the thousands of new migrants, who will soon be crossing our border, aren’t already here is because a federal judge forced Biden to reinstate President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which Biden is still trying to repeal.
Biden knows what he’s doing. Besides Border Patrol, the White House has been the best source for information on how catastrophic ending Title 42 will be. Just last week, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield said the administration has “every expectation” that lifting Title 42 will result in an “influx” of people at the border.
The Department of Homeland Security has estimated the number of migrants encountered daily at the border could swell to 18,000, up from 7,000 per day now.
For reference, Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in 2019 that 1,000 border crossings a day is a crisis. “I cannot begin to imagine what 4,000 a day looks like,” Johnson said at the time.
So, why is Biden rushing to repeal Title 42 so quickly, without any backup plan in place to prevent our southern border from being overrun? The answer is obvious: He’s just doing what the Left wants him to do.
Last month, a group of 87 liberal activist groups sent a letter to the White House, saying they were concerned that the administration’s plans to eliminate Title 42 “seem to have been abandoned.”
This letter was intended to put the White House on notice. The activists warned: “The ongoing use of Title 42 undermines our trust in the administration.”
Several Democratic lawmakers have thrown their support behind these activists, including Reps. Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley, both of whom have fought against Title 42 within Congress.
What kind of message does it send to the rest of the world that this White House can be bent to your will using just a strongly worded letter?
There is no need for this. For starters, Biden had all the political cover he needed to keep Title 42 in place. Several high-level Democrats came out in favor of Title 42 and called on Biden not to revoke it, including Sens. Joe Manchin, Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly, and Kyrsten Sinema.
Moreover, public opinion polls routinely show the public supports immigration security measures and overwhelmingly disapproves of Biden’s handling of immigration issues. The White House wouldn’t need to do much to sell a decision to protect our nation’s border security.
But, instead, Biden caved to the extreme anti-border security voices of the far Left.
And, even worse, he hid behind the CDC to announce this bad decision for him. Make no mistake — this was Biden’s call. He just doesn’t want his fingerprints on the murder weapon.
I have spent the last year calling on Biden to take action on the border. Now that I see what action from him looks like, I desperately want him to do nothing. Nothing would be so much better than actively making his self-created border crisis worse.
Mike Braun (@SenatorBraun) is a U.S. senator serving Indiana. Before he was elected to the Senate in 2018, he was the CEO and founder of a trucking business in his hometown of Jasper, Indiana.
