Last week, I asked immigration and border expert David Bier what he thought were the top three false narratives proclaimed, promoted, and propagated during this year’s campaign season. His response: (1) “Donald Trump had the most secure border in America’s history,” (2) “Joe Biden opened America’s borders to illegal immigration,” and (3) “Recent immigration is helping Democrats.” From there we tackle each point individually in a conversation that will hopefully also assist you in navigating your discussions about the border and immigration, discussions that will inevitably intensify during the next several months.
David Bier is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today, among other publications. In May, he testified before the House Committee on the Budget in the U.S. House of Representatives on the “cost of the border crisis.” You can also follow him on Twitter, where he regularly deconstructs border and immigration narratives.
Trump didn’t have the most secure border in U.S. history? Can you elaborate?
Many people point to April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, when the world was shut down as proof for this. But looking at his entire term, it is impossible to make the case that Trump’s border policies solved illegal migration. In December 2020—the last full month that President Trump was in office—the Border Patrol recorded the highest number of arrests of crossers for any December to that point since December 1999. The same month, Border Patrol recorded the highest number of successful evasions, also called “gotaways,” going back to December 2006. Compared to December 2016—the month before Trump took office—arrests increased 64 percent, and evasions had more than doubled.
Even the Democrats seem to be responding to the perception that Biden has opened the border. For example, last week’s executive order seemed to be an election maneuver responding to this, among other things. Can you explain why this perception is untrue?
Biden did not open the border. In fact, it’s the opposite. Biden failed to open asylum processing at legal crossing points in 2021, which caused many people to cross illegally. He then attempted to maintain the Title 42 expulsion policy that banned asylum during the pandemic, expelling as many people as Mexico would accept and the Border Patrol could get onto buses. But Mexico would not accept everyone, and it was not possible to detain as many people as were entering, given the limited number of detention spots available. Consequently, the Border Patrol inevitably released some people. These releases represented a smaller percentage of arrests than under Trump, and it was in no way a Biden policy choice. As Biden said in his first press conference, “They should all be going back.” Even after Title 42 ended, he has attempted to enforce the most severe asylum restrictions in the history of U.S. asylum law.
But post hoc ergo propter hoc is a common fallacy for a reason. Migration did increase after Biden’s inauguration, so it’s easy to say, “After this, therefore because of this.” Biden did change some policies, but those changes mostly increased the efficiency of removals. You can’t efficiently target everyone, so he’s prioritized border enforcement. As a result, you can’t find a major enforcement measure that Biden has cut: arrests, detentions, or removals. Biden has increased` removals to levels not seen at any point during the Trump years (even though Trump released about 1 million crossers). All this enforcement obviously hasn’t stopped migration from overwhelming the Border Patrol’s ability to deport everyone who arrives. But this doesn’t show that Biden opened the border. It shows why we need a different approach.
Why did unauthorized immigration rise if it wasn’t Biden?
Immigration was already rising at the end of 2020, despite the pandemic, lockdowns, mass unemployment, the Title 42 asylum ban, and Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. As U.S. economic conditions improved, it was inevitable that migration would increase. Every month of the Biden administration after February 2021, the number of job openings was higher than any month before the Biden administration. These job prospects ultimately finance all migration, even for asylum seekers, because people borrow against their future earnings. That’s the primary pull factor. The secondary factor is the rapid rise of internet access in Central and South America from 2018 to 2021, which has led to a proliferation of information about how to enter the United States via social media. Today, it’s easy to get step-by-step instructions on how to get from any country to the U.S.-Mexico border in seconds.
The final factor is the conquering of the Darién Gap jungle, which separates North and South America. In 2021 most South Americans with enough money were flying to Mexico legally and coming to the U.S. border. The Biden administration pressured the Mexican government to cancel their visas. Consequently, this relatively “wealthier” population shifted from paying commercial airlines for tickets to paying smugglers to get them through the Darién Gap. This infusion of resources radically reduced the time, cost, and risk of getting through the jungle, cutting the time in the Darién from weeks to days. As a result, it opened the doors for people from around the world, with or without money, to find their way north.
Of course, the reason most of this migration has happened illegally is that the Biden administration did not “open” the border to let them in legally.
So, we do hear all the time about how recent immigration will significantly be helping the Democrats—can you explain the reasoning behind this and why it’s untrue?
The simplest version of this theory suggests that Biden lets immigrants into the country illegally, so they will vote to reelect him. It seems odd that Biden would let them in illegally if he wants them to come. Why would he want a certain percentage of “his future voters” to die on the way? Why not let them cross legally? Regardless, it is illegal for noncitizens to vote, and there is very strong evidence that noncitizens do not actually vote in large enough numbers to sway federal elections. So, assuming that immigrants were favorable to Biden, the plan would still fail. The less direct theory argues that recent illegal immigration boosts representation in Congress in Democratic states, but in fact, 95 percent of the net increase in the noncitizen population from 2019 to 2023 has occurred in Republican-controlled states.
In the long term, some immigrants will obviously become legal permanent residents and eventually naturalize to become U.S. citizens. Although it’s likely true that naturalized citizens tend to vote for Democrats at least initially, the more that Democrats cater to those voters, the more they risk losing voters elsewhere who are much more numerous. Overall, immigration has coincided with more competitive politics. During the low immigration period from 1935 to 1994, when the immigrant share of the population was below 10 percent, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress about 83 percent of the time. Since 1995, it’s been much more balanced, with Republicans in unified control about 53 percent of the time. I think competitive politics is better, but not everyone agrees. Either way, it’s not accurate to say that immigration has led to Democrats’ dominating politics.
What sort of messaging would you like to see from candidates that would promote an honest debate about the border and immigration?
Immigrants are not the problem. The current system is the problem. The way immigrants are forced to immigrate is the problem. We can create a system through which people come legally without disorder and contribute right away. This is the easy path. It’s easier to do this than to just stop migration. Crackdowns are more expensive and don’t work for very long. They don’t work because America is still a great country. People will always want and find ways to join it, and that’s a good thing. We should just find ways to let it happen legally.
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