“In fiscal year 2017, the last year of the Obama administration and the first of Trump’s, 303,916 migrants were arrested by the Border Patrol. This was the lowest level in more than three decades. The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations had worked hard to tackle the problem of illegal migration through substantial increases in border security staffing, improvements in technology, innovations in strategy and improved security coordination and assistance to Mexico. Coupled with improved economic conditions in Mexico, these administrations were hugely successful in deterring and breaking the cycle of illegal crossing: Unlawful Mexican economic immigration, which had historically been the primary immigration enforcement issue at the border, dropped nearly 90 percent between 2000 and 2016.”
So how did border crossings go from a 40-year low to a crisis in 4 years? Alan Bersin, former Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Assistant Secretary and Chief diplomatic officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Nate Bruggeman, Fomer Policy Staff for the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, and Ben Rohrbaugh former Director for Enforcement and Border Security at the National Security Council, wrote an article published in Politico on April 5, 2019 titled:
Yes, There’s a Crisis on the Border. And It’s Trump’s Fault. In this article, the authors argue that President Trump's singular focus on constructing a border wall—regarded as a vanity project—rather than addressing and reforming the asylum system contributed to the challenges at the border witnessed during President Biden's term.
“Despite the administration’s attempts to shift blame for the chaos, make no mistake: It is Donald Trump himself who is responsible. Through misguided policies, political stunts and a failure of leadership, the president has created the conditions that allowed the asylum problem at the border to explode into a crisis. The solution to our current border troubles lies in reforming the U.S. asylum system and immigration courts and helping Central America address its challenges—not in a “big beautiful” wall or shutting down the border. Yet effective action on these issues has been missing. And the president has now so poisoned the political well with his approach that there is little hope of meaningful congressional action until after the next election. Unless the administration changes course, the immigration crisis will only continue to worsen.”
These words were written nearly 2 years before Biden was sworn into office on January 20th, 2021. The COVID pandemic was undoubtedly a major concern beginning in 2020; however, when running for President, you are declaring to the nation that you can manage multiple complex issues simultaneously. Donald Trump was warned in 2019 that he needed to change the focus of his immigration policy and did not. But when the dam eventually broke during Biden, he was there to point the finger at Joe Biden as was many others. I am not claiming that Biden was the most effective president regarding the southern border, but I'm saying that according to experts in border security, the actions Trump took during his first presidency created the situation Biden found himself in.
Instead of wasting his time on a wall, the president should fix the asylum system.
www.politico.com
Then there is the Lankford -Sinema border bill that was supported by the Border Patrol Agents that Trump told Republicans to kill, while he was a private citizen so he could use it as a campaign issue. So no, Trump created the problem and made certain it stayed a problem while Biden was the president.
