For President Donald Trump, inheriting a relatively
quiet and orderly southern border with Mexico is a political inconvenience. During his campaign, he painted an apocalyptic picture of migrants swarming the frontier, and he returned to the White House organized and ready for border wars, even as U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported fewer and fewer illegal crossings.
The president and his supporters would have the public believe that CBP One was an “
online concierge service for illegals,” as Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican,
recently described it. “They made an application to facilitate illegal immigration,” Vice President J. D. Vance declared last week. In fact, CBP One embodied the kind of imperfect but pragmatic compromise that’s essential in immigration policy. The app was introduced under the Trump administration in 2020 to manage cargo-truck crossings at the border. The Biden administration
expanded CBP One in 2023, creating a process by which a limited number of migrants could lawfully apply for asylum—which, under federal law, people fleeing persecution in their home countries are allowed to do—while also imposing considerable restrictions on that opportunity.
The recent decline in illegal crossings—the
46,600 illegal crossings in November represented the
lowest number in more than four years—is happening partly because Mexico and other countries throughout Latin America are clamping down on migration via their territory. But it’s
also because CBP One had helped to end a free-for-all and establish a well-organized line.
Despite his anti-immigrant rhetoric, Trump was not obviously more effective than other recent presidents in controlling migration flows.
The president would rather exploit a free-for-all than manage migrant flows effectively.
www.theatlantic.com
Just like he owns the bipartisan border bill he got killed last summer.
Nobody but a shit for brains magat believes any of it. It is entertaining watching the cult spin.
