When President Joe Biden took office on January 20, 2021, he did what he had promised: He rescinded many of former President Donald Trump’s draconian immigration policies.

But three years into his presidency, Biden and Democratic leadership have shifted their approach to immigration, focusing primarily on law enforcement, restrictions and punishments. – a strategy sometimes indistinguishable from the Trump administration. Their positions have shifted significantly to the right, in part due to Republican attacks and changing public opinion on border security.

This has left immigrant rights advocates wondering whether Democrats will again focus on providing pathways to legal status for millions of unauthorized immigrants in the US.

“What we’re seeing is that the center of the Democratic Party is now adopting the same policies, the same positions, that the MAGA Republicans were fighting for about six years ago,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic. of Columbia Law. School, he told NPR.

Some immigrant rights advocates say misinformation, as well as a record number of unauthorized crossings during the Biden administration, have put Democrats in a position where they have to show they can be tough at the border.

Additionally, Republican-led states have been trying to regulate immigration on their own.

“Outdated” approach

Over the past six months, Biden has issued a series of executive actions that mirror those of the Trump administration, including limiting most asylum claims at the U.S. southern border.

That proposal went into effect in the summer. and temporarily suspended processing of most asylum applications after the seven-day average of unauthorized crossings at the southern border exceeded 2,500.

This was the same rule that Trump used in 2017 to ban the entry of immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries, and again in 2018 to suspend the right to seek asylum for immigrants who cross the border illegally.

Ahead of 2024, Biden was already adopting some of Trump’s immigration proposals: kept Title 42 in force for two yearsa provision aimed at quickly returning migrants to Mexico for public health reasons.

Andrea Flores, who served as director of border management at the National Security Council during the Biden administration, said Democrats continue to use an “outdated” approach first used by former President Barack Obama and expanded by Trump, “which has “to do with the asylum.” and restrict asylum and prevent people from submitting asylum applications.”

Flores said that over the past decade, both Democrats and Republicans have looked at the issue of border security through the lens of limiting or expanding access to asylum.

“But that’s not really a complete answer to the challenges we see at the border,” Flores said. “It’s less about how Democrats have changed; it’s more about why we’re not talking about better solutions than it is about the same policies that have already failed to create order on the US-Mexico border.”

There has been some progress, Flores acknowledges.

One example, he says, is Biden’s policies that have reduced the number of unauthorized crossings while protecting migrants fleeing their countries. He humanitarian parole The program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans allows up to 30,000 eligible immigrants per month to come to the United States for up to two years after being tested.

The idea behind the program is to reduce the number of immigrants trying to come to the United States illegally.

According to the American Immigration CouncilNearly 500,000 immigrants from those four countries have arrived in the United States in the last two years under the humanitarian parole program.

“That innovation, more than any asylum restriction in the last 10 years, led to the most sustainable drop in the number of people crossing the border without authorization,” Flores said.

According to the Department of Homeland SecurityEncounters with migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua between ports of entry have decreased 99 percent since the program began. Early last month, the White House announced it would not renew the legal status of those in the country under the parole program.

White House spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández told NPR in a statement that the Biden administration “has presented a balanced approach to securing our border and making our immigration system more fair and equitable.”

Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images

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VCG via Getty Images

He said the most recent policies have led to a more than 55 percent decrease in illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border.

In December, border agents processed nearly 250,000 immigrants, a record number. But those numbers have dropped sharply since Biden’s asylum restrictions. In September, the number of immigrants processed was about 54,000.

Fernández Hernández said the White House continues to call on Congress to “reform our broken immigration system, pass the bipartisan Senate bill, and provide the funding we have requested for additional border security personnel and resources.”

That bipartisan border agreement had initial support in the Senatebut went off the rails after Trump convinced House Republicans to oppose it.

That legislation would have reformed the asylum system, imposing severe restrictions on asylum seekers and raising the initial threshold of credible fear for migrants. It would also have increased detention capacity.

The proposal would also have created a path to citizenship for Afghan evacuees and allies.

But Democrats’ approach has created uncertainty, said Mukherjee of Columbia Law School.

“There is a real sense of fear… in immigrant communities across the country ahead of the impending elections,” Mukherjee said. “Because no matter who takes office, it is very likely that we will see massive changes in the immigration system.”

Trump’s impact on Democratic policies

To many immigration observers, the positions taken by Democrats over the past decade appear to contrast with policies proposed by leaders they once considered close allies.

Bruna Sollod belongs to United We Dream Action, the political arm of an advocacy organization led by immigrant youth. His organization was key in pressuring Obama to launch the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA, in 2012.

She says the way Republicans have mischaracterized the increase in migrant crossings along the US southern border has pushed Democrats to take more restrictive measures.

“The Republican Party, the MAGA Republicans, have been so strategic in lying to the American people about this crisis at the border that now everyone believes this is happening when it’s not,” Sollod said.

According to the results of a survey published by the Pew Research Center Last month, an overwhelming majority of Trump and Harris supporters favor “improving border security.”

Nearly 30 percent of Harris supporters support mass deportations, according to the Pew survey.

Sollod says he thinks Democrats have had to try to be “seen as tough.”

“The thing is, he will never be seen as tougher on immigration than Donald Trump, who has promised mass detentions and deportations of people,” Sollos said.

Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, says Trump’s focus on false narratives about immigrants is one of the reasons the conversation about immigration has changed so much.

“The Democrats’ response, in my opinion, should be to provide a vision of what a functional, orderly, legal and humane immigration system could look like,” Casar said.

That includes, Casar says, pathways to citizenship.

“The Democratic Party should be able to go on the offensive on that issue,” Casar said. “Unfortunately, I think Trump’s relentless fear-mongering and scapegoating of immigrant communities has led the Democratic Party to be more fractured on this issue than it needs to be.”

Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

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The Washington Post via Getty Images

Cautious optimism about Harris

Many immigrant rights activists are cautiously optimistic about what a Harris presidency could mean for immigration.

Harris’ campaign declined a request for comment and referred NPR to comments the vice president made in Arizona last month. There, he asked to renew the immigration system. He promised more punitive measures for immigrants who cross illegally and called for a path to citizenship for “hard-working immigrants who have been here for years.”

Sollod, of United We Dream Action, said many of Harris’s policies don’t fully align with her group’s priorities, but she said she believes a potential Harris administration could be persuaded to adopt more progressive policies.

“I know it won’t be easy, because it never is,” Sollod said. “Through this work I have learned that politicians never do anything out of the goodness of their hearts; “They do things when pressured.”

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