The Week: Biden’s Amnesty Plan for Illegal Immigrants

• Maybe the whole past four years have been a fake video.

• That Biden chose the twelfth anniversary of DACA to promulgate his new immigration order is fitting. Indeed, all that was missing was a commemorative sign that read, “Twelve years of ignoring the Constitution.” Adopting his decreasingly persuasive tough-guy pose, Biden told the audience, “Folks, I’m not interested in playing politics with the border or with immigration.” Considered from any angle, this was a disgraceful thing to say. For a start, Joe Biden has, in fact, “played politics” with the border, and he did so again in this speech, when he pretended preposterously that it was “Trump and the Republicans”—rather than the progressive wing of his coalition—who were standing in the way of his ability to deal with the problem. More broadly, though, “politics” is precisely what has been missing from this White House’s approach to immigration. President Biden did not consult Congress when he decided to open up the border, and he has not consulted Congress now that he has decided to pursue a mass amnesty. Were the border to be secured, the public might well be more open to dealing sympathetically with the often difficult question of whom to prioritize for deportation and whom to put on a path toward legalization. But the border has not been secured, and there seems no prospect of the border’s being secured anytime soon, and, as a result, there exists a great deal of skepticism toward rewarding yet another generation of lawbreakers. Just this month, polling showed that, in nearly every demographic group, majorities of American voters have come to support mass deportations. That President Biden’s response to this has been to announce the ultra vires amnesty of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants is not solely bad politics; it is an affront to our constitutional system, to our democracy, and to the claim that nobody is above the law.

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• Maybe the whole past four years have been a fake video.

• That Biden chose the twelfth anniversary of DACA to promulgate his new immigration order is fitting. Indeed, all that was missing was a commemorative sign that read, “Twelve years of ignoring the Constitution.” Adopting his decreasingly persuasive tough-guy pose, Biden told the audience, “Folks, I’m not interested in playing politics with the border or with immigration.” Considered from any angle, this was a disgraceful thing to say. For a start, Joe Biden has, in fact, “played politics” with the border, and he did so again in this speech, when he pretended preposterously that it was “Trump and the Republicans”—rather than the progressive wing of his coalition—who were standing in the way of his ability to deal with the problem. More broadly, though, “politics” is precisely what has been missing from this White House’s approach to immigration. President Biden did not consult Congress when he decided to open up the border, and he has not consulted Congress now that he has decided to pursue a mass amnesty. Were the border to be secured, the public might well be more open to dealing sympathetically with the often difficult question of whom to prioritize for deportation and whom to put on a path toward legalization. But the border has not been secured, and there seems no prospect of the border’s being secured anytime soon, and, as a result, there exists a great deal of skepticism toward rewarding yet another generation of lawbreakers. Just this month, polling showed that, in nearly every demographic group, majorities of American voters have come to support mass deportations. That President Biden’s response to this has been to announce the ultra vires amnesty of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants is not solely bad politics; it is an affront to our constitutional system, to our democracy, and to the claim that nobody is above the law.