On the menu today: Here is one of the clearest signs that Joe Biden is attempting to steer back to the middle as his reelection bid approaches, and a sign that every previous policy choice he’s made is renegotiable if it will help his reelection bid: The Biden administration is now considering reviving the practice of detaining migrant families who cross the border illegally, a policy Biden denounced as a candidate in 2020.
Biden: Hey, Maybe We Should Start Detaining Migrant Families Again
Welcome to the new, tacking-to-the-middle portion of the Biden presidency. Last week, the president tossed aside his previous comments about home rule for the District of Columbia to overrule a sweeping change to the district’s criminal code that would have reduced sentences for crimes such as carjacking. This week, the president is contemplating bringing back detaining migrant families, a policy he repeatedly denounced as a presidential candidate in 2019 and 2020. The New York Times report landed like a bombshell among immigration-policy wonks:
The Biden administration is considering reviving the practice of detaining migrant families who cross the border illegally — the same policy the president shut down over the past two years because he wanted a more humane immigration system, officials familiar with the discussions said Monday.
Although no final decision has been made, the move would be a stark reversal for President Biden, who came into office promising to adopt a more compassionate approach to the border after the harsh policies of his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump.
The Biden administration has largely ended the practice of family detention, instead releasing families into the United States temporarily and using ankle bracelets, traceable cellphones or other methods to keep track of them.
Yesterday during the daily press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered her usual clear and illuminating answers:
Q: The President, shortly after he came to office, put an end to this policy of detaining migrant families. As a candidate, he said, “We should not be locking people up.” You aren’t ruling it out either. So why is this even being considered as a possible option now?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I’m just not com- — I’m just not going to comment on rumors that are out there. I’m not saying it’s being considered. I’m not saying any —
Q: But you’re not saying it’s not.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: But I’m not saying it is, and I’m not saying it is not. I’m saying that I’m not going to speak to rumors. There are rumors out there. Clearly, the Department of Homeland Security is working through ways on how to move forward once Title 42 is lifted. I’m just not going to get into speculations. I’m going to let them do their work. [Emphasis added.]
If the Biden administration were not considering this option, Jean-Pierre would just have said, “This administration is not considering this option.”
Describing this move as a stark reversal is like saying Benedict Arnold had some inconsistent loyalties.
The Biden campaign’s official website, 2020: “It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely.”
Biden tweeted June 27, 2020, “Children should be released from ICE detention with their parents immediately. This is pretty simple, and I can’t believe I have to say it: Families belong together.”
“A detention center is not where a family belongs,” Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told NBC News in March 2021.
Intriguingly, throughout 2021, a few advocates for illegal immigrants’ rights noticed that while the Biden administration was boasting it was ending or had ended the practice, the administration hadn’t changed the regulations that permitted the detention of families — leaving the door open to starting the detentions again. Two statements from the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) from that year look downright precognitive today.
Andrea Meza, an immigration attorney with RAICES, said in March 2021 that, “The changes at the Karnes and Dilley family prisons are at best, reversible operational changes that reduce the harm of long-term detention, and at worst, a temporary move to quell concern about this controversial immigration policy that will be undone with anti-immigrant political pressure.”
Then in December 2021, RAICES supervising attorney Javier Hidalgo again warned of a potential Biden flip-flop down the road.
“Anyone seeing this news and claiming the Biden Administration has ‘ended family detention’ at this point is enabling dangerous propaganda,” Hidalgo said. “We would love to see and celebrate the end of family detention, but unfortunately, this is not it. While currently there are no migrant families in detention centers, President Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas have made no official policy changes in regards to family detention or the Karnes and Dilley family prisons. That means DHS can bring families back into these facilities at any point, as they have done before.”
But as with many public-policy problems, the issue of how to handle migrant families attempting to illegally cross the U.S.–Mexican border looked easier on the campaign trail than it does in the Oval Office.
Overall, illegal border crossings are at a record high, and that surge includes more families coming together.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection classifies family members as family unit aliens, or FMUA. In fiscal year 2020 — stretching from October 2019 to September 2020, which includes the first half-year or so of the Covid pandemic — CBP encountered just 70,000 or so family unit aliens at the southern border. By fiscal year 2021 — from October 2020 to September 2021 — that jumped to almost 480,000 family unit aliens. By fiscal year 2022 — from October 2021 to September 2022 — it was up to 560,000 family unit aliens. So far this fiscal year, the total number of family unit aliens encountered is about 238,000.
When you tell migrants in Central America that you will no longer detain families, migrants start bringing their families.
The administration is in this mess, in part, because it got what it wanted, lifting the CDC’s Title 42 Public Health Order, which will expire on May 11, 2023. Under Title 42, the government had the authority to quickly expel migrants, including asylum seekers, seeking entry into the U.S. at land borders, in order to reduce the spread of Covid-19. The Department of Homeland Security anticipates “elevated levels of encounters” after the lifting of Title 42.
Yesterday, Jean-Pierre insisted that a reinstatement of detention of migrant families under Biden would be very different than the detention of migrant families under Trump: “A lot of people have compared what the President is doing as either extending what Trump did or being very Trump-like, and I just want to make sure that that is not — that is not what is happening here.”
You don’t have to agree with a progressive Democrat to understand why Biden drives them nuts. In Biden’s world, everything is negotiable, even policies he denounced as a candidate. And when he enacts the same policies as his predecessor, he and his team will insist it is completely different, because Biden operates with a pure heart, while his predecessor was pure xenophobic evil. When the other guy does it, it’s deliberate, unneeded, heartless malevolence; when Biden does it, it’s just a pragmatic concession to hard realities.
ADDENDA: Yesterday was another day of excellence for Jean-Pierre, as she also claimed that the amount of Fentanyl flowing across the border was at “historic lows.” No, it is not.
Up in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams is now asking citizens to briefly remove their masks when entering stores as an anti-crime policy. Everybody in the mask wars, switch sides!
Over in that other Washington publication I write for, I examine West Virginia senator Joe Manchin’s saying he hasn’t ruled out any options for 2024, including running for president. At first glance, that spurs a Biden-esque “Come on, man!” but there is that organization No Labels that wants to run an independent against Biden and Trump (if Trump is nominated).