Many Republicans believe the huge increases in migrants being stopped at the border, in numbers not seen in two decades, will be a politically potent tool in winning back Congress next year and, potentially, the presidency in 2024. 1.īut he has found other elements of Trump’s immigration legacy harder to uproot, because of political concerns, court rulings and the entrenched nature of the immigration bureaucracy. He has also reversed Trump’s attempt to essentially end the refugee program, with a promise to increase the cap on admissions to 125,000 in the budget year that begins Oct. The disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan undercuts his claim of bringing a reassuringly steady hand to world affairs, relying on the advice of seasoned professionals who stand in contrast to the novices of the Trump presidency.īiden has significantly altered the divisive rhetoric around immigration and has undone some of Trump’s policies, including construction of the border wall. These problems threaten to erode public confidence in Biden’s ability to live up to central promises of his presidency. “The problem is that when you are president, not only do you get credit for things that you are not responsible for, you also get blame for things you are not wholly responsible for. “The mess at the border is just the latest layer of a multilayered cake,” said William Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar who was a domestic policy advisor to President Clinton. troops from Afghanistan, the resurgence of COVID-19 and the emergence of divisions among Democrats that have held up legislation enacting his agenda. The seemingly intractable problems at the border are part of a recent series of events that have buffeted the White House and contributed to a steady decline in Biden’s approval ratings: the messy withdrawal of U.S.

But all three administrations relied on deterrence to some level.” “And the outcry to all of those made the administrations backtrack, at least on those tactics. Trump had the separation of kids from their families, and the Biden administration now has Border Patrol on horseback,” Brown said.

Biden policies