Immigration reform and border security were nowhere to be found on a list of President Joe Biden’s major accomplishments that the White House sent Friday touting his wins during his first two years in office.
In a “cheat sheet” of how Biden is “delivering results” to the country, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield highlighted ways that the economy, federal courts, foreign policy, and more had improved or flourished since Jan. 20, 2021.
But nowhere on the list was immigration reform or border management mentioned despite their having been leading issues in the 2020 presidential election.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said she was not surprised to see the issue missing from the list.
“Even in a document that includes so many assumptions and undeserved self-congratulatory rhetoric, it’s no surprise the crisis at our southern border was omitted," Capito wrote in a statement to the Washington Examiner. "While President Biden is citing accomplishments over his first two years, it took him almost that long to even visit the border to see the problem in the first place.”
A senior researcher at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington agreed with Capito's assessment.
“It is not surprising to see that a White House ‘cheat sheet’ listing the achievements of President Biden’s first two years in office would leave off anything to do with immigration or the border,” said Simon Hankinson, who works at the foundation's border security and immigration center. “Any chief executive who had presided over the highest numbers of illegal aliens crossing into the U.S. in American history would not want that to be a featured bullet point in a greatest hits list."
Under Biden, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has recorded 5 million times that federal law enforcement has encountered noncitizens attempting to enter the country unlawfully between Feb. 1, 2021, and Nov. 30, 2022. The figure is beyond any other two-year period in national history.
Instead, the list told Democrats to tout Biden’s work lowering the price of gas, insulin, and health insurance premiums as the country continues through a period of high inflation. It even noted that dishwashers have come down in price.
Biden “brought together Democrats and Republicans to pass the most sweeping gun safety law in nearly 30 years” and “restored our global alliances and rallied partners across the world to stand up to Russian aggression and support Ukraine.”
Not only did Biden have nothing positive to tout about the border, but his administration also created new immigration policies that Hankinson said violated federal law.
The immigration policy analyst believed that Biden-era policy changes, including the introduction of a new type of “parole” immigration status that allows for the swifter release of immigrants who illegally cross the border, were part of the White House’s attempt to “facilitate and accelerate the entrance and dispersal of illegal aliens, rather than deter, detain, or deport them as the law prescribes.”
“Biden inherited the most secure border in recent memory, and in a short time, he and Secretary Mayorkas have deliberately dismantled every aspect of border security and immigration integrity,” Hankinson said.
However, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told hundreds of mayors gathered in Washington for the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday that the Biden administration’s latest change, a requirement that immigrants from top-sending countries seek appointments with border officials rather than entering illegally, was bearing results.
“Two weeks ago, we announced new lawful pathways
for noncitizens seeking relief in the United States, accompanied by a
consequence regime for those who do not avail themselves of those processes,”
Mayorkas said during a speech. “Since then, encounters from the targeted
countries dropped significantly.”