RICH LOWRY: Joe Biden’s problems at the border are self-inflicted

There’s a lively internal debate in the GOP about the politics of a potential immigration deal with Joe Biden. Should Republicans, as Donald Trump is arguing, steer clear and let President Biden continue to bear the political costs of the border crisis? Or should they move the ball on policy as much as possible, even if it somewhat alleviates Biden’s difficulty going into the election?

This is a fascinating discussion, but it raises the question of why Biden wouldn’t make it moot by helping himself out of his own border crisis. There is no reason why Biden needs to wait on Republicans to try to constrain him into enforcing the law; he could start enforcing it himself.

Biden’s border crisis, which he initiated immediately upon taking office, is the starkest example in recent memory of a president engaging in wholly avoidable political self-harm.

George W. Bush’s presidency was blighted by the Iraq War. But Bush launched the operation on the assumption that the war would be relatively quick and easy, and once the insurgency began in earnest, there was no easy way out. In contrast, Joe Biden has it within his power to improve the border situation almost immediately — this is a crisis largely of choice.

Democrats hurt themselves badly with Obamacare in 2010, but it was a longtime priority that the party was willing to pay a significant political price to achieve. In contrast, Democrats haven’t spent a generation campaigning on open borders.

Regardless, Biden’s standing on the border is catastrophic. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, just 18 percent approve of his handling of the border, while 63 percent disapprove. His approval has dropped by half since the spring of 2021, and he has “the lowest rating on immigration for any president in past ABC News/Washington Post polls to ask the question since January 2004.”

This weakness doesn’t come in isolation. Biden is running against a Donald Trump who has made the border his calling card from the beginning. The former president often implausibly promises to solve problems with ease, such as his pledging to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. But he will indeed, if elected again, immediately deliver a border with almost no illegal crossings. There will again be a “Trump effect,” with migrants holding back out of fear that the infamous border hawk might — who knows? — drone them at Eagle Pass.

Rarely is the choice on a policy matter so stark as that between the Biden border, nearly open as a matter of preference, and the Trump border, tightly controlled as a matter of the highest priority. If Biden loses in the fall, this contrast will be one of the reasons why.

There are signs that the Biden White House understands the yawning vulnerability it has created for itself. And it may be trying to reduce the flow of migrants, so long as it doesn’t have fingerprints on it. Todd Bensman at the Center for Immigration Studies reports that daily numbers have gone down, apparently because Mexico has started cracking down on illegals after talks with the Biden administration in December.

This is progress, but why wouldn’t Biden simply return to the Trump policies that worked and take credit for ending a crisis that extends from El Paso to Chicago?

He’s probably been so stubbornly opposed to doing so because a de facto open border has now entered the left’s catechism. At this point, the thought of Biden admitting that things are out of control and Trump policies are the answer is as inconceivable as Mike Pence saying that, upon further reflection, we need a regime of legal abortion for humanitarian and political reasons, or Claudine Gay turning against affirmative action because it is corrupting the academy.

Republicans will have to decide what to do on a border deal, perhaps sooner rather than later. But Biden is deciding to give Trump an invaluable political gift every day.

Rich Lowry is on X @RichLowry.