WASHINGTON —
Immigration has been a defining challenge of the Biden presidency, marked by record numbers of asylum-seekers and other migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. President Joe Biden pledged to modernize the nation’s immigration system and rebuild a refugee resettlement program that had hit historic lows under the previous administration.
But despite issuing a record number of immigration-related executive actions — surpassing the Trump administration — Biden’s efforts drew criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Critics on the right said the administration was being too lenient, while those on the left said it was too harsh.
The Biden administration inherited a fractured immigration system, including a backlog of asylum cases, a reduction in refugee processing capacity, and policies such as Title 42 that significantly shaped migration patterns.
During a webinar, Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at Migration Policy Institute (MPI), provided an overview of the Biden administration’s record. He noted that Biden’s approach to enforcement away from the border has been seen as largely favorable by experts and immigration advocates.
He said Biden administration officials focused on enforcement guidelines, rather than trying to deport everyone, yet the crisis at the border cast a long shadow over his legacy.
He emphasized the success of legal immigration under Biden, pointing to the high numbers of visas issued, the record number of naturalizations and the resurgence of refugee admissions.
About “3.5 million people were naturalized under the Biden administration, the highest of any one-term presidency,” he said.
However, Chishti said the administration’s handling of border security was less successful. The administration faced overwhelming numbers of migrants, many arriving from countries beyond Mexico and Central America.
“The Biden presidency entered office with a crisis at the border, which was precipitated by the COVID crisis and Title 42,” he said. The administration’s failure to call the situation a crisis, he added, contributed to a perception of mishandling, despite efforts to manage it through new programs like the CBP One app and various parole initiatives.
Handling the border
Marielena Hincapie, a visiting scholar at Cornell Law School who participated in the webinar, praised efforts under the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership to increase naturalization rates, expedite work permit processing, and implement innovative policies such as deferred action for undocumented workers who had experienced labor disputes.
These measures, she said, benefited not only immigrants but also the broader U.S. workforce and economy.
Hincapie also criticized the administration’s handling of border issues, calling it mismanagement.
She highlighted the role of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in exacerbating the crisis by busing and flying thousands of migrants to New York, Chicago and elsewhere.
Hincapie also pointed to additional involvement at the state level, saying, “There’s not only the busing and flying of migrants, which DeSantis did, but also litigation.”
“And I really see this as the Biden’s inner circle, his political and communications folks, failed to understand that this was a narrative war and the fact that they refused to call it a crisis when that is what voters were seeing. … They fell silent and decided not to prioritize immigration, and by doing so, they ceded the narrative,” she said.
Migration shifts
The Biden administration also faced shifts in migration patterns.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst at MPI, said the reality at the U.S.-Mexico border shifted once again during Biden’s term with migrants arriving in large numbers from across the Western Hemisphere and from countries around the world.
The demographics of migrants also changed, she said, from single adults to families, and many were seeking asylum, further complicating border processing.
U.S. law offers asylum to people facing persecution in their home countries on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group.
Though there are two kinds of asylum, affirmative and defensive, not all asylum claims come from migrants arriving at the border. Immigrants may claim affirmative asylum within one year of their latest arrival in the United States or request a defensive asylum while fighting an order of deportation.
“All this resulted in a high number of migrants released into the interior of the U.S.,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said.
This brought the border crisis into the interior of the nation, with large numbers of newly arrived migrants heavily concentrated in cities like New York, Chicago and Denver — cities already facing housing shortages.
Putzel-Kavanaugh also praised the Biden administration’s work to pair increased enforcement with options for safe and orderly legal migration.
“We saw the introduction of programs like CBP One app, which allowed migrants to make appointments at ports of entry along the border, and the parole program for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela,” she said.
Despite these efforts, Putzel-Kavanaugh said many saw the measures as “too little, too late.”
But that shift in migrant arrivals from irregular crossings to legally arriving at ports of entry has been one of the few success stories of Biden’s border management strategies.
Monthly migrant encounters dropped significantly from the highs of December 2022, with a decrease from more than 300,000 encounters to about 106,000 in October 2024, according to CBP figures.
Issue for years to come
While Biden’s efforts to modernize immigration systems and address asylum claims were significant, experts said the ongoing challenges of irregular migration and border security will remain a focal point in U.S. immigration policy for years to come.
“I do think in summary, we do have two real important crises in our country,” Chishti said. “We do have a labor market crisis across occupations from low, mid to high levels [and a border crisis]. This is why a lot of these people who have come in, even though they came irregularly, have been absorbed.”
Chishti pointed to remarks in 2022 from Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, about the U.S. labor market and its dynamics. Powell said immigration is a key source of labor supply, and the significant decline in immigration levels during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the labor supply-demand mismatch.
That shortfall in immigration resulted in fewer workers available to fill jobs, particularly in sectors that traditionally rely on immigrant labor, such as health care, hospitality and agriculture. Powell acknowledged that addressing the labor supply constraints, including through immigration policy, could help ease pressure to raise wages and reduce inflation without significant harm to employment levels.
“The reason nothing is happening on changes or reform to our legal immigration system — so we can get more people legally for our labor market needs — is because of the crisis of the border,” Chishti said.
“These are twin crises, but they’re getting interlinked,” he said. “Unless we get the border crisis under control, we won’t be able to address our labor market crisis.”
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