“Understanding Joe Biden’s Immigration Strategy: Challenges, Reforms, and Impasses”

Immigration is the giant plaster, 3,200 kilometers long, which has stuck to the suits of American presidents for more than a quarter of a century. Since Bill Clinton, all the residents of the Oval Office have, in their own way, wanted to attack illegal immigrants crossing, at their own risk and peril, the arid immensities of the West or the Rio Grande. But none succeeded in settling the question – neither by a wall, nor by a reform.

A strategy on the razor’s edge

Today, it is Joe Biden’s turn to feel the suffocating breath of the Arizona desert: forced to distinguish himself from Donald Trump, whose migration policy he attacked – a threat to “Soul of America” according to him – the Democratic head of state has revoked the exceptional device put in place by his predecessor during the Covid… at the risk of creating a draft at the Mexican border. Last week, authorities reported more than 10,000 daily illegal crossings, a record.

Despite the criticism, Joe Biden assures that his strategy will pay off in the long term. A strategy on the razor’s edge. Basically, this descendant of Irish migrants, attached to his Catholic faith, believes, as he said during the campaign, in an America “safer, stronger and more prosperous with a healthy and humane migration system that welcomes migrants and allows them to contribute to the progress of our country”.

But he is not unaware that the file, politically, is burning. In practice, he tightened the conditions for access to asylum, sent reinforcements to the border, his ministers calling not to go to the United States. He also tried to tackle the basic problem – the misery and violence in Central America, the main focus of emigration to the American dream. A long process that has not yet borne fruit.

The reform of the immigration system, impasse in Washington

“The reality is that the American system has been overwhelmed for several decades, notes a European diplomat in Washington. Congress has been talking about reform since the turn of the century, but Democrats and Republicans can’t agree, not least because of the radical right-wing rhetoric of the Republican Party. »

It is common knowledge, for example, that the infrastructures at the Mexican border are insufficient and unsuitable, particularly for unaccompanied minors, as are the resources of the officials responsible for examining asylum applications. “But it is impossible to find an agreement in Washington to allocate appropriations to these positions in the prevailing anti-immigration discourse, notes Ludivine Gilli, director of the North America observatory of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. To militarize the border, yes. »

Danger for Joe Biden in 2024

For Joe Biden, and in particular in view of the presidential election of 2024, the file is all the more delicate as the Republicans now associate the border with a new scourge: fentanyl. This super-potent synthetic drug, 50 times stronger than heroin, is largely responsible for the rapid rise in the number of overdoses in recent years in the United States: nearly 107,000 deaths in 2021, compared to 70,000 in 2019 and 52,000 in 2015. However, Mexican cartels are the main suppliers, via the border.

This speech, at the heart of the campaign of the American right during the midterm elections, had only mixed success in November. But the economic context could provide grist for the Republican mill in the coming months. “Immigration has been a recurring topic in American political life, almost always. continues Ludivine Gilli. But this question is even more present in times of economic difficulties. Just remember the quotas put in place in the 1920s.” However, America, which is experiencing a sharp economic slowdown, is not immune to a recession in 2023.