Democrats Believe They're Winning the Border War

Democrats believe momentum has shifted to their side on the U.S.-Mexico border issue and that voters are beginning to see Republicans as offering a lot of talk and little action.

During his State of the Union address Thursday, President Joe Biden excoriated conservatives for backing out of a bipartisan border security deal after former President Donald Trump urged lawmakers to pull their support.

"I'm told my predecessor called Republicans in Congress and demanded they block the bill," Biden said. "It's not about him or me. It'd be a winner for America. My Republican friends, you owe it to the American people to get this bill done."

The deal materialized in February after months of negotiations between Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

The bill would provide funds for new fentanyl detection technology, as well as for hiring more border agents, immigration judges and asylum officers. It would also transform the asylum system by lowering the fear standard and expediting asylum processing to combat the 1.1 million court case backlog, which has left some claimants waiting in the U.S. for months, sometimes years.

If the average number of daily crossings reached 5,000, border authorities—who are mandated to hear the asylum claims of those who cross illegally—would reject the claims of illegal crossers and only listen to cases made at ports of entry.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called on his GOP conference in early February to "carefully consider" the deal, which ultimately secured the endorsements of the Chamber of Commerce, the conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, and the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing border agents.

"Polls show that voters understand it was Republicans that took down the bill," Murphy told Newsweek. "I wish we passed the bill. I wish this issue wasn't still just a political football, but I am glad to see Democrats finally going on the offense."

A Wall Street Journal poll conducted February 21-28 found that 59 percent of voters said they would support the bipartisan deal. That reality appeared to embolden Biden Thursday when conservative Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia interrupted the president's speech, calling on him to acknowledge Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed in Greene's home state. An undocumented immigrant is charged in the killing.

Not only did Biden say her name, but spoke in a fashion that made members of his party uncomfortable, saying that Riley was "killed by an illegal. That's right. But how many thousands of people being killed by legals?" Many on the left view the term "illegal" as derogatory.

Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, knows the pain of Riley's death well. He believes Republicans are politicizing her death and in doing so are exposing their own hypocrisy.

"It's unfortunate that folks on the other side politicize this issue, and the irony is we had before us, just a few weeks ago, a bipartisan bill endorsed by Border Patrol," he told Newsweek. "I'm doing everything I can to pass comprehensive immigration reform and to fix the border. It is disappointing that Republicans, after saying it was an emergency, decided to do nothing."

Republicans argue that the border bill did not go far enough in addressing the problem. Many viewed the 5,000 crossings a day average as too high a threshold, and some misinterpreted it as allowing 5,000 illegal crossers to be let into the country each day.

They also argue that the president has the authority to bolster enforcement efforts. At the start of his term, Biden halted construction of Trump's border wall. The Migration Policy Institute writes that he has also limited deportations, lifted barriers to U.S. entry, and raised the refugee resettlement ceiling. Critics say these actions have incentivized illegal crossings.

The number of crossings between migrants and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have reached historic highs over Biden's presidency. In December, encounters reached a peak of nearly 302,000. That number has since dropped, however, with just over 176,000 crossings reported in January.

As the White House weighs executive action to further clamp down on the border, Democrats are dialing up their focus on the GOP's decision to thwart the bipartisan deal.

Michigan Senator Gary Peters chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is responsible for ensuring his party exits the 2024 election still in control of the upper chamber. He wants Democrats to keep the border issue out-front as they head toward November. Peters' message:

"Just keep talking about it and understand that we care deeply about border security and trying to address that, and Republicans refused to actually solve it," he told Newsweek. "We are providing solutions—We need solutions."