The barn door has been open for over three years now. President Joe Biden is making a pretense of shutting it. That makes him, in the eyes of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a man doing “Trump impressions.”
Let me explain a bit: According to a Wednesday report from Fox News, more than 7.2 million illegal immigrants have crossed the nation’s southern border during Biden’s presidency — “a number greater than the population of 36 individual states.”
Many of these individuals have filed asylum claims under the flimsiest of pretexts, allowing — at least for the moment — essentially interminable residency in the United States; with our immigration court system already choked, some of those applying for asylum have been given court dates in the mid-2030s.
The border crisis, which has continued unabated since Biden took office, threatens his re-election chances this year — particularly if he has a rematch with a certain former president who promised to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the U.S. border with Mexico.
That’s why, after 7 million-plus illegal border crossings and a gummed-up system to deal with asylum claims, CNN reported Wednesday that the administration “is considering executive action to restrict migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border if they crossed illegally — a maneuver reminiscent of controversial action from the Donald Trump era and is sure to invite fierce backlash from immigration advocates and progressives.”
One of those progressives? No surprise here: the Notorious AOC.
In a post on social media, Ocasio-Cortez indicated that trying to mitigate the border crisis long after it began would somehow make the historically unpopular Biden less likely to win a 2020 rematch.
“Doing Trump impressions isn’t how we beat Trump,” the New York congresswoman wrote on X on Wednesday night.
“Seeking asylum is a legal right of all people. In the face of authoritarian threat, we should not buckle on our principles – we should commit to them,” she said.
“The mere suggestion is outrageous and the President should refuse to sign it.”
Doing Trump impressions isn’t how we beat Trump.
Seeking asylum is a legal right of all people. In the face of authoritarian threat, we should not buckle on our principles – we should commit to them.
The mere suggestion is outrageous and the President should refuse to sign it. https://t.co/Jd2cSSNDF7
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 22, 2024
It’s somewhat unclear what Ocasio-Cortez meant when she said “the President should refuse to sign it,” since an executive order is — by its very definition — an order that emanates from the executive. Perhaps she was implying that Joe Biden isn’t really the guy in charge there. Fancy that.
According to the CNN report: “The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has been reviewing the proposed executive order to determine whether it could sustain legal challenges, a person briefed on the matter said. But some Justice officials have expressed doubts that proposed changes, aimed at trying to address previous court rulings against the Trump-era order, could survive litigation that is sure to follow any move by the Biden administration to use executive action.”
As for whether the president and/or whoever is calling the shots is considering such a move, a White House spokesman issued a vaguely worded non-denial.
“The Administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement.
“No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected,” he said. “We continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border.”
Good luck with that one. Earlier this month, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana called the bill “even worse than we expected” on border security measures and said it stood no chance in the House.
Should there be a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico?
“I’ve seen enough,” Johnson said on social media.
“This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes,’” he said.
I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, “the border never closes.”
If this bill reaches the House, it will be…
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 5, 2024
According to ABC News, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise confirmed the bill, in its current form, would not receive a vote in the House.
So, because the Republicans in the lower chamber won’t support the White House’s half-measure, Biden is considering doing what he should have done when the border crisis first took hold.
Instead, progressives like AOC demand that it be allowed to continue in perpetuity, because of course they do. Any sort of move to restrict illegal immigration makes Joe Biden a Donald Trump impressionist.
It turns out that America might like a Donald Trump impressionist, however. In fact, what they might like even more — if the polls are any indication — is the real thing.
