The bipartisan border bill revealed in the Senate on Sunday seemed, at first glance, to be something that former President Donald Trump ought to endorse. This would be the most significant change to immigration law in decades. It would also strengthen the requirements for individuals claiming refuge.
However, because Trump has already declared his opposition to the agreement, it is unlikely to pass the House of Representatives, and election-year politics appear to be to blame. It’s easy to understand why Trump doesn’t want immigration reform to succeed at this time, given the upcoming election in November.
About The Border Bill
The most persons the U.S. Border Patrol has detained in decades occurred in December when 249,785 people tried to enter the country illegally. This strengthened Trump’s claim that Joe Biden is unqualified and favours “open borders.”
Anti-immigrant sentiments have fueled Trump’s popularity in the G.O.P. primary, and it appears that immigration will be a winning issue for him against Biden as well, as 538 writer Michael Tesler observed last week. The plan would give the Department of Homeland Security emergency authority to refuse asylum if the number of border crossings grows too high.
Additionally, President Joe Biden’s average popularity rating on immigration and the southern border was only 29% among seven nonpartisan surveys in January, while his average disapproval rating was 63%. That’s much worse than his dismal average popularity and disapproval numbers in the same polls, ranging from 39 to 57 per cent.
Since January 1, 2024, impartial surveys have shown that Americans strongly disapprove of President Joe Biden’s work approval ratings generally and on immigration. Even during the comparatively low immigration levels of last summer, Biden’s popularity rating on the matter has always been awful. (Just 99,538 arrests were made at the border by the Border Patrol in June.)
Why Trump Is Against The Border Bill
Notably, Democrats continue to generally support Biden’s immigration policies despite some prominent criticism from Democratic lawmakers. Governors of Illinois, New York, and New York City, Eric Adams, among others, voiced out last autumn as the number of border arrests started to rise and urged Biden to stop the migrant inflow. Additionally, a resolution “denouncing the Biden administration’s open-borders policies” was approved by 14 House Democrats last month.
However, Trump most likely still gains politically from a prolonged border crisis. Immigration numbers and Biden’s popularity rating may not be directly correlated. However, they might still impact how significant of a factor immigration is in the 2024 election.
Every month, Gallup surveys Americans to find out what they consider the nation’s most important issue. The percentage of respondents who choose immigration has a robust correlation with the number of persons the Border Patrol arrests.