Amazing how a campaign so on-message can go so off-message once its candidate is in office. What's going wrong in the Biden administration's PR department is a lot.
But one crisis at a time. Today take the one at the border. The other day the Department of Homeland Security suspended the use of horse patrols on the United States-Mexico border near the small town of Del Rio, Texas, after pictures started appearing in the American media of mounted agents slapping at those Haitian illegal immigrants trying to cross. (Whether they were slapping at them with whips or reins, what does it matter? For those raised on Arkansas farms, and who might have had a rein used on them in fun or punishment, they'll tell you it'll leave a mark.)
So here's where things stand: After using the first few months of his presidency all but inviting immigrants to rush the border, the president has lately taken the opposite approach, by sending administration officials to the media to proclaim the border closed. He even sent his vice president to Latin America to make the message clear: Don't come.
And as late as last week, the DHS put out this statement: "The Biden Administration has reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey. Individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion."
But that's not all the papers are reporting.
Wire reports (which go all over the world these Internetted days) said Haitian illegal immigrants have been taken into custody, then freed in this country on a "very, very large scale" in recent days. One official, who spoke anonymously to the press, put the figure into the thousands.
According to the wire report that ran in this paper last week: "Many have been released with notices to appear at an immigration office within 60 days. Such an outcome requires less processing time from Border Patrol agents than ordering an appearance in immigration court, pointing to the speed at which authorities are moving."
And: "The releases come despite a large-scale effort to expel Haitians under pandemic-related authority that denies migrants a chance to seek asylum."
So border agents are writing tickets.
And not even tickets that require illegals to report to court. But to report to the local immigration office.
Within 60 days.
These immigrants have already violated U.S. law once in crossing the border illegally--because they want to be here. Why would they not violate an order-to-appear summons to remain?
The papers say the criteria for deciding who is released into the United States and who is put on a plane back to Haiti is a "mystery," to quote one wire report. But: "If previous handling of asylum-seekers is any guide, then the administration is more likely to release those deemed vulnerable, including pregnant women, families with young children, and those with medical issues. The Biden administration exempts unaccompanied children from expulsion flights on humanitarian grounds."
Which means, now that this message has been sent, more pregnant women, families with young children, those with medical issues and unaccompanied children will try to make the journey.
One would think that the No. 1 criteria for whether to release somebody into the United States would be whether that person has the covid-19 virus. After all, we're still in a world-wide pandemic.
Americans who are distressed at all this aren't necessarily insensitive to those trying to make it to El Norte. Nor are they necessarily anti-immigration or anti-immigrant. But every nation has the right to secure its borders, and to make laws about who crosses it. Even liberal democracies such as those in Europe have borders and border security. Because they have national interests. Hearts, yes, but national interests, too.
The Biden administration has brought a lot of this on itself. And the rest of the country might have to pay the price of all its unfortunate messaging.