Joe Biden’s First Immigration Priority: Legalize Dreamers

Proving that he is every bit as unserious about border security as the rest of the Democratic field, former Vice President Joe Biden wrote an op-ed for the Miami Herald on Monday laying out his bland, vague, proposals for dealing with illegal immigration. To no one’s surprise, this mostly involved bashing President Trump, pandering to the Hispanic community, and promising little in the way of actual solutions. Biden may not be at the forefront of the “Abolish ICE” movement, but he proved with this op-ed that he is not to be trusted with America’s borders.

After spending needless inches of column space reciting the usual left-wing talking points about President Trump’s “morally bankrupt” immigration enforcement strategy, Biden finally gets to the good stuff. Oh, but not before he labels America “a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.” We assume saying “a nation of laws and a nation of illegal immigrants” would have been just a little too obvious in its hypocrisy.

“The next president must institute effective immigration reform while restoring regional policies grounded in respect,” wrote Biden. “That starts by recognizing that DREAMers are Americans, and Congress needs to make it official. The millions of undocumented people in the United States can only be brought out of the shadows through fair treatment, not ugly threats. Trump’s efforts to repeal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) across the board have injected unnecessary uncertainty into the lives of thousands of families. Our asylum system needs to be improved, but the answer is to streamline and strengthen it so that it benefits legitimate claims of those fleeing persecution, while reducing potential for abuse.”

Trump has offered to sign legislation legalizing Dreamers on a number of occasions since taking office. The Democrats had to do nothing other than to help the administration strengthen the border through the building of the wall. They decided they would rather thwart Trump’s most visible campaign promise than take action on behalf of these “Americans in all but name.” So don’t give us this bleeding heart crap about the Dreamers anymore. If you and your ilk really cared about them, you would have come to the table with a deal by now.

After denigrating the effectiveness of a wall, Biden writes: “We need to focus instead on improving screening procedures at our legal ports of entry and making smart investments in border technology. These are sensible policies that will do more for our security than a wall ever could.”

Yes, but the Trump administration is looking to do all of this as well. Biden makes it sound as though he’s proposing an alternative solution; really all he’s doing is cutting off what would undoubtedly be the most effective part of the existing one.

Before closing out his nonsensical, nonexistent immigration plan, Biden manages to repeat one of the biggest fake news smears of last year:  “At a time when the challenges we face demand a united, regional response, Trump repeatedly invokes racist invective to describe anyone south of the Rio Grande, including calling migrants ‘animals.’”

Since there’s no longer any excuse for any major presidential candidate to still not know how this story was mischaracterized, we can only assume that Biden is using precious column space to stick up for the gentle humanity of MS-13 gang members. Perhaps one of the debate moderators on NBC will challenge him on that point this week.

You know, or not.