When the definitive history of Joe Biden’s presidency is written, it will likely conclude that his most important legacy was unprecedented immigration levels. The U.S. foreign-born population (legal and illegal) grew by 8.3 million during his time in office, driven mostly by the border crisis that he instigated.
At first, the media called the massive influx “seasonal” or blamed it on pent-up demand after COVID lockdowns. Later, they claimed that every Western country faced a similar situation. Many argued it was inevitable. As David Bier of the Cato Institute argued in the New York Times, “Biden Can’t Stop Immigration. Time to Embrace It.” Of course, nothing about it was inevitable.
The border crisis began almost immediately after Biden took office. The president’s public statements and his decisions to end the Remain in Mexico policy, dismantle Title 42, and terminate agreements with Central American countries that stopped people from transiting through those nations all played a part. Biden also chose not to pressure Mexico to stop the flow of migrants through its territory. Most important, however, was the administration’s decision to release most people encountered at the border into the United States rather than detain them and expedite their removal.
The resulting surge at the U.S. border was inevitable. Illegal immigrants are like anyone else—they respond to incentives. Under Biden, they realized that if they made it to the border, the chances of being released into the U.S. were very high. Millions responded to that incentive and came. Nationwide “border encounters” surged from about 70,000 a month at the end of 2020 to about 200,000 a month by the end of 2021, increasing thereafter to an average of over 300,000 by the second half of 2023.