news NYTimes: Biden oversaw the largest immigration surge in US history

[VOSS]

The immigration surge of the past few years has been the largest in U.S. history, surpassing the great immigration boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s, according to a New York Times analysis of government data.

 

Annual net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people.

 

That's a faster pace of arrivals than during any other period on record, including the peak years of Ellis Island traffic, when millions of Europeans came to the United States. Even after taking into account today's larger U.S. population, the recent surge is the most rapid since at least 1850:

 

 

The numbers in the Times analysis include both legal and illegal immigration. About 60 percent of immigrants who have entered the country since 2021 have done so without legal authorization, according to a Goldman Sachs report based on government data.

 

The combined increases of legal and illegal immigration have caused the share of the U.S. population born in another country to reach a new high, 15.2 percent in 2023, up from 13.6 percent in 2020. The previous high was 14.8 percent, in 1890.

 

Several factors caused the surge, starting with President Biden's welcoming immigration policy during his first three years in office. Offended by Donald J. Trump's harsh policies — including the separation of families at the border — Mr. Biden and other Democrats promised a different approach. "We're a nation that says, 'If you want to flee, and you're fleeing oppression, you should come,'" Mr. Biden said during his 2020 presidential campaign.

 

After taking office, his administration loosened the rules on asylum and other immigration policies, making it easier for people to enter the United States. Some have received temporary legal status while their cases wend through backlogged immigration courts. Others have remained without legal permission.

 

Outside causes have also played an important role in the surge. Turmoil in Haiti, Ukraine and Venezuela caused desperate people to flee their home countries. The growth of smuggler networks run by Mexican drug cartels allowed more people to reach the U.S. border. But the Biden administration's policy appears to have been the biggest factor: After Mr. Biden tightened enforcement in June, the number of people crossing the border plummeted.

 

The scale of recent immigration helps explain why the issue has played a central role in American politics over the past few years.

 

Mayors and governors, both Democratic and Republican, have complained about the strain on local government. In Chicago and elsewhere, residents have filled public meetings to make similar criticisms. In Denver, where tens of thousands of migrants have arrived, homeless people say that shelter spots are harder to find. In Queens, residents say that an influx of street vendors has created chaos in some neighborhoods.

 

Some of the biggest effects have occurred in South Texas, and Mr. Trump made big electoral gains there. Eight years ago, he won less than 30 percent of the vote in a strip of six counties along the Rio Grande. This year, he won all six counties.

 

Elsewhere, Democrats who managed to outpace Vice President Kamala Harris and win tough congressional races — including in Arizona, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Wisconsin — frequently criticized Mr. Biden's border policies. Polls suggest that the immigration surge was Ms. Harris's second biggest vulnerability, after only the economy.

 

Voters expressed particular frustration with the high recent levels of illegal immigration. Of the roughly eight million net new migrants who entered the U.S. during the Biden presidency, about five million did so without legal authorization, according to Goldman Sachs.

 

What happens next is less clear. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump promised to conduct mass deportations, and many Americans favor the policy. In a New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in October, 57 percent of voters said they supported deporting immigrants who were living in the country illegally.

 

But the logistics of finding, apprehending and deporting millions of people would not be simple. Public support for the policy could decline if it swept up immigrants who had been in the country for years and established lives here. As a point of comparison, the Trump administration deported about 300,000 people per year, and the Obama administration deported almost 400,000 per year.

 

Whatever the number in a second Trump term, the recent immigration surge has probably ended. Mr. Biden's crackdown since the summer has caused net migration to drop sharply, and Mr. Trump has promised even tougher border policies when he takes office. Many would-be immigrants will be less likely to try to enter the country, knowing that their chances of success are lower.

 

There is an historical echo with a century ago. The immigration wave of the late 1800s and early 1900s also sparked a political backlash, leading to a 1924 law that tightly restricted immigration. Those restrictions remained largely in place for more than four decades.

 

Source

[Cheers]

Yea Haitians and Venezuelans are everywhere now

[Communion]

Well, yes, he oversaw the richest nation in the world during one of the worst global pandemics in human memory.

 

The rate at reach people entered the US peaked even with the Biden admin pulling every level possible to try and stop as many people from being able to enter and stay, often times in ways that were inhumane and itself illegal as forms of deportation under existing US law.

 

Part of the conversation around COVID-era migration never read as honest from critics because a myriad of questions were never asked. You never hear anyone go - "How would immigration post-COVID look if the Biden admin didn't hoard the mRNA vaccine technology? America had access to the newest technology, largely kept it within its borders, and had the best COVID recovery in the world... what would the global recovery have looked like if the Biden shared the growing research and technology we had globally? What does a smoother global recovery mean for global migration?"

 

In what America benefitted from hoarding its pharmaceutical companies' research, it came with the cost of migration shifting to the center of the world's wealth.

 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Communion

[Attitude]

The Venezuelans said:

 

 

[abrahamjmr]

I feel sad whenever I hear/read the way some Americans currently feel about Venezuelans. I came here years ago running, trying to get away not only from the situation in my country but the way I was being treated in another South American country - and of course, I wanted to be as far away as possible from my own people, since they're the ones creating all these concepts and distress among the people that live in the countries they're migrating to and here I am, dealing again with some of the issues I had while I was in my own nation and the one I lived in for a few years when I first left. If Trump has to do something with those that are causing trouble in here and aren't willing to adapt, I will respect that. 

[Onyxmage]

Its almost like there was some kind of worldwide event that happened during his presidency. Im not sure what though....

[HausOfPunk]

6 minutes ago, Onyxmage said:

Its almost like there was some kind of worldwide event that happened during his presidency. Im not sure what though....

Chromatica Ball

[PoisonPill]

60% of all immigrants entering illegally, a shameful record.

[Tropez]

4 minutes ago, PoisonPill said:

60% of all immigrants entering illegally, a shameful record.

Who cares, borders shouldn't exist. 

[Princess Aurora]

I'm wondering why all this mass migration happened right under his presidency. 

[MattieB]

Are immigrants not pumping billions into the economy?