LTP News Sharing:

If a frank enemy of the United States
had taken over the executive branch of in January 2021, he
would not have conducted himself one whit differently than
Joe Biden, his administration, and his Democratic enablers
in Congress and the media. From his first day in office
Biden garishly repealed every border control that President
Trump had worked up to stem the tide of illegal
immigration. Biden put out the word to friend and foe alike
that the United States had open borders.

As he had vowed to do, President Biden
opened the borders to illegal aliens on January 20, 2021. It
was among his first acts in office and stands as an almost
unbelievable act of willful destruction. Indeed, as
Andrew McCarthy bluntly put it in an August 2021 NRO
column on Biden policy: “The federal
government is aiding and abetting illegal immigration.”

Administration officials have both
repeatedly lied about what it has done and deflected blame
over the years since that day. Instead, the Biden
administration has repeatedly assured us, “the border is
secure” (video below).

        https://youtu.be/aszuzjfKAv0

Well, they have had second thoughts —
second thoughts prompted by the need to “protect [their] phony
baloney jobs” in advance of the presidential election. The
powers-that-be in the White House and the Biden reelection
campaign thought they could turn the “bipartisan border bill”
fiasco to Biden’s benefit. As the sole author of the
“emergency” that the bill was allegedly designed to address,
Biden was in a uniquely poor position to advance the argument
that Republicans are to blame.

Regardless of one’s cynicism about the
American electorate’s level of knowledge concerning such
matters, no one in his right mind believes the line peddled by
Biden: “Every day between now and November, the American
people are going to know that the only reason the border is
not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”

Joe Biden has created the flood of
illegal immigration with which we have been inundated. He has
assured us that all is well. Most recently, he has blamed
Republicans for failing to provide the necessary cover.

Now in a remarkable case of
just-in-time manufacturing, President Biden has announced
executive action that will kick in when the seven-day
average of daily encounters at the southwest border and the
southern border exceeds 2,500. When the rule kicks in,
claims of asylum are not to processed illegal aliens are
encountered between ports of entry — 2,499 illegal aliens a
day is just business as usual.

The White House has posted this
fact sheet on the order. DHS Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas — he who has repeatedly testified under
oath that the border is secure — has posted a related
statement here.

The opening sentences of the White House
fact sheet suggest that candor is not the order of the day:
“Since his first day in office, President Biden has called on
Congress to secure our border and address our broken
immigration system. Over the past three years, while Congress
has failed to act, the President has acted to secure our
border.” A little further down the Fact Sheet places this in
bold print: “President
Biden believes we must secure our border.” For some
reason, neither the Fact Sheet nor statement links to the
relevant text.

The Journal’s backgrounder by
Michelle Hackman refers to “executive actions” without citing
any particular rule or order. Rather, Hackman cites Biden’s Proclamation
on Securing the Border. That appears to be the operative
text.

The proclamation parcels out the blame
in Biden’s accustomed fashion before “suspending entry of
noncitizens across the southern border during this time of
high border crossings” (“[a]ppropriate exceptions are
provided”). The proclamation also refers to related “steps to
be taken by DOJ and DHS.” The plan is not yet fully hatched.

Having taken a look at the Fact Sheet,
The Journal points out in its
editorial on the “executive actions”:

Migrants [sic] could still seek asylum
at ports of entry using the CBP One mobile app, which would
be excluded from the daily triggers.

A White House fact sheet says the
order also exempts migrants if they “faced an imminent and
extreme threat to life or safety, such as an imminent threat
of rape, kidnapping, torture, or murder.” This sounds much
like the way the dysfunctional asylum system currently
works. Unaccompanied minors aren’t covered by the order,
which might encourage more of them to seek asylum.

The Washington Free Beacon further
documents exceptions.
The Free Beacon story by Joe Simonson is links an internal ICE
memo.

Let us hazard the thought that Biden’s
action is for show. One wonders, for example, where
yesterday’s asylum seekers be returned, if in fact they were
“encountered” by the authorities.

   

The link above is also here:  
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798000190408028475

UPDATE: At NRO but behind its paywall,
Mark Krikorian expands on one of the points above:

These various trigger numbers are
totally made up. Recall that Obama’s Department of
Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, said that even
1,000 border infiltrations a day overwhelmed the system. It
wouldn’t surprise me if the White House arrived at the 2,500
number by conducting focus groups to determine what was the
highest number of illegal border crossings they could allow
without losing key swing states.

Whatever the number, this approach
says there’s a threshold level of “acceptable” illegal
immigration. I haven’t seen anyone make the point that this
is the same approach to border enforcement that the Soros
DAs have taken to prosecuting shoplifters.

Whole thing here.