Biden slow to build political wall

After doing nothing about it for three years, Joe Biden’s sudden gambit, five months out from the US presidential election, aimed at stemming the tide of migrants flooding across the Mexican border, smacks of the worst form of cynical political opportunism. Making an announcement on measures that will supposedly block migrants seeking US asylum from crossing the Mexican border when the average number of daily attempts hits 2500 over a one-week period, Mr Biden said, rightly, that “doing nothing is not an option”. But given that one of his first and most consequential acts on the day he entered the Oval Office in January 2021 was to rescind Donald Trump’s border measures and all but end controls, he has little credibility on the issue.

As Adam Creighton reported on Thursday, a staggering 11 million undocumented immigrants have entered the US just since Mr Biden became President – almost the entire population of Bolivia. No country, not even America, can be expected to absorb such numbers. Ominously, not all those flooding across the border are hapless Latin Americans genuinely fleeing poverty and seeking to improve their lot in life. Among others are Chinese and Russians, with numbers of Chinese nationals, almost exclusively young men, reaching 27,500 since October 1, up almost 8000 per cent since 2021, and fuelling “fears of a political fifth column” in the US.

Even many among Mr Biden’s own Democrats are alarmed by what are clearly the dire electoral consequences of the “come one, come all” message he sent out on his first day as President, and the advantage those consequences are giving Mr Trump, who is shown in polling to be seen by voters as much more likely to staunch the flow.

With migration at the centre of the White House battle, Mr Biden’s hope will be that the measures he announced on Wednesday will help his campaign. But there is no certainty they will. They look like being too little, too late to restore his credibility as something other than a lame duck on the issue. Even his executive order that will seal the border the moment the average number of crossings hits 2500 a day over a week, assuming it is applied strictly, will still allow almost one million unwanted migrants a year across the US southern border. That Mr Biden’s failure on border control could cost him the election is incontrovertible. He is likely to pay a heavy price if the measures do not convince voters – including worried Democrats – that now he means business.