As the end of Trump-era migration policy Title 42 draws nearer, experts say the Democrats are set for a tough mid-term election.
Biden has come under fire from members of his own party in recent weeks as he has consistently failed to provide any follow-up strategy to deal with the influx of migrants waiting on the US-Mexico border as Title 42 is set to end next month.
The policy was put in place by Donald Trump as a means of protecting the country during the Covid-19 pandemic and allowed authorities to disregard asylum claims if the individual had passed through a country where Covid as endemic – which included most nations.
It was kept in place under the Biden administration but will be lifted as from May 23 as Covid restrictions phase out.
It is estimated that as many as 170,000 migrants of all nationalities are waiting at the border and concerns both for their well-being and the safety and security of the USA have been raised by politicians across the board.
According to polls obtained by Fox News Digital, the lack of any plan to deal with the ending on Title 42 will prove to be a major issue for Democrats as they struggle to maintain a narrow lead in the House and Senate.
“Democrats are in bad shape — some would say terrible shape — for the midterm elections,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics told Fox.
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“The Title 42 controversy does nothing to help them and probably makes the outlook worse for Democrats.
“The dead giveaway is that moderate and endangered Democrats in Congress are raising hell and defecting from the Biden administration’s plans.”
So far, ten Democrats, particularly those from border-states, have expressed their dismay at Biden’s lack of strategic leadership:
“Right now, we have a crisis on our southern border. Right now, this administration does not have a plan. I warned them about this months ago,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D.-Ariz told Fox.
“It’s going to be a crisis on top of a crisis.”
Kelly, along with the nine other rebel Democrats suggested that Biden extend the policy for a further 60 days while the president implements a plan to deal with the expected surge of potentially hundreds of thousands of people.
Democrats are engaging in electorally dangerous in-fighting, with progressives lauding the move to end the restrictions with others calling for reasonable measures to be put in place.
Easy path to USA ? And we Indians struggle for visas…note they display kids as a bargaining point…
Illegal migrants halt traffic on their way to mexico city towards the US border… pic.twitter.com/Z5GwYbHONd
— Rocks (@naikrakesh) December 12, 2021
“It puts them … in a very tricky spot. The moderate Democrats and the progressive Democrats are arguing right now over the best, kind of, midterm election strategy,” said Institute Senior Fellow for Governance James Wallner.
“This is a policy disagreement between those two wings of the party, I think a very significant one.”
Biden has also faced heavy criticism from both parties for continuing to call for billions in Covid-relief aid while hypocritically opening the flood gates at the border indicating Covid is no longer a concern there.
Unless Biden faces the crisis unfolding at the border and stops hiding his head in the sand for fear of offending a noisy minority, he may find Democratic support considerably wanes, particularly in border-states.