Shouldn’t even a quasi-State of the Union address include a discussion of a crisis on its borders? Especially when it’s a massive humanitarian catastrophe directly connected to the administration’s own rhetoric on immigration policies? Not only did Joe Biden fail to mention the border crisis in his first speech to a joint session of Congress, Biden only made three mentions of the border at all, none of which had to do with its epic mishandling of the issue (via Jeff Dunetz):

And here’s what else we can do. Immigration has always been essential to America. Let’s end our exhausting war over immigration. For more than 30 years, politicians have talked about immigration reform and we’ve done nothing about it. It’s time to fix it. On Day 1 of my presidency, I kept my commitment and sent a comprehensive immigration bill to the United States Congress.

If you believe we need a secure border, pass it, because it has a lot of money for high-tech border security. If you believe in a pathway to citizenship, pass it. There’s over 11 million undocumented folks, the vast majority here overstayed visas. Pass it. We can actually — if you actually want to solve the problem, I have sent a bill to you, take a close look at it.

We also have to get at the root of the problem of why people are fleeing particularly to our southern border from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. The violence. The corruption. The gangs. The political instability. Hunger. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Natural disasters.

When I was president, my president — when I was vice president, the president asked me to focus on providing help needed to address the root causes of migration. And it helped keep people in their own countries instead of being forced to leave. And the plan was working, but the last administration decided it was not worth it. I’m restoring the program and asked Vice President Harris to lead our diplomatic effort to take care of this. I have absolute confidence she will get the job done.

Biden’s claims that his bill addresses border security belies its actual composition. It offers only funding for Obama-era border-security initiatives, which didn’t include physical barriers needed to prevent crossings. “A lot of money” is a term of art as well, especially in an administration that wants to spend $2 trillion on a very expansive definition of infrastructure, but one that doesn’t actually include a wall on the border to stop traffickers and illegal migration.

As for the program that Biden wants restarted, the Trump administration made the choice to fix the problems in the US first before going through the same futility that previous administrations experienced in attempting to fix the problem in Central America. That approach was working, too, along with the arm-twisting that pushed Mexico into enforcing those policies. The inclusion of Harris as part of the solution has turned into a joke, as Harris has yet to even visit the southern border to see the humanitarian crisis firsthand. The White House is still spinning that failure as late as this past Monday:

“Her focus is not on the border—it’s on addressing the root causes in the Northern Triangle, and that’s why the majority of her time has been spent on working on a diplomatic level,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday.

“If the president or vice president goes down and visits a facility like this, you have to potentially clear some parts out. There’s a lot of security that comes,” she said.

Well, perhaps that’s what the situation requires — more security. A lot more security. It’s amazing that the White House hasn’t sent Harris there just to stop this line of questioning, too. How tough would it be to send her out there for a few hours, if for no other reason than to establish some seriousness on Harris’ part?

The lack of mention of the nation’s biggest non-COVID humanitarian crisis in this quasi-SOTU didn’t go entirely unnoticed in the moment. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) unfurled a mylar blanket in the middle of Biden’s speech to remind him of the thousands of children wrapped up like baked potatoes in overcrowded cages. This made the rounds as a “space blanket,” but the meaning was obvious:

Rep. Lauren Boebert wearing a space blanket, for some reason.

(℅ @somogettynews at Getty) pic.twitter.com/Epq7tvRfVd

— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) April 29, 2021

Yes, it’s schtick — every bit as much as Biden’s professions of unity and bipartisanship. These events are full of schtick and almost entirely devoid of substance. Congress offers the co-equal branch a welcome reminiscent of Roman dictators on triumph and then offer showy adulation to every sentence that comes out of a president’s mouth. They are embarrassments in a republic with co-equal branches of government, and Congress should start requesting the State of the Union report in writing — and that it covers the actual state of the Union, especially its humanitarian crises and what the executive branch is doing about them.