Biden's new border plan could work. Does he want it to?

In a rare speech focused on immigration, President Biden announced new changes in border enforcement policies. The new plan incorporates several proposals that would make it easier for people to enter the country legally. Other changes will restrict asylum for people crossing the border illegally. Although the plan will unnecessarily create winners and losers, Biden’s new vision could—on net—improve the migration process for most affected immigrants and convert most illegal immigration to legal immigration, creating a more safe and orderly system. But the success of the new vision will depend heavily on how it is administered. …

President Biden has announced one of the largest expansions in legal migration in decades, and if he succeeds in drastically reducing illegal crossings with these new procedures, it will likely lead to expansion to other nationalities. This is the first serious intentional effort to use legal migration to secure the border since the 1950s Bracero Program. Whether it succeeds depends more on how it is administered than the policy on paper, but the administration already knows the blueprint, so failure will have to include an element of intent.