Biden’s new immigration policies to deal with the historically high number of border crossings are fine with New York City Mayor Eric Adams but he wants Biden to know that it isn’t enough. In a moment of unexpected clarity on the topic, Adams said that Biden’s border solution ultimately involves legislation. If you haven’t read John’s post on the new policies, go do that.

What Adams said is true enough. It’s the default talking point from Democrats who are defensive about the obvious failure of the Biden administration to secure the southern border. Well, they say, Congress has to do its job and make legislative reforms to immigration law. Sure, but without the border being secured, nothing else matters. There are plenty of immigration laws on the books right now but they aren’t being executed. That’s the point. Biden and Mayorkas have decided to pick and choose which laws they will enforce and re-work other laws to their ideological benefit.

Adams doesn’t have the cojones to actually criticize Biden for the border crisis that has now stretched into every state. Not to mention those migrant buses that turn up in NYC, courtesy of red states fed up with shouldering the burdens of an open border while being ignored by the Democrats in charge of the Biden adminstration. Do you think those migrant buses may have played a role in Biden’s sudden interest in the southern border? I think they probably played a part in it because the buses bring attention from the press and news outlets that don’t cover the border because they are busy covering for Biden. They are forced to report on the bus arrivals in sanctuary cities.

So, Adams said that Biden needs to do more to control the immigration surge.

“We appreciate this administration’s partnership and response to our request for action, and we are hopeful this policy will help better control the flow of asylum seekers arriving at the southern border. At the same time, we still need a long-term and proactive strategy to manage the crisis we are seeing,” Adams’ statement continued Thursday.

“This must include legislation that will allow asylum seekers to legally work while waiting on their asylum applications, a true decompression strategy and resettlement program that ensures asylum seekers are being spread out across the nation and not just sent to a handful of cities, and emergency financial relief for our city.

“Finally, we ultimately need a bipartisan effort to deliver true, long-awaited immigration reform so we can offer people a safe, legal path to the American dream.”

I’ve said it before, as a resident of Texas, and I’ll say it again – welcome to the party, pal. Here’s the thing. Adams is doing the same thing that Biden did during his remarks about his new border policies. He’s demagoguing Republicans for not participating in efforts to reform the immigration system. The problem is that Republicans have been burned in the past by Democrats who go back on their deals when legislation is being hammered out. The only real ‘reform’ Democrats want is blanket amnesty for all illegal immigrants. Anything else from them is just lip service.

That is what happened during the Reagan years when Reagan granted blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants. That was the last real serious attempt in immigration reform and look what happened. Amnesty happened – Reagan kept his word – and the Democrats did not keep their part of the deal. They did not secure the southern border. Why in the world would Republicans trust the Democrats in today’s Congress with such a deeply divided political atmosphere? So far, Republicans have held together and every time a Democrat starts talking about amnesty, Republicans shut it down. That is why Biden and other Democrats accuse Republicans of not working with Democrats in Congress to pass Biden’s alleged immigration agenda.

Since Biden will soon announce he is running for re-election, though he is now 80 years old and deeply unpopular, he has to at least pretend he’s interested in border security. The Biden border crisis was a big issue in the mid-term election cycle. He knows it isn’t going away because he isn’t willing to fix it. You’ll note that the White House has announced that Biden will go to El Paso, not the Rio Grande Valley, to check out the border crisis. Sure, El Paso is a giant tent city now, thanks to the Biden border crisis, but the real tragedy is happening in the Rio Grande Valley. El Paso will provide Biden with some nice photo ops and it’s a Democrat-led city so everyone will be all smiles and back-slapping. Just like when Kamala stopped in El Paso for a few hours. Nothing will come of it but Biden will be able to finally say that yes, he’s been to the border.

Some Senate Democrats are not happy about Biden’s new plans, either. Four senators criticized Biden on Thursday for continuing to use Title 42 while it is in effect. In exchange for keeping Title 42 in place as long as it takes the Supreme Court to rule on its legality, Biden will allow 30,000 immigration permits. That’s amnesty by another name. They will be able to fly into the United States from their home countries after they have been vetted and provide family members who will sponsor them.

Democratic Sens. Bob Menéndez (N.J.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.) and Alex Padilla (CA) put out a statement shortly after Biden’s roll-out of his plan.

“While we understand the challenges the nation is facing at the Southern border exacerbated by Republican obstruction to modernizing our immigration system, we are deeply disappointed by the Biden Administration’s decision to expand the use of Title 42,” wrote the four senators.

“Continuing to use this failed and inhumane Trump-era policy put in place to address a public health crisis will do nothing to restore the rule of law at the border. Instead, it will increase border crossings over time and further enrich human smuggling networks,” they wrote.

“We are also concerned about the Administration’s new transit ban regulation that will disregard our obligations under international law by banning families from seeking asylum at the border, likely separating families and stranding migrants fleeing persecution and torture in countries unable to protect them,” wrote the senators.

They like the 30,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians that will be allowed in every month, though. The administration denies there is a travel ban. The new policy will require migrants to apply for asylum from their current location, not wait until they reach the border.

I have a lot of problems with what Biden presented on Thursday. He essentially makes the entire southern border a port of entry. He tosses out pre-emptive amnesty to a large number of immigrants who allegedly will be vetted before allowed to fly into the country. Do we really trust this bunch in the administration to properly vet anyone? Have we forgotten what happened during the the evacuation from Afghanistan? Those are some of my concerns right off the bat. We’ll see what happens, if anything other than more chaos at the border and more migrants coming into the country.