BAJI: Biden’s 2024 Bipartisan Border Plan is Racist

Black Alliance for Just Immigration: Biden’s 2024 Bipartisan Border Plan is Racist

One of the promises that President Biden has consistently been making since 2020 has been to end  Title 42, the racist Trump-era policy that effectively blocked migrants from entering the US.  He also committed to passing fair and humane immigration policies that protected people while treating them with dignity and compassion. Four years later and amid his re-election campaign, President Biden, in a complete 180-degree turn, is pushing harmful border policies that would gut the asylum system as we know it. While this bill did not pass, BAJI is appalled that a plan like this is being advanced by Democratic leadership. This immigration proposal is a political ploy to serve Biden and Republican electoral goals and does nothing at all to address the root causes of migration.  

If passed, the $118 billion border for war bipartisan bill will increase deportations and expand the immigration prison system, also known as detention. Additionally, the bill proposes the creation of a “Border Emergency Authority,” which will be tasked with closing the border when daily average border crossings reach 5,000 over seven days or 8,500 in a day. This kind of quota-based asylum lottery violates compliance with the UN Refugee Convention and will create even more precarious conditions for people seeking safety. Migrants with little to no financial means become victims of corrupt officials and other abuses in transit countries.

This attack on asylum and vulnerable migrants was not what was promised by the Biden administration. Despite this bill not passing in the Senate today, its influence on future legislation is clear. It counters attempts to address the impact of racial injustices on this country’s criminal and immigration enforcement systems. 

The solutions this bill provides can only be eerily compared to the now-disgraced solutions in the 1994 Crime Bill. Instead of addressing the systemic causes of the harm Black people and people of color experience, lawmakers led by then-Senator Joe Biden are approaching legitimate concerns about community safety with immature, archaic, and racist solutions of over-policing, mass incarceration, and fear-mongering. 

To fund a war and genocide, this administration and far too many members of Congress are willing to compromise human rights, international law, and, most importantly, the lives of Black migrants and migrants of color. 

The President and any elected member in Congress who is willing to accept these immigration policies are ignoring the calls of directly impacted communities. Rather than offer protections, they continue allowing our most vulnerable communities to be the first on the chopping block.