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Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
What we're watching in US Politics this week? It’s immigration.
This is a big political liability for President Biden. It shows up as one of the top 2 or 3 issues, most of the big polls. And Donald Trump has a big advantage over him right now if you believed polls. So what Biden did this week is announced an emergency order that would restrict the number of people who would come to the United States seeking asylum in cases where border crossings breach over 2500 a day. This has been a pretty common occurrence, with border crossings at that level for the last several years. Last year there were over 3 million people who entered the country from abroad, both legally and illegally.
And it’s the illegal border crossings that's gotten Biden really in the most political trouble and has been at the heart of President Trump's political campaign since he first came down the golden escalator in 2015. So the big question is, does this hold and will it make any difference? And, you know, this is likely to be challenged in court by immigration advocates who want the number of asylum seekers to stay high so that people can get refuge in the United States.
But if the courts do uphold this, it should make a significant difference in the number of people crossing the border. The question is, does it come in time to help Joe Biden make a case that he's actually doing something about immigration in a way the American people want to see? Interestingly, this action is very similar to a deal that the Democrats struck with Republicans in the Senate earlier in the year, which was, of course, struck down when President Trump said he didn't really want to do anything to help Biden's reelection campaign.
So immigration is going to be an ongoing theme with this campaign. Biden took big action this week, and the numbers should help us see whether or not this makes any difference.
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