One of the most common claims made by conservative commentators is that Joe Biden created an “open border” policy. The problem is that the actual numbers tell a very different story.
According to data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute, the deportation numbers between Trump’s first term in office and Biden’s term in office are nearly identical (around 1.5 million people. In fact, deportations under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were significantly higher than under Trump. Conservatives love to cite those comparisons, but rarely provide the context that would actually explain what those numbers mean.
Rather than rehash arguments I’ve made many times before about who gets deported and why, it’s worth addressing the larger myth that keeps circulating: the idea that Biden somehow allowed unlimited immigration into the United States.
For the first two years of Biden’s presidency, the country was still operating under pandemic-era restrictions that limited cross-border movement. These policies were largely a continuation of the restrictions implemented during the Trump administration. During that time, many asylum seekers from Central American countries such as El Salvador and Honduras waited at the border for years or were detained while their cases were processed.
Allowing asylum seekers to enter the country after those restrictions eased was not an “open border” policy. It was the United States complying with its own asylum laws.
Those laws exist for a reason. After the United States turned away thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in the 1930s—many of whom were sent back to Europe and ultimately died in the Holocaust—the country adopted legal frameworks intended to ensure that people fleeing persecution would at least have their claims heard before being turned away.
In other words, Biden didn’t create open borders. He followed existing law.
If Americans truly want fewer people migrating to the United States, we also need to confront a more uncomfortable truth: U.S. foreign policy has often contributed to the instability that drives migration in the first place. For decades, the United States has interfered in the politics and economies of countries across Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia—sometimes installing authoritarian leaders or imposing sanctions and economic pressures that destabilize entire regions.
When people leave their homes out of desperation, they are not doing it for fun. They are responding to conditions that often have deep historical and geopolitical roots.
If we want fewer migrants at the border, addressing those root causes would be a far more honest place to start than repeating the politically convenient myth of “open borders.”
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