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.
Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis in 1939. They were waiting in Havana, Cuba, just to be turned away by the United States and sent back to Nazi-occupied Europe, where many of them would be killed.
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.”
Despite how the gaggle of goofy, gaumless, good-for-nothing goobers on the other side of the political spectrum keep straw-manning the position of those of us on the left side of the political spectrum (liberals, progressives, and leftists), most of us do not desire, nor are we advocating for, completely open borders. We don’t want foreign criminals in this country, we don’t want terrorists to enter this country easily, and we don’t wish to ruin our national ecology through the unchecked introduction of invasive species of plants, animals, fungi, and diseases. These are some of the reasons why borders exist and why they are regulated.
However, we do not want to excuse or promote xenophobic ideas and policies. We do not engage in the wholesale demonization of segments of people because we find their looks, fashion, customs, diets, religions, or whatever too foreign for our tastes. We are not holding on to a fictionalized notion of the United States being the product of one dominant, default, and exemplary culture, devoid of any influence of the various other people who contributed to the cultural, intellectual, and economic capital of this melting pot and/or mosaic of a nation.
In other words, many other people and I on the political left welcome immigrants, visitors, and migrants from all over the world, from different walks of life, whether from a developing country or from a wealthy, advanced, and developed nation. If we are indeed that “shining city on a hill” that Ronald Reagan talked about in his 1989 farewell address, then we would like to share our freedom, prosperity, opportunities, culture, and technology with people from the rest of the world who yearn for the freedom, opportunity, and prosperity that somehow eluded them in their home countries and that our nation can provide. After all, this is a country of mostly colonizers, enslaved or indentured labor, and immigrants living on the stolen ancestral land of the collective victims of one of the worst genocides in human history. I don’t say this to be facetious, contrarian, indignant, or self-righteous. That is not my point. I say this to illustrate that if there were a rigid enforcement of borders 400 years ago, the only people that would be here are those currently mostly forgotten people who make up 1% – 2 % of the population, many living in conditions worse than those of the urban slums that my people complain about, and who are routinely mistaken for foreigners themselves in some very disturbing twist of irony.
The truth is that immigrant populations add to our overall economic prosperity. They are usually leaders in the various past innovations that made this country technologically advanced and prosperous. These people include Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Levi Strauss, and many others from various parts of the world (I focused more on the names that most people know). A study published by the Cato Institute a few days ago stated that immigrants paid trillions of dollars more in taxes than they received in benefits from 1994 to 2023. According to another study from 2024 by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS alone paid close to $100 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that money went towards federal taxes (over 60%). This is money that they cannot receive in individualized social welfare programs like food stamps due to their immigration status.
Despite the things that you’ve heard from your xenophobic family members, friends, and/or neighbors, despite what you watched on poorly produced internet documentaries with questionable methods, drawing unethical conclusions, and despite the cynical demagoguery of conservative (and some liberal) politicians, political pundits, and social media content creators, immigrants aren’t fleecing this country like hordes of swarming locusts or being given more opportunities and business loans than native born Americans. I already argued on how the former isn’t true, now the latter.
According to an article by NBC News, immigrants have higher rates of entrepreneurship than native-born Americans. Yet immigrants get rejected for business loans at rates higher than their native-born counterparts. This is according to small business loan statistics from the Bankrate website. It is tougher to get grants and other benefits from the government if you are an immigrant.
So why are there so many immigrant businesses? Immigrants usually have more of an entrepreneurial drive than native-born Americans. Having personally traveled to underdeveloped nations and spent time there, I saw firsthand how many people were forced to be creative to make money because the number of good-paying jobs was limited, along with the prospect of post-secondary education (education after high school). I saw people running small stores, barber shops, beauty salons, and restaurants out of their homes.
According to the Cato Institute, immigrant groups consume and spend less than native-born Americans and rely less on credit. This is because the availability of credit is relatively low in their home countries. Thus, people have to save their money to buy homes, cars, or start businesses. They learn to do more with less while deferring their gratification until a later time.
The answer to our immigration problems is not to trample all over our Constitution, one of the things that make this country special, to criminalize and commit acts of state-sponsored terrorism on people whose only crime was to leave the homes that they love due to desperation. Nor should we force adherence and assimilation into American values that are approved by only a small section of Americans who feel that their childish jingoism, denial, and hiding of uncomfortable historical facts and occurrences is the only way to truly “love” America. Their narrow-minded ideas of love, patriotism, and American culture are laughably juvenile and display a sickening self-aggrandizing narcissism. The fact that they perform this horrid bigotry in the name of Christianity is one of the biggest affronts and stains on our image. I personally don’t care whether individuals or groups of immigrants adopt a conservative philosophy or a progressive one. It doesn’t matter to me. All I care about is whether they are actively trying to harm the people of this country over grievances that have little to do with them, besides being a part of the propagandized masses being indoctrinated by political, business, and media interests. Acts of terrorism by foreign actors don’t make things better. They make them worse.
Those of us on the left are not asking for chaos or lawlessness at the border. What we want is an immigration system that is humane, rational, and consistent with the constitutional principles that make this country worth defending in the first place. Citizenship should not require people to navigate an unnecessarily cruel maze of bureaucracy, spend enormous sums of money, or prove their loyalty by parroting a narrow and childish form of jingoism.
Patriotism in a democratic society cannot mean blind obedience to a single vision of what America is supposed to be. The right to criticize, challenge, and improve our country is exactly what separates the United States from the authoritarian governments many immigrants are fleeing. If you truly love this country, then you should understand why people around the world see it as a place of opportunity and refuge. Welcoming those who seek freedom and a better life is not a betrayal of American values. It is one of the clearest expressions of them.
Ten years ago, Critical Race Theory was a relatively obscure academic course, typically offered at the university or graduate school level. Relatively few people, mostly those with majors and/or minors in sociology or African and African American Studies, or those seeking a law degree, were aware that this course even existed. Since around 2020, Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become one of, if not the most controversial, subjects in schooling, and the proverbial boogeyman of everything wrong with contemporary education in the United States. For those on the right side of the political spectrum, CRT has been blamed for many of the societal ills in today’s America.
But what exactly is Critical Race Theory?
CRT is an academic and legal framework created by law school professors, activists, and academics, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Harris, Charles Lawrence, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia Williams during the mid-1970s. These individuals observed that the advances of the Civil Rights Movement were stalling and even being rolled back. They realized that racism was getting more covert and subtler than it was during the 1950s and 1960s, the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. They concluded that new theories and legal strategies were necessary to identify and combat these more covert forms of racism.
Critical Race Theory teaches that race is not a legitimate scientific taxonomical classification of human beings with varying physical differences. Instead, race is a somewhat arbitrary social construct in which the effects of the belief in the scientific validity of race are still very socially significant.
Mosaic of different racial characteristics forming one male face.Black and White twins, Lucy (L) and Maria Aylmer (R). The girls are fraternal twins with the same biological parents, Donna Douglas (a black woman with a white parent) and Vince Aylmer (a white man). Often mistaken for friends, the girls often carry birth certificates to prove that they are sisters.
It also teaches that racism is not merely the anomalous product of misled individuals. Rather, it is the embedded feature of a society built on racial separation, animosities, and rigid hierarchies. Racism is woven into laws, policies, and practices despite the claims and assertions of meritocracy and color-blindness. Racism is not always the intentional consequence of malevolent deeds of individuals due to ignorance, hatred, or irrationality. Instead, racism is more often a manifestation of the unintentional consequences of subconscious choices, even though these consequences can be predicted by those who are aware of the ambience of racism.
Opponents of CRT argue that it is a racist ideology, rooted in Marxism, that demonizes white people for the actions of a relative few in the past. In their minds, CRT scapegoats white people for the socioeconomic and moral failure of many black people and other racial minorities. They conflate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives (such as DEI training) with Critical Race Theory courses. They claim that CRT is being taught to children in K-12 schools in non-English and Non-Social Studies courses.
The Backlash…
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr during his May 8, 1967, NBC Interview
“… And honesty impels me to admit that America has a broad racist element still alive. Racism is still existing in American society in many areas of America, North and South. And the other thing is that there has never been a single solid, determined commitment of large segments of white America on the whole question of racial equality. I think we have to see that vacillation has always existed. Ambivalence has always existed. And this, to me, is the so-called “white backlash.” It is merely a new name for an old phenomenon. I see the white backlash as a continuation of the same ambivalence and vacillation of white America on the whole question of racial justice that has existed since the founding of our nation.
I think the other thing that we must see at this time is that many of the people who supported us in Selma, in Birmingham, were really outraged about the extremist behavior toward Negroes, but they were not at that moment, and they are not now committed to genuine equality for Negroes. It’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee an annual income, for instance, to get rid of poverty for Negroes and all poor people. It’s much easier to integrate a bus than it is to make genuine integration a reality, quality education a reality in our schools. It’s much easier to integrate even a public park than it is to get rid of slums. I think we are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle, where we have moved from a struggle for decency, which characterized our struggle for 10 or 12 years, to a struggle for genuine equality. And THIS is where we’re getting the resistance, because there was never any intention to go this far. People were reacting to Bull Connor [Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, Alabama] and to Jim Clark [sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama] rather than acting in good faith for the realization of genuine equality.”
Christopher Rufo seemed like a man looking for a cause. He found it in 2018 when he ran across anti-bias documents while running for a Seattle city council seat. He lost his race, but he gained a cause to advance his political career in other ways. He then started collecting curricula and slide shows for anti-racism seminars throughout Seattle, Washington. He interpreted the methods and bullet points from these workplace trainings as anti-white racist attacks.
The anti-racism seminars pointed him to books by anti-racism authors. Going further down the proverbial rabbit hole, the anti-racism authors, such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, led him to CRT and the works of its founders.
Rufo leaned heavily on CRT and its connections to more radical and leftist philosophical influences while ignoring influences of those more moderate or with more mainstream appeal, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, and others. He was convinced that CRT was radical and Marxist and therefore a poison on this good and moral capitalistic society. Rufo found a new battle in the continuing culture war between the political left and the political right.
Christopher Rufo launched a relentless propaganda campaign against CRT. Critical Race Theory became a catch phrase for every aspect of black-centered, anti-racist, and inclusive lessons within all school programs, including K-12.
Rufo was proud of his work and how quickly news outlets and politicians on the right caught on to his messaging. Because of this, he wasn’t shy about bragging about his methods. He wrote in a correspondence with Angie Wang of the New Yorker:
“We’ve needed new language for these issues. ‘Political correctness’ is a dated term and, more importantly, doesn’t apply anymore. It’s not that elites are enforcing a set of manners and cultural limits, they’re seeking to reengineer the foundation of human psychology and social institutions through the new politics of race, It’s much more invasive than mere ‘correctness,’ which is a mechanism of social control, but not the heart of what’s happening. The other frames are wrong, too: ‘cancel culture’ is a vacuous term and doesn’t translate into a political program; ‘woke’ is a good epithet, but it’s too broad, too terminal, too easily brushed aside. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain
Its connotations are all negative to most middle-class Americans, including racial minorities, who see the world as ‘creative’ rather than ‘critical,’ ‘individual’ rather than ‘racial,’ ‘practical’ rather than ‘theoretical.’ Strung together, the phrase ‘critical race theory’ connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American.” Most perfect of all critical race theory is not ‘an externally applied pejorative.’ Instead, it’s the label the critical race theorists chose themselves.”
On X, Rufo made this post bragging about his work:
Rufo did a very good job with his propaganda, but he had given up the game on a public social media platform and to a writer in a media magazine. His ego is about as big as his goals, and he couldn’t help but take a bow and a victory lap. His work was done.
What now?
The issue with CRT was that it was a little bit too vague and too alien for most people. Rufo’s propaganda campaign worked, but not as well as he thought it would. CRT, as a sinister Marxist plot against white people and America, was replaced a couple of years ago by DEI. CRT is mainly about race. DEI can be about anything and everyone that doesn’t check all boxes for every privileged group in the various social hierarchical systems that exist in the United States. CRT is still looked at with suspicion by those on the political right, with school-aged children who may have gotten offended after a history lesson about chattel slavery in the United States. There were laws passed in many states to ban CRT in K-12 schools. However, there was no evidence that the course itself was being taught in K-12 schools. Rather, only certain ideas associated with CRT have made it to K-12 classrooms. Also, these bans are usually vague, with CRT being poorly defined.
Christopher Rufo got many people on the right side of the political spectrum to hate and fear a university and law school course that they don’t really understand through a constant propaganda campaign. He recognized that the obscurity of the course was its weakness from a public relations perspective. He also understood that emancipatory movements and initiatives were almost always followed by irrational reactionary backlash. He made a relatively unknown course and made it public enemy #1 for a period of four or five years.
