Biden's border bungle and mismanagement of the results of it harder to hide

 Shipwreckedcrew:

Reuters is reporting on growing dissension inside the Biden Administration — dissension between the White House and federal agencies — over the slow pace of the agencies in resettling unaccompanied minors taken into custody after crossing the border.  This conflict is building at the same time — and may be in response to — worsening polling on the Administration’s handling of the crisis which is rapidly spiraling out of control. As detailed further below, it is hard to find a solution when thousands of new unaccompanied minors are apprehended each month, but only 300 are placed in quasi-permanent living arrangements each month.  That’s pretty much the functional equivalent of trying to hold back the ocean with a bucket.

Top aides to President Joe Biden are ramping up pressure on the agency that shelters thousands of unaccompanied migrant children, voicing frustration that kids are not being released quickly enough from detention, three U.S. officials said.

In daily calls with representatives from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other agencies, White House officials have demanded HHS speed up releases from its overloaded shelter system to free up space for children packed into crowded border patrol stations, the officials said. HHS is in charge of housing the migrant children and vetting potential U.S. sponsors, often parents and close relatives, who seek to take them in.

You don’t have to look far to find the obvious cause for this building friction between the White House and the federal bureaucracy.

Back on March 31, at the height of the momentary press coverage of the situation on the border regarding the housing and care of unaccompanied minors, Biden’s polling numbers on immigration dipped significantly.  Morning Consult’s polling released that day showed a nearly 10 point decline in just two weeks.

The rapid movement came from across the political spectrum, with the share of Democrats who disapprove of his handling of immigration increasing 11 points (to 20 percent), and the share of Republicans who said the same up 7 points (to 84 percent), since Biden took office.

Among more than a dozen issues tested – including climate, the pandemic, jobs and the economy – immigration yields Biden’s worst numbers among voters of either party and is the only issue where voter sentiment about the president’s handling is underwater among the larger electorate.

Five days later, an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll confirmed the bad numbers for Biden:

Overall, 40% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of children reaching the nation’s southern border without their parents, compared with just 24% who approve. Thirty-five percent don’t have an opinion either way.

Just 42% of Americans say they approve of how the president is handling immigration in general, and a similar share, 44%, say they approve of how he’s handling border security. Both are significantly lower than the 61% of Americans who say they approve of how Biden is handling his job overall

Additionally, only a third of Americans each say that allowing refugees to come to the U.S. or expanding “guest worker” programs should be high priorities.

That last data point in refugees relates to a controversy that sparked up on Friday.  Refugee policy and asylum seekers are one of those issues that are seemingly important to two groups primarily — 1) activist groups who believe the United States, alone in the world, exists to serve the function of a travel destination and relocation center for anyone anywhere who wants to escape the place on the planet where they were born and 2) corporate CEOs who know they can lower their labor costs by hiring technically proficient foreigners instead of more expensive United States citizens.

During the day on Friday, it was announced that the Biden Administration was going to leave in place the plan from the Trump Administration to admit only 15,000 refugees during 2021. By early evening the Biden Administration had changed plans.  The New York Times covered the switch:

At midday on Friday, the administration had said it would limit the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year to the historically low level of 15,000 set by the Trump administration, breaking an earlier pledge to greatly increase that number and let in more than 60,000 people fleeing war and persecution.

But that announcement drew immediate criticism from Democratic leaders. In a statement, Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the majority whip, called the administration’s admissions target “unacceptable.”

“Facing the greatest refugee crisis in our time, there is no reason to limit the number to 15,000,” Mr. Durbin said. “Say it ain’t so, President Joe.”

Just hours later, the White House put out a statement saying it expected to increase the cap next month. It did not comment when asked to specify the number.

This one is a head-scratcher because it is inconceivable that no one in the White House would have anticipated a backlash from Democrats and interest groups to an announced reversal on the refugee settlement issue.

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It appears to be the Obamaites within the administration that are responsible for much of the mess.  That is no surprise since they help create the mess when Obama was in office.  While the administration lays claim to being humanitarian-driven in this crisis there is also an underlying thread of using these refugees to help Democrats steal House seats by counting them in the census and offering them citizenship.  There is also H.R. 1 which would do away with voter ID so these people could illegally vote.

The fact is the Democrats are just not very good at managing a crisis they created.