How did the border explode into chaos during the Biden administration? More interestingly, why?
In just three years, about 10 million people flooded America’s southern border … a population larger than Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston combined.
It wasn’t a response to war or natural disaster. It was Biden administration policy, implemented intentionally from his first day. And it handed Donald Trump a lifeline back into the Oval Office.
The Biden administration didn’t stumble into this. They walked with eyes wide open, and a team of political pros who maneuvered him into the presidency. These weren’t fools, yet somehow they managed to misread the public and the political landscape completely. They turned immigration—an issue they thought would harm Trump—into one of his biggest strengths.
On Day One, Biden signed a stack of executive orders designed to undo Trump’s immigration legacy. He froze deportations. Killed the border wall. Canceled “Remain in Mexico.” The result was immediate and overwhelming. Border encounters surged to 2.4 million in 2022—the highest number ever recorded.
Democratic leaders tried to explain it away—poverty, climate, corruption—but those conditions had been true for decades. The only thing that had changed was the welcome mat.
And the backlash, when it came, was enormous.
So how did they screw this up so badly?
It wasn’t the first time immigration backfired on a politician. In 1994, California’s Republican Governor Pete Wilson supported Proposition 187, which denied state benefits to illegal immigrants. It passed overwhelmingly. But it also awakened California’s Latino community and drove a tidal wave of Democratic voter registrations. In the end, California flipped permanently blue—and Republicans got a cautionary tale burned into their playbook: tread lightly on immigration, or risk political suicide.
Democrats had long walked a tightrope on immigration. On one hand, they had blue-collar workers who suffered when cheaper immigrants came for their jobs. On the other, Latino voters were a key voter bloc, one that Democrats assumed would support new Latino immigrants, legal or not.
There was also a quieter calculation: immigrants and their children were future Democrat voters. The more who came—and eventually got legalized—the bigger the future Democratic voting base. Of course, no one ever said that out loud. They wrapped it in terms like “compassion” and “comprehensive reform,” but the math wasn’t hard to see.
Republicans, meanwhile, had their own reasons for looking the other way. Many feared the “racist” label if they pushed too hard, something that until recently struck fear in the hearts of their political consultants. And a not-insignificant number of corporate donors—especially in agriculture, hospitality, and construction—relied on a steady flow of low-wage labor.
So for years, both parties danced around the issue, each for reasons they didn’t like to admit. Then came Donald Trump.
He didn’t dance, but charged in talking about walls, criminals, and closing the border completely. It was crude, blunt, and politically dangerous. But it worked, because by that time he was closer to where most Americans stood than either political party.
While other GOP candidates tiptoed, Trump filled the vacuum, and it was the single most compelling policy position that elevated him to be the GOP nominee in 2016.
His unapologetic stance lit up voters who felt ignored for years, and after his election as president the media backlash only amplified him. “Kids in cages.” “Muslim ban.” “Racist wall.” Democrats and the press thought they’d struck gold by painting him as heartless.
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Yet even many who disliked Trump’s tone quietly agreed with his goals. By the end of Trump’s presidency, even 80% of Democrats wanted more resources to police the border.
But instead of adjusting, Democratic leaders doubled down. In the 2020 primary debates, every top candidate promised health benefits for illegal immigrants—raising their hands in unison like it was a group pledge.
Then came President Biden and open borders.
And for a year or two, it worked. Yes, it became a regular talking point on Fox News and in the growing conservative media ecosphere, but it wasn’t until one man took an action that would change the national discourse: Texas governor Greg Abbott.
In 2022, he started busing migrants to sanctuary cities—New York, Chicago, Denver, L.A. The move was theatrical, and amazingly effective. It took what had been a Texas and Arizona problem and dropped it on the doorsteps of liberal mayors.
Suddenly, the border crisis wasn’t theoretical. It wasn’t a Fox News segment. It was real. And expensive. New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, called it a disaster and predicted it would “destroy” the city. His migrant budget? $12 billion over three years.
Voters noticed the displaced jobs, packed schools, and scarcer housing. It didn’t take long before blue-city residents started asking the same questions red-state voters had asked for years.
The Biden team didn’t see it coming. They’d been reading the wrong polls, listening to the loudest activists, and assuming the usual media shield would hold. It worked for a while—until reality steamrolled the narrative.
By mid-2023, two-thirds of Americans disapproved of Biden’s immigration policies. A year later, Trump held a double-digit advantage over him on the issue.
The irony is brutal: in trying to prove they weren’t Trump, Democrats handed him the perfect campaign gift. They turned a divisive slogan—“Build the wall!”—into a growing consensus.
