Why does Joe Biden’s immigration policy look so much like Donald Trump’s?

If little has changed, it’s in part because the problem is not simply who is running the immigration system. It is the system itself.

By Emily Tamkin

A United States Border Patrol agent tries to stop Haitian migrants from entering an encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande on 19 September 2021. Photo by Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images

On 27 September, Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, was grilled at a Migration Policy Institute conference. He defended the President, claiming that Title 42, which effectively allows the United States to expel asylum seekers because of the pandemic, should not be viewed as the administration’s position on immigration policy and humanitarian relief. 

It was an echo of his statement from the previous day, when he told NBC’s Meet the Press: “The pandemic is not behind us. Title 42 is a public health policy, not an immigration policy.”