Biden finally acts on border crisis, showing he could've done something about it all along

After watching illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border explode throughout his presidency, President Joe Biden has finally decided it’s time to act.

Nearly four years into his term, it feels more than a little late. Apparently, Biden can no longer ignore the polls.

Biden has hemmed and hawed for years that he’s helpless to slow down border encounters that have more than doubled during his tenure and that he’s reliant on Congress to help out.

That was always untrue. In his first days in office, after all, Biden used his executive authority to end Trump administration policies like "Remain in Mexico" that were helpful in curbing asylum claims that have overwhelmed our border.

Biden simply chose to ignore the problem. Plus, he didn’t want to pick fights with progressives in his party who’d rather there not be any limits on the border.

That strategy has backfired spectacularly. Biden’s tanking poll numbers are due in no small part to his mismanagement of illegal immigration.

Border chaos: Trump and Biden keep blaming each other. But voters want solutions, not chaos at border.

Immigration, along with the economy and inflation, has soared to one of the top issues on voters’ minds as we head toward the presidential election. It’s not just a border problem anymore, as cities – often large, Democratic ones like Chicago and New York – are dealing with an influx of migrants.

It’s no surprise that voters trust former President Donald Trump over Biden by double digits on these issues: Trump has a 17-point lead on immigration and a 14-point lead on the economy and inflation, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll from last month.

An executive order with power to shut down border

Biden reportedly plans to sign the executive order Tuesday, in the presence of several mayors from South Texas.

The order will more strictly cap the number of illegal crossings. If the number of crossings average 2,500 a day, then border officials would be able to quickly expel migrants without a chance for asylum.

Trump convicted: Trump is guilty. It won't matter at all this election.

While numbers have fallen since late last year, they have remained high. In December, there was an all-time monthly record of migrant encounters – 250,000 – crossing into the United States from Mexico.

In the first three weeks of May, the U.S. Border Patrol reported a daily average of 3,700 apprehensions of migrants, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News.

So Biden’s new order will have immediate consequences if these numbers remain high.

Could Hunter Biden's trial have played into timing?

In addition to all the surveys showing Americans don’t trust Biden to handle the border crisis, there could be something else that nudged the president to take action this week.

Trump, who was convicted in his hush money trial Thursday, isn’t the only one in the hot seat. Biden’s son Hunter is in court in Wilmington, Delaware, as his felony gun trial begins. The younger Biden is charged with lying on a federal gun form in 2018 about his drug addiction. A jury was selected on Monday.

Separately, he faces three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanors in a California federal court after he failed to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes, instead spending the money “on drugs, escorts and girlfriends.”

De Niro's Trump rant: Hate to break it to you, Joe. Robert De Niro's Trump rant won't win Biden more fans.

All of this is bad enough, not to mention the attention Republicans in Congress have brought to Hunter Biden’s shady business deals.

In other words, it’s embarrassing for the president, who's trying to write off all his son’s bad behavior as a result of his addiction.

“Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,” Biden said in a statement.

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That may be. But these aren’t the kind of headlines that will buoy a floundering reelection campaign.

So why not try to change the conversation with an executive order on immigration?

Biden’s now taking the right action. He just shouldn’t have waited nearly four years to do it.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden executive order on immigration comes much too late for border