It’s unfortunate that Beto O’Rourke got sucked into the Democrats’ hype machine and came out a joke. Because he just said about asylum seekers what every Democrat should be saying, not just because it’s morally right but because it’s politically smart.
To whit: I came across his recent talk at the Harvard Kennedy School on Twitter. Dave Weigel posted it with a seemingly sardonic “Folks ….” and I prepared to smirk watching Beto skateboard while playing Free Bird on the guitar or something.
Instead, O’Rourke presents a genuine and passionate denunciation of Biden’s border policies, noting that in substance they differ little from Trump’s. “He’s really failing us,” O’Rourke says, noting that the “lawful” asylum process leaves people no choice but to undertake a hazardous—often deadly— journey. In addition to criticizing Biden, he chronicles, in great detail, what asylum seekers go through. They risk rape, kidnapping, extortion, dying of the elements. “The Beast.” The Darien Gap. And only to come to the most heavily militarized border in the world. Some women do this pregnant and many families have little kids with them. Do you think they do this to collect $100 a month in “welfare,” steal your job or commit terrorism or crime?
In detailing their experience O’Rourke dismantles the concept of asylum seekers as undeserving burdens. They’re not “cutting in line,” they’re leaving people they love behind, risking their lives, to come to a place that may as well be another planet. All they want to do is work and send their kids to school. In New York, you can always tell that a family is made up of asylum seekers because even the little kids don’t know a word of English. Do me a favor: download the Google translate app. It’s really good.
The prevailing narrative is that Biden is perceived as “weak” on border issues because he’s too scared of progressive activists to boast about his “achievements” in pushing back asylum seekers. On last week’s Bill Maher show, the titular host and his guests agreed, with grave concern, that activist groups were preventing Biden from highlighting his aggressive approach at the border. They agreed, too, that it’s a very big problem that asylum claims have widened to include people fleeing cartel violence or poverty. It’s a very big problem, too, that so many migrants keep coming. And it’s a big problem for Biden, because he’s perceived as weak on stopping the migrants from coming.
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