Joe Biden Suffers Border Blow

The proportion of Americans who believe the United States doesn’t have control over its external borders has increased substantially over the past eight months according to a new poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek.

The survey of eligible voters, carried out by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, found just 20 percent think the U.S. has “control over its borders,” down from 34 percent in August 2023. This is a significant blow for the Biden administration with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump having made tightening border control one of the main pillars of his bid for a second White House term.

Irregular immigration has become a top political issue over the past few years, with 9.8 million migrant encounters recorded between October 2019 and January 2024, according to figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. On April 12, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that 507,200 suspected undocumented migrants had been detained in his state since 2021 when he launched Operation Lone Star to combat illegal crossings.

Asked, “Do you believe the United States has control over its borders?” In the new poll, 63 percent replied “no” against 20 percent for “yes,” with another 13 percent responding “don’t know.” Notably, those who answered no included 53 percent of those who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and a plurality in all of the age groups surveyed, including 47 percent of Generation X who were born between 1997 and 2002.

The survey of 1,500 eligible voters was conducted on April 11.

When given the same question by Redfield & Wilton Strategies in August 2023, 58 percent of eligible U.S. voters replied “no” versus 34 percent for “yes” and 8 percent for “don’t know.”

The April survey also asked whether voters were “satisfied or dissatisfied with the government’s current approach towards illegal immigration.” In response, 52 percent answered either “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied,” against just 21 percent for “satisfied” and “very satisfied.” Another 21 percent said they were “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied,” while 6 percent answered “don’t know.”

Newsweek reached out to the White House press office and a spokesperson for President Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign for comment by email.

In February, a sweeping $118 billion bipartisan Senate bill aimed at tightening illegal immigration and providing aid to American allies, including Ukraine and Israel, was rejected by key House Republicans, who argued it didn’t go far enough in tightening the border.

Speaking to Newsweek, Thomas Gift, who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, said polling indicates illegal immigration will be one of the top issues at November’s presidential election.

“The death of the $118 billion immigration bill in February reminded many Americans of the complete inadequacies of Washington to deal comprehensively with the nation’s immigration challenges. Not only do fewer voters think that the country has control over its border. The issue has also become more salient,” Gift said.

“According to Gallup, 28 percent of respondents now list immigration as America’s most important problem, more than double the number who said that last fall. The same poll shows that respondents are twice as likely to say immigration is the country’s top problem compared to the economy in general. Other issues—from abortion to Russia’s war in Ukraine, to the Israel-Hamas conflict—barely register in comparison.”

Illegal immigration has also caused an explosion in tensions between the Biden administration and Texas’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

On January 22, the Supreme Court ruled federal agents could remove razor wire placed along the Texas-Mexico border on Abbott’s orders. In response, the governor claimed his state was being “invaded” and invoked its “constitutional authority to defend and protect itself.”

A joint statement was released by 25 other Republican governors in support of Abbott whilst Trump urged the deployment of National Guard troops from GOP-controlled states to Texas to support border control efforts.