© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesWASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 25: U.S. President Joe Biden talks to reporters during the first news conference of his presidency in the East Room of the White House on March 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. On the 64th day of his administration, Biden, 78, faced questions about the coronavirus pandemic, immigration, gun control and other subjects. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
On Day One of his presidency, Joe Biden signed six immigration-related executive actions and outlined a sweeping immigration reform measure that would create a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally.
The actions were not only substantive but symbolic of Biden's stated commitment to reverse former President Donald Trump's hard-line policies, restore humanity to the immigration system and place immigration at the top of his domestic agenda.
When Biden hit the 100-day mark, he had taken 94 executive actions on immigration, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute - more than triple enacted by Trump in the same time frame. More than half of those actions have been aimed at undoing Trump-era policies.
But his record so far has invited mixed responses from advocates. While the president has been praised for following through on some major campaign promises, he has also left unfulfilled others and bumbled through some self-inflicted wounds - most notably when he in April reneged on a campaign promise and kept the refugee admissions cap at the previous administration's historic low before quickly announcing plans to change course in the face of extreme backlash. He eventually raised the ceiling to 62,500 in early May.
Though Biden's immigration actions have included significant moves like defunding border wall construction and winding down the former administration's controversial asylum program at the southern border, the administration's efforts have been overshadowed by an influx of unaccompanied migrant minors at the border that has sent the government scrambling and, officials say, diverted resources and attention from other areas of immigration policy.
Republicans have seized on the border situation, labeling it a crisis and relentlessly pushing it as evidence of the Biden's administration's incompetence, positioning the issue squarely at the forefront of their 2022 midterm elections campaign. Even the Wi-Fi password for the House GOP retreat last month was "Biden Border Crisis."
The White House, meanwhile, has rebuffed the "crisis" label but has largely failed to counter that narrative and draw public attention to its actions in other areas of immigration policy. More than half of Americans disapprove of Biden's handling of the border, according to a recent poll.
Recent signs suggest the situation at the border is stabilizing and facilities that were once grossly overcrowded are under capacity. Advocates and others say they are now closely watching the Biden administration's actions over the next several months for how aggressively it will not only pursue the immigration agenda the president has already laid out but communicate those efforts.
"They're making progress. They're holding their nerve. And the question is, in the next 100 days, are they going to get back on offense? Are they going to get on the front foot and off the back foot?" says Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America's Voice, a left-leaning immigration advocacy group.
Arrivals at the border began rising under Trump and increased even further when Biden took office - a development experts say was predictable and a scenario the Trump administration should have prepared for before Inauguration Day. Trump last year enacted a public health order, known as Title 42, that allowed border agents to immediately turn back migrants caught crossing the border without arresting and processing them. Biden, to advocates' dismay, has kept Title 42 in place for single adults and families but announced early in his presidency that the order would, as a matter of policy, no longer apply to minors traveling alone.
The Biden administration was then responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant minors who arrived at the border in record numbers, overwhelming existing facilities. As the administration rushed to increase capacity at shelters and stand up temporary shelters, photos of young migrants crowded in border facilities dominated the news and Republicans hammered Biden on the "crisis." The White House attempted to defend its strategy in press conferences and in public remarks, but immigration quickly became one of Biden's weakest issues with voters.
At the same time, the administration was taking action in other areas of immigration policy. In the first 100 days, the Biden administration reset Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest priorities to decrease arrests and target national security threats, criminals and recent border crossers, and it got rid of a Trump-era policy that experts say amounted to a wealth test for legal immigrants. Biden also stopped construction on the wall, ended a travel ban most notably from certain Middle East and African countries, and ended the Migrant Protection Protocols - a controversial Trump administration program that forced asylum-seekers to wait, often in squalid and dangerous conditions, in Mexico for legal proceedings in the U.S. The administration also made a number of smaller but still substantive policy changes.
But those actions were largely overshadowed in the public eye by the situation at the border, thanks to, experts say, a combination of the strength of the Republicans' messaging campaign, communication failures by the Whiite House, and the fact that provocative data and arresting images of conditions tend to capture public attention better than policy change.
"An immediate change in the day-to-day reality at the border is going to catch more people's attention than the Biden administration withdrawing a rule from the Federal Register," says Jessica Bolter, associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. "Because it is so vivid and such a concrete change that we saw once Biden came into office, that is something that Republicans who want to target Biden on immigration, who want to portray him as weak on the border, can kind of grasp on to. And once Republicans have grasped on to that, the Biden administration has to respond, and it kind of cycles into a topic that is hard to escape."
Republicans' focus on the issue put the Biden administration in a defensive stance, says Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. Hincapié says she believes Republicans are using the issue to distract from the Jan. 6 insurrection and Biden's policy accomplishments so far.
"Unfortunately, Democrats are giving in to that and are now in a defensive posture and are operating on their terms rather than really leaning into the fact that, yes, there's a situation at the border and here's what we are doing about it," Hincapié says. "I think it's a little bit of a combination of Republicans focusing the efforts - they're getting the media attention there - and Democrats playing into that and losing sight."
Some advocates have been concerned that the strength of Republicans' messaging on the border and the Biden administration's desire to rebut that has led the White House to moderate its action on immigration policy - most recently when Biden initially announced that he was keeping the refugee cap at the record low set by Trump in a clear abdication of one of his core campaign promises.
The administration also hasn't effectively promoted what they have accomplished, some say.
In the last 50 days, the administration "got really inward-thinking, inward-looking really quickly, as they were trying to wrestle with big problems," says Ali Noorani, president and chief executive officer of the National Immigration Forum. "As a result, those of us on the outside, it was unclear what the administration was trying to fix, what they were fixing and what had been fixed."
The White House was also "underselling themselves," Noorani says, noting in particular the suspension of the immigrant wealth test - known as the "public charge" rule - and the new ICE enforcement priorities. "Being able to communicate what they're done in a way that really helps the public understand what it's important is such a big part of this."
The public hasn't "seen as much touting of Biden's record on immigration," Bolter says. "So far, it seems that the administration is focused on kind of promoting other accomplishments of the administration."
The White House has said that the border situation has pulled focus and resources from other areas of immigration policy - an explanation advocates and experts view with varying degrees of acceptance and skepticism. The administration has also pleaded patience as it attempts to review and undo more than 1,000 immigration policy changes enacted by the Trump administration over four years.
Advocates have been frustrated by the slow and, in some cases, nonexistent progress the administration has made on reforming the asylum system, clearing the legal immigration backlog and addressing other legal immigration issues. Many would also like to see Title 42 rescinded at the border and a return to normal immigration law.
And there are actions Biden can, but has chosen not to, take to ease the situation at the border and better live up to his pledge to restore humanity to the system, experts say.
"The administration is talking the talk on restoring asylum, but with the exception of reverting MPP and deciding not to start expelling unaccompanied children again, they haven't done much walking the walk," says Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the nonprofit American Immigration Council.
Biden also hasn't spent much political capital trying to push his immigration reform measure and other immigration reform bills through Congress. Some advocates are urging lawmakers and the White House to use a process known as reconciliation that is designed mostly for spending bills to make it easier for those measures to pass the evenly divided Senate.
As the border situation calms, Democrats and immigration advocates are looking for the Biden administration to act in all the areas it has yet to address and watching to see whether the president will live up to his campaign promises.
"What happens in the next 100 days is really going to be decisive," Sharry says.
Hincapié says she sees the next 100 days as "being really critical as well, in terms of being able to have President Biden move his political capital, and using all levers of government to deliver on his campaign promises to enact a 21st century immigration system that truly reflects the values that we aspire to as a nation and our role as a global leader."
Copyright 2021 U.S. News & World Report