Throwing Biden Under the Bus Won’t Save Democrats From Their Border Mess

Democrats running in competitive races have suddenly discovered something the rest of America figured out three years ago: Joe Biden’s border policy was an unmitigated disaster. And now they’re doing what politicians do best when accountability comes knocking. They’re pointing fingers at the guy who’s no longer in office while pretending they weren’t standing right beside him the whole time.

Take James Talarico in Texas, locked in a tight Senate race against Republican Ken Paxton. His recent ad proudly declares he “called out Joe Biden for failing us on the border.” That’s mighty bold talk now, but where was this courage in 2021, 2022, or 2023 when border towns were drowning in chaos? When ranchers couldn’t secure their own property? When fentanyl was pouring through at record levels?

The pattern repeats itself across the country. Adam Hamilton in Kansas tells voters that “immigration at the border under Biden was a disaster.” Paige Cognetti in Pennsylvania’s Scranton district admits “the Biden administration failed at the border.” Annie Andrews in South Carolina declares flat out that “Democrats have failed on the border.” It’s like watching a coordinated confession, except nobody’s actually sorry. They’re just sorry they might lose their seats.

Here’s what actually happened, and everyone knows it. Biden walked into office with a workable situation and immediately dismantled it because it had Trump’s name on it. That’s the honest truth nobody wants to say out loud. He inherited what he called a Covid era migration surge, but then he deliberately rolled back the policies that were managing it. He promised to let more asylum seekers stay in the country while their cases got processed, and surprise, millions took him up on the offer.

The flood that followed wasn’t some unpredictable act of nature. It was the direct result of policy decisions made by people who prioritized ideology over reality. Border communities begged for help. Border Patrol agents warned what would happen. Governors from both parties sounded alarms. And what did Democrats in Congress do? They called anyone worried about border security a xenophobe and kept right on voting with Biden.

Now we’re supposed to believe these same Democrats are the solution? That’s rich. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake calls it “very smart” for candidates to distance themselves from Biden. Smart politics, maybe. But it’s terrible governance when your party creates a crisis, denies it exists for years, and then only acknowledges the problem when your jobs are on the line.

The numbers tell the story that Democrats spent years trying to hide. Biden’s approval ratings on immigration tanked because Americans could see what was happening with their own eyes. Towns that never dealt with immigration issues suddenly had buses arriving in the middle of the night. Schools got overwhelmed. Hospital emergency rooms turned into de facto immigration processing centers. The human cost was staggering, both for Americans living in border states and for migrants who made dangerous journeys based on the perception that America’s borders were wide open.

Trump successfully weaponized the issue in 2024 because it wasn’t really weaponizing at all. It was just pointing at reality. When your opponent hands you a disaster, you don’t need to make anything up. The images spoke for themselves. The statistics were damning. Every American knew someone affected by the border crisis, whether directly or through the ripple effects on their communities.

What’s fascinating about this Democrat pivot is how transparently political it is. These candidates aren’t proposing fundamentally different approaches. They’re just adding “but Biden messed up” to their talking points while maintaining the same basic framework that created the problem. Hamilton pairs his Biden criticism with attacks on current enforcement being too aggressive. That’s trying to have it both ways, and voters aren’t stupid.

The truth is that border security requires actual security. It means physical barriers where they make sense. It means technology and personnel. It means detaining people who cross illegally and processing them quickly instead of releasing them into the country with a court date years in the future. It means cooperation with other countries to address root causes, sure, but not at the expense of sovereignty. These aren’t radical ideas. They’re common sense practiced by every functional nation on earth.

Democrats built their brand on compassion, which sounds noble until you realize that false compassion that enables human trafficking, empowers cartels, and creates chaos isn’t compassionate at all. Real compassion means having a system that works, that’s fair, that’s orderly. Real compassion means not incentivizing people to make dangerous thousand mile journeys based on the hope that American immigration law won’t be enforced.

The 2026 candidates throwing Biden under the bus now had their chance to lead on this issue when it mattered. They could have broken with their party. They could have demanded action. They chose party loyalty instead, and now they want credit for acknowledging what everyone else already knew. That’s not leadership. That’s damage control masquerading as principle.

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