EDITORIAL: Biden may find himself in a pickle on immigration

After spending four years demagoguing Republicans and the Trump administration on illegal immigration, Democrats and Joe Biden may soon find themselves in a pickle. Let’s hope that proves an impetus for a common-sense deal on immigration policy.

Say what you will about President Donald Trump’s hard-line rhetoric about the border, the number of people entering the country illegally did indeed slow considerably during his time in office. In November 2019, illegal crossings at the southern border were down 67 percent from six months earlier, and that trend continued into 2020.

But as Mr. Biden prepares to take office, several analysts expect a new reality. The New York Times reported over the weekend that immigration experts foresee a “much more substantial surge toward the border” in coming months as “a worsening economy in Central America, the disaster wrought by Hurricanes Eta and Iota and expectations of a more lenient U.S. border policy drive ever-larger numbers toward the United States.”

Illegal immigration tends to ebb and flow with economic and social patterns, of course, and the coronavirus pandemic doesn’t help. But other factors are in play, too. “If there is a perception of more humane policies,” Alexander Aleinikoff, director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School in New York, told the Times, “you are likely to see an increase of arrivals at the border.”

Once in office, Mr. Biden will certainly kill many of Mr. Trump’s immigration initiatives, but that could bring its own set of problems. “Swiftly reversing Trump administration policies could be construed as opening the floodgates,” the Times noted, “risking a rush to the border that could quickly devolve into a humanitarian crisis.”

The majority of Americans prefer some middle ground on immigration policy between the far left’s “open borders” fantasy and the hard right’s “big, beautiful wall.” Allowing the children of those in the country illegally to remain here on a path toward citizenship has widespread public support, polls show. So does accommodating undocumented workers with gainful employment.

But if Mr. Biden “opens the floodgates” and caves to the radical progressives who agitate to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to create an amnesty treadmill, to ban deportations of lawbreakers in the country illegally and to label as raging racists anyone who has a different viewpoint, he risks paying a high price politically.

On the other hand, if he advocates for compromise with those who believe the United States has a right to control its borders, a compromise that recognizes the importance of immigration to our economy and the value that immigrants offer yet reflects the importance of border security, Mr. Biden may finally have a signature achievement after 50 years in Washington.