Althouse: "Why Mr. Biden waited so long to effectively seal the border has become one of the defining questions of his presidency."

December 8, 2025

"Why Mr. Biden waited so long to effectively seal the border has become one of the defining questions of his presidency."

"Some aides feared that closing the border would be overturned by the courts. Others said that principles mattered. 'It was truly believed — deeply, by many, including the president — that that was not in keeping with our values,' said Ms. Jacobson, the former border czar...."

From "How Biden Ignored Warnings and Lost Americans’ Faith in Immigration/The Democratic president and his top advisers rejected recommendations that could have eased the border crisis that helped return Donald Trump to the White House" (NYT)(gift link).

78 comments:

Jim at said...: Snort. Gee. You're only 4-5 years late.

Yay, journalism!; 12/8/25, 4:53 PM
Mason G said...: 'It was truly believed — deeply, by many, including the president — that that was not in keeping with our values,'

Values like ignoring laws we don't like?; 12/8/25, 4:57 PM
boatbuilder said...: Others said that principles mattered. 'It was truly believed — deeply, by many, including the president — that that was not in keeping with our values,' said Ms. Jacobson, the former border czar...."
Some principles. "Our values matter. Screw the law."; 12/8/25, 5:06 PM
Paul said...: He didn't so more 'democrat' voters could come in... hell folks isn't that obvious... they wanted to skew the vote... I mean it's a no brainer... They were gonna guarantee themselves 50 years of Democrat rule (till, of course, the whole financial system collapsed.... then they would let the Republicans have the power...); 12/8/25, 5:07 PM
Temujin said...: "Principles mattered".
But our national security and our immigration laws apparently did not matter as much as how they felt about themselves. Or worse- how their cocktail party friends would look at them.

Migrant Caravan.; 12/8/25, 5:09 PM
doctrev said...: If people are still asking why the Biden regime left the borders open, they are far too stupid to offer useful commentary.

Thankfully, President Trump has FAR less respect for precedent and advisors than he did during his first term.; 12/8/25, 5:09 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: More gaslighting. Biden and Maroykas refused to enforce the immigration laws. Leftist NGO's were organizing caravans to march through Mexico and accross the border. ICE and immigration enforcement was only done to the extent it was neccessary for political reasons.

Biden, and almost all Democrats, scream like banshees when anyone is deported. Elect a D President in 2028, and you'll get another 30 million immigrants. They want the votes, and they're getting kickbacks from the Leftwing NGOs.; 12/8/25, 5:10 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: They want to lie and pretend there was a debate over "Open borders". And even if there was one, it "How many illegals can we let in before we start taking significant political damage?".; 12/8/25, 5:11 PM
Achilles said...: The people who write the NYTs realize Americans have noticed they are traitors.

Let the backsliding by Carl Slims little muppets continue.; 12/8/25, 5:13 PM
tcrosse said...: This assumes that Biden was in charge. Not likely.; 12/8/25, 5:13 PM
narciso said...: The invasion was the point; 12/8/25, 5:15 PM
boatbuilder said...: Some aides feared that closing the border would be overturned by the courts.

I find the "feared" aspect of this claim to be entirely incredible.; 12/8/25, 5:23 PM
hombre said...: “It was truly believed …. values.” Bullshit! These are Democrats we are talking about. Their true beliefs are transitory as are their values. There is not even a remote possibility that the open border was not profitable for them in some way.; 12/8/25, 5:24 PM
Vance said...: Now remember, Joe Biden and the left truly do want their values enforced, i.e. letting illegal alien criminals rape, plunder, and murder Americans to their hearts content with zero fear of any pushback or penalty. That's the left's dream, along with murdering millions of babies and endless LGBT everything.

All you have to do is ask people like Inga what laws they support that would stop illegals, cut back on unlimited abortion for any reason, including after the birth of a child, or would tell a LGBT person "no" for any demand they want, including forcing ministers and priests to "marry" them. And there will be no law that the leftists would support.; 12/8/25, 5:24 PM
chuck said...: Biden had principles? That's news to me.; 12/8/25, 5:25 PM
Original Mike said...: What a loud of hooey. They were importing voters.; 12/8/25, 5:28 PM
rehajm said...: Biden didn’t do shyte except…; 12/8/25, 5:30 PM
tim maguire said...: Not in keeping with our values—for some values of “values”; 12/8/25, 5:31 PM
rehajm said...: I’m returning NYT gift links from now on…or hoisting them on acquaintences…; 12/8/25, 5:31 PM
narciso said...: Like a spring surprise (ht python); 12/8/25, 5:33 PM
Original Mike said...: load; 12/8/25, 5:36 PM
Aggie said...: On this story, Jonathan Turley said: "...The NY Times just got around to writing a story on how Biden and his staff were warned of the "chaos" caused by open borders and suggesting steps to deter the flood. The warning was ignored as they falsely claimed to be doing all that they could....."

....to which I let out a snort. Oh really? The way I see it, Biden and his staff were doing all they could. They got the flood they wanted.; 12/8/25, 5:41 PM
Kevin said...: that that was not in keeping with our values

That's a typo. They meant to say "our democracy."; 12/8/25, 5:47 PM
Peachy said...: Biden rolled out the big invitation for illegals to "Surge the Border" here.; 12/8/25, 5:48 PM
Leland said...: Are we supposed to pretend that Democrats are not actively trying to prevent immigration enforcement to this day? Is their fear of the courts causing them to stand in front of ICE?; 12/8/25, 5:53 PM
rehajm said...: Yah, their strategy was replacement- flood blue zones with bodies for millions more harvested mail-in votes and eventually to jigger extra districts with the census..; 12/8/25, 5:59 PM
rehajm said...: …it was all supposed to be backstopped with Hillary!’s scotus judges. Hell, we’d all be in jail by now…anyways, that’s why the Hillary! people looked so shellshocked on election night…; 12/8/25, 6:01 PM
Ronald J. Ward said...: It could have been an underestimation of the gullibility.

What reasonable voter would have thought they weren’t seeking asylum due to the COVID government collapse and gang takeovers of their countries and were entering under grounded legal norms but instead were prison released criminals crashing the gates to drug our children, rape our wives, take our jobs, shoot us, then shoot our dog, and have a fiesta with the corpse?; 12/8/25, 6:02 PM
Bob B said...: The articles omits that Biden would have been attacked by the NYT if he had limited illegal immigration.; 12/8/25, 6:03 PM
Old and slow said...: They did not want it closed, and they are so insulated from ordinary Americans that they failed to see how important the issue was. Towards the end of Biden's term, they did tighten enforcement quite a bit. Too little, too late.; 12/8/25, 6:05 PM
narciso said...: He was installed for this very reason; 12/8/25, 6:08 PM
narciso said...: The world controllers (ht huxley) have contempt for americans as they have for their populaces in western europe; 12/8/25, 6:10 PM
Peachy said...: Dems want dead Immigration and customs officers.; 12/8/25, 6:11 PM
Peachy said...: Mass illegals surged the border very much on purpose. It was coordinated.; 12/8/25, 6:14 PM
Peachy said...: Yes - Narciso - Biden was installed for the purpose of mass illegal immigration. It helps the left's NGO's and pocket stuffing, it helps the left gain mass illegal voting.; 12/8/25, 6:15 PM
Jupiter said...: Lying liars lie and lie,
Doo-dah! Doo-Dah!; 12/8/25, 6:16 PM
buwaya said...: The numbers are decisive. There is a latent demand for immigration to the US amounting to at least a billion people (due to modern technology this is feasible). There is no way the US can accomodate even a small fraction of that. There are no "values" that apply in the face of this.; 12/8/25, 6:16 PM
gilbar said...: .." 'It was truly believed — deeply, by many, including the president — that that was not in keeping with our values,.."

WHAT was 'not in keeping'? the idea that America should NOT have completely free and open borders, allowing ANY and ALL in?

if so.. help me out; were the Democrats SURPRIZED that the majority of America voters voted AGAINST them?; 12/8/25, 6:24 PM
tommyesq said...: Why did he "wait so long" to secure the border??? The f*ck???; 12/8/25, 6:51 PM
Nancy said...: What amazes me is the NYT comment section. The readers are almost unanimous in condemning Biden’s actions.; 12/8/25, 7:01 PM
tommyesq said...: (From the previous post):

JUSTICE GORSUCH: You agree that [the President] has a duty to faithfully execute all the laws.

MR. AGARWAL: Yes.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: Civil and criminal.

MR. AGARWAL: We agree that the Constitution imposes on the President a duty to faithfully execute the laws, absolutely.

That would include the duly-passed immigration laws, wouldn't it?; 12/8/25, 7:07 PM
Greg The Class Traitor said...: 'It was truly believed — deeply, by many, including the president — that that was not in keeping with our values,' said Ms. Jacobson, the former border czar...."

Yeah, they don't value "following the law", and they don't value "protecting Americans from foreign criminals", so of course they couldn't enforce the border; 12/8/25, 7:10 PM
Greg The Class Traitor said...: tommyesq said...
That would include the duly-passed immigration laws, wouldn't it?

Yes, it would; 12/8/25, 7:10 PM
FormerLawClerk said...: 'It was truly believed — deeply, by many, including the president — that that was not in keeping with our values,'

Well guess what assholes: We voted on your fucking values and your values lost. The Congress - the people - voted for immigration CONTROLS to prevent untrammeled immigration into the United States, especially from shithole countries and cultures that we DO NOT WANT HERE. We are free to associate - or NOT - with whomever we choose, whether you like it or not.

Welcome to Democracy. I bet you're glad we ended Democracy in the 2024 election by electing Donald Trump.; 12/8/25, 7:16 PM
Moondawggie said...: I suspect there is a simple, straightforward explanation the NYT misses badly. Since the Dems couldn't win enough votes from the existing American citizenry to stay in power, Biden's controllers and the rest of the Dems flooded the country with tens of millions of future new voters, 90%+ of whom would automatically vote Democrat Party line.
It was all about strengthening their party's future, and whatever collateral damage uncontrolled immigration caused the country was simply irrelevant.
"Party first! Party always, Comrade!"; 12/8/25, 7:20 PM
Sweetie said...: Poor NY Times. They're all backside and yet they can't find it.; 12/8/25, 7:20 PM
n.n said...: straight and upright; 12/8/25, 7:26 PM
Aggie said...: Cleanup on Aisle i.; 12/8/25, 7:29 PM
Original Mike said...: "Why Mr. Biden waited so long to effectively seal the border has become one of the defining questions of his presidency."

The border was closed when Biden took office. He opened it.

The question is, why does the NYT feel the need to publish this snow job now?; 12/8/25, 7:50 PM
Clyde said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/8/25, 7:50 PM
Clyde said...: Nobody asked the American people if we wanted to open our borders in 2021 and allow millions of illegal immigrants to flow into our country. If anyone had asked, they would have been told, "Hell, no!" Indeed, when we were asked in 2024 how President Autopen had been doing on immigration, we elected President Trump again to fix the Biden* administration's screwups.; 12/8/25, 7:52 PM
Two-eyed Jack said...: I find the article deeply disturbing, in that it asks us to believe that the Biden administration was staffed by a collection of feckless morons rather than scheming leftists seeking revenge on the society that had nourished them. Which proposition, however, is the worse?; 12/8/25, 7:54 PM
Mr. T. said...: "Waited"

Huh?

Biden and the leftists never inteneded to secure the border.

Kamala was off doing...something.

Mayorkas invented a fake Haitian whipping hoax to fuel the leftist propaganda machine.

Congressional democrats denounced the families of Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungary during congressional hearings.; 12/8/25, 8:04 PM
Prof. M. Drout said...: It's hard to believe that so many people and organizations so enthusiastically trashed pretty much all their other constituencies for long-term demographic change, much less just for ideology. The people who defended opening the border and giving migrants ridiculous quantities of free stuff (which states and municipalities could not afford--particularly during post-covid), are so fervent that I have to think they have much more immediate reasons for wanting the migrants.
And I think those reasons are financial. The intentional migrant crisis pushed huge amounts of money through the various NGO networks, who seem to provide a shockingly large fraction of the employment opportunities for white-collar people on the left.
Migrants brought in BIG bucks for all the entities that got paid to service them.
Here in Massachusetts, we learned, the people who were responsible for trying to maintain order and cleanliness at the hotels that were given over to migrant housing were given instructions to hand out Uber vouchers of up to $100 per day per person. How much did Uber make out of that arrangement when it was in place for a couple of years?
How much money did the people providing 'services' to the migrants get? I can't imagine that there was a lot of oversight of those services, and the migrants really didn't have anyone to complain to, so it was a huge opportunity for organizations to collect enormous amounts of money without having to provide much in the way of actual service.
And my guess is that a fair bit of the money flowing to the NGOs and the migrants got kicked back to the politicians supporting the whole scheme. If you combine the covid fraud funds with all the money wasted on migrants, it is by far the biggest capture of taxpayer dollars in American history.; 12/8/25, 8:05 PM
Mr. T. said...: Ronald J. Ward said...

"What reasonable voter would have thought they weren’t seeking asylum due to the COVID government collapse and gang takeovers of their countries and were entering under grounded legal norms but instead were prison released criminals crashing the gates to drug our children, rape our wives, take our jobs, shoot us, then shoot our dog, and have a fiesta with the corpse?"

The reasonable person(s) who has seen this going on as a result of unfettered illegal immigration and corrupt goverment collusion for the last 30 years?; 12/8/25, 8:08 PM
HistoryDoc said...: It's interesting to me that Mayorkas's name is not mentioned in the entire article.

Of all the hack's and losers in Biden's administration, I think Mayorkas was the most evil or incompetent (or both) of them all. He will be the standard of absolute failure for all future failures to be measured against.; 12/8/25, 8:32 PM
Rockeye said...: Two such wildly different answers mean that neither is the correct reason.; 12/8/25, 8:55 PM
Ronald J. Ward said...: Mr T @ 8:08

Nope, not it. You missed it by a mile or two.; 12/8/25, 9:18 PM
Lance said...: Why Mr. Biden waited so long to effectively seal the border has become one of the defining questions of his presidency.

That's not a "defining" question. Here are some defining questions:
- "Why didn't anyone in the White House notice the President wasn't up to the job?"
- "Why didn't anyone in the White House have the courage to publicly acknowledge the President could not preside?"
- "Why didn't any reporters at NYT or WaPo expose the President's incapacity?"; 12/8/25, 9:28 PM
Hassayamper said...: If you combine the covid fraud funds with all the money wasted on migrants, it is by far the biggest capture of taxpayer dollars in American history.

I wish I lived in a country that had the sand to build a gallows stretching from one end of the Washington Mall to the other, where we could publicly hang a thousand of these bastards at once with every pull of the lever.; 12/8/25, 9:53 PM
Big Mike said...: The level of contempt that New York Times writers have towards their readers is almost awe-inspiring. If there was even the slightest intention of members of the Biden administration to eventually close the border, then why did they sell off the materials assembled by the Trump administration for building the Wall? They sold off those materials because there never was the slightest notion of ever using them.; 12/8/25, 10:34 PM
Mark said...: "Some aides feared that closing the border would be overturned by the courts." A 6-3 conservative court? That one? Give me a f'in break. They really will just say anything.; 12/8/25, 10:39 PM
Yancey Ward said...: The Democrats are importing voters- it really is that simple. The Biden Administration only reversed course (and, yes, it was a reversal since it was the Biden Administration that opened up the border on taking the White House) because the backlash was making it possible for Trump to rewin the White House- if not for that worry alone, the border would have remained open to this day.

Buwaya above is correct- if the border isn't enforced, there are a billion plus people who will want to come live in the United States. I don't a flying fuck about how hard their living conditions are in the third world- it really isn't my problem to solve.

Ronald J. Ward, how many immigrants do you have living in your house right now?; 12/8/25, 10:59 PM
Jim at said...: What amazes me is the NYT comment section. The readers are almost unanimous in condemning Biden’s actions.

They're condemning him now. And they're only condemning him now because it led to Trump's re-election.; 12/8/25, 11:19 PM
Yancey Ward said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/8/25, 11:25 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I even predicted, here in one of the comment threads during 2022 or 2023, that the Biden Administrion would, at some point in 2024, try to act tough about closing the border in order to try to win the election by fooling people.; 12/8/25, 11:25 PM
Quaestor said...: "Kamala was off doing...something."

Something being pink gins and lines of coke.; 12/8/25, 11:26 PM
Lazarus said...: It doesn't sound like the reporters did any actual investigating. They just asked the Biden officials why they didn't do anything and just printed the responses they got. There were millions of dollars involved in this grift and the Timesfolk didn't bother with that. "Principles" and "values" had nothing to do with it.

The Biden strategy was to blame Trump for Republicans not supporting the bill that would spend more money but would actually do nothing to stem the flow. They were going to keep the flow going and say that somehow it was the Republicans' fault -- or maybe climate changes.; 12/8/25, 11:46 PM
JIM said...: Why did Biden wait?
He had no intention of pro-active enforcement of Immigration law; he was forced to be more aggressive because of electoral concerns.
This narrative that he waited too long is Democrat revisionist history bullshit.; 12/9/25, 12:10 AM
Wilbur said...: Sociology professor Ward says the invading hordes "were entering under grounded legal norms".; 12/9/25, 4:06 AM
Steve said...: I've been saying for decades that you can have an open border or a welfare state, choose one. Biden tried to have both, and we've seen the results.; 12/9/25, 7:27 AM
Ambrose said...: They did not wait to effectively seal the border - they never sealed the border.; 12/9/25, 7:48 AM
Not Illinois Resident said...: Joe, Jill and Hunter/Jim aren't concerned for future of their children and grandchildren. The money is banked. The fix was in. Dystopian chaos would be fine, will hurt the folks who hated-on Biden. Biden Crime Family has collected enough cash to secure short-term future of their kids and grandkids. That is, unless Trump administration charges Hunter and Jim for their criminal enterprise of influence-peddling and crony capitalism.; 12/9/25, 8:22 AM
Not Illinois Resident said...: Look for the campaign contributions from the NGOs who received huge federal monies for "recently arriving migrants" work. Lots of pockets were filled, including Bidens.; 12/9/25, 8:23 AM
RoseAnne said...: Joe Biden never held a "deeply held value" that didn't involve enriching his family. I only question the "replacement theory" because he was never that bright either. The 2020 election was more of a sporting event ("My side will beat your side...) than a philosophical debate about the future of this country. My Democratic friends who were thrilled to tears with Trump's loss in 2020 got quieter and quieter as the Biden administration continued. Many still voted for Harris but without the excitement of 2020.

Trump was part of all the "elite" groups until he chose to run as a Republican. The Democrats had no problem taking his money then. There are many things I don't like about Trump but his choice to run as a Republican was a smart one given the weakness of the Republican bench at that point. Now it is the Democrats who have the weak bench - it will be interesting to see who tries to exploit it.; 12/9/25, 8:39 AM
tolkein said...: I assume the non profits (ho, ho. As long as you don't look at how much they got paid) and the cartels and people smugglers had more votes (and money, for bribes) than the American people.; 12/9/25, 9:44 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: President Biden's mental state was such that he could barely remember to close the front door when he came in from the outside. You expected him to remember to close the border?; 12/9/25, 10:26 AM
Lazarus said...: Politics is too fast-moving and superficial for political actors to have "principles" or "values." Somebody tried to make "Kultursmog" a word in the Eighties. It does sort of describe the thick fog or soup of slogans and posturing that the political class lives in.; 12/9/25, 10:48 AM