One of the worst mistakes former President Donald Trump made in office, substantively but also politically, was pretending that a national crisis — the pandemic — was not a crisis at all, only a minor annoyance that would quickly resolve itself on its own. Until last week, President Joe Biden was at risk of making a similar type of error, by largely ignoring the fiscal and humanitarian crisis presented by the large influx of asylum-seekers into the US. Now, to his credit, he appears to be seizing the leadership opportunity the crisis presents, which will benefit cities, the US economy and — so long as he keeps it up — his standing with voters.
Last week, Biden announced that he would grant temporary protected status to the nearly 500,000 Venezuelans who have entered the US over the past 18 months, many of them admitted by federal authorities at the border, as they flee a country that has been plagued by economic and political chaos. They have come here in search of work and a better life, as immigrants have always done, often showing enormous courage and determination in making the long and perilous journey.
Once here, however, they have been prohibited from working until they receive the required legal papers, a bureaucratic process that often takes more than a year. To bar people who have been admitted into the country from working is one of the most un-American things I could ever imagine, especially at a time when so many businesses are struggling to hire workers. It is, as Biden might say, total malarkey.