Former Biden adviser admits failure to address border crisis reality led to Trump's re-election
"The first step in responding to a crisis is to acknowledge it exists," Nuñez-Neto wrote.
"The surge in illegal crossings at our southern border during the first three years of Joe Biden's presidency was, by any reasonable definition, a crisis. The failure to acknowledge this reality and take timely action to try to resolve it cost Democrats a great deal of trust with American voters and contributed to President Trump's return to the White House."
Nuñez-Neto was the assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security under former President Joe Biden. He described experiencing "a tidal wave" of illegal entries at the border in 2021.
The Biden aide said economic devastation from the Coronavirus pandemic was a factor but also acknowledged "a lack of resources" at the border and "the inability to deport people to countries like Venezuela" as issues that contributed to the numbers.
"Deliberations that delayed important policy choices didn't help, either," he wrote.
Nuñez-Neto added, "By the time Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats began working in earnest with Republicans in late 2023 and 2024 on revamping our immigration laws, the politics were hopelessly interwoven with the presidential election, which is why a tough, bipartisan bill ultimately foundered."
Though he conceded that the border was more secure now than under Biden, Nuñez-Neto warned that this was done at the cost of "eroding our constitutional order."
Instead, he argued, Congress needed to step in and provide a system that can be both generous to legal applicants and strict with people living in the United States illegally.
"In other words, we need a system that recognizes that we are not only a nation of immigrants but also a nation of laws and that we need to respect both. Until that happens, the next border crisis will always be just around the corner," he concluded.
Despite Nuñez-Neto's criticism of the Biden administration's border policies, his op-ed drew intense backlash online. Nuñez-Neto's former department, Homeland Security, took to X to mock him.
"'I was Humpty Dumpty. Here's how to sit on a wall,'" the Homeland Security page wrote.
Illegal border crossings reached record highs under Biden, with 249,785 Border Patrol apprehensions being recorded in December 2023. Under Trump, border encounters dropped by over 90% within his first few months in office.
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