Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The spiteful open-borders legacy of Joe Biden will plague America for generations to come, long after the former president is a fading bad memory.
Somewhere between 10-12 million foreign nationals are believed to have entered the U.S. illegally under his watch, to add to the existing 12-20 million illegal aliens.
Almost all were unaudited.
They stormed the border for four years without background checks of the sort that American citizens must undergo to purchase a firearm or take out a loan.
At a time when citizens were expelled from the military for not submitting to the experimental mRNA COVID inoculations, millions of foreign nationals, with the Biden administration’s encouragement, crossed the southern border, exempt from any vaccination requirement or medical examination.
When Americans were required to present multiple forms of identification to apply for a mandatory “real ID” to fly in 2025, millions of illegal entrants were flown across the country, often stealthily and under the cover of night, without any valid ID at all.
On some days, the Trump administration has managed to deport 800 of Biden’s illegal aliens.
But ten times that many entered illegally each day under Biden.
Trump’s border patrol would have to deport over 8,000 people every day of his four-year tenure just to undo what Biden wrought by his dismantling of federal immigration law.
Some 500,000 illegal entrants are believed to have criminal records—a number greater than the population of Oakland, California.
Indeed, new reports relate almost every day that another illegal alien has murdered, raped, or assaulted an American citizen.
The culpable left often champions violent illegal alien criminals facing deportation. Their apparent assumption is that hurting Trump politically justifies hurting Americans even more by protecting violent illegal alien criminals instead of sending them home.
Thousands of these unknown criminals are deadly land mines waiting to explode.
Yet the Biden effort to destroy or subvert immigration law transcends just demolishing the southern border.
There are nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals in American universities, the vast majority admitted without serious background checks.
They are welcomed by elite campuses because they pay the full cost and at a premium, with few questions asked about why exactly they came or what they are doing.
No wonder, then, that in the last decade, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government is reported to have trained and graduated hundreds of Chinese nationals who were either Communist Party members or the children of prominent Chinese communist apparatchiks.
In other words, at a time when the U.S. is locked in an escalating Cold War with the People’s Republic of China, our universities find great profit in enrolling and educating the communist elite who threaten Taiwan, imprison and oppress the Uyghurs, jail Hong Kong dissidents, and send both bio- and agro-terrorists into the U.S.
Not a day went by during the last two years without Middle Eastern, pro-Hamas visa students on some campus swarming students in libraries, assaulting and bullying Jews, trashing iconic buildings, illegally camping out in student quads, and screaming to bring the intifada home to the U.S.
Neither the Biden administration nor spineless college presidents took any action, despite such flagrant violations of both the terms and spirit of student visas.
Most recently, Yunqing Jian, a 33-year-old Chinese national with ties to the University of Michigan, was arrested as an “agro-terrorist.”
The mission of Jian, along with his girlfriend, was to seed toxic fungus into midwestern farmland as a way of destroying the American food supply and thereby starve his hosts.
Sometimes the baleful Biden immigration inheritance was simply a matter of allowing “tourists” and “visitors” to stay far after their visas had expired—without consequences.
So, for example, Egyptian national and terrorist, Mohamed Soliman, along with his entire family, deliberately overstayed their visas. They were all residing here illegally when Mohamed firebombed Jews, crying out “Free Palestine” as he tried to burn them up.
Americans overwhelmingly polled against this Biden border nihilism. Indeed, the House impeached his henchman, Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Yet Biden, or his handlers in the shadows, would not stop destroying the borders and immigration law.
So why would a president deliberately cause such mayhem that will cost hundreds of lives and billions of dollars in the years to come?
Was the reason Biden’s characteristic incompetence or dementia?
Or did Biden simply want to alter the demography to find a constituency for his otherwise unpopular agendas?
Did he wish to grow the welfare state?
Was Biden hoping to expand the DEI agenda by bringing in the poor and supposedly oppressed as new fodder in the Left’s Marxist binary of victimized versus victimizer?
No one knows why Biden did it, only that he did—and we will suffer his nihilist legacy for years to come.
Martin, you’re a disturbed individual, way beyond being a Democrat apologist. At times, it’s important to see the forest from the trees, as the saying goes. You seem to be emerged in the undergrowth.
You are a credentialed academic. Put in a little more effort.
Claim 9:
“Biden’s impeachment of Mayorkas proves border nihilism.”
Refutation:
Mayorkas’ impeachment (Feb. 2024) was a partisan vote without constitutional “high crimes” evidence. Border encounters fell 60% post-June 2024 due to Biden’s asylum restrictions, contradicting the “open borders” narrative.
Claim 10:
“Biden sought to alter demography for political gain.”
Refutation:
Unauthorized immigrants cannot vote. Biden’s policies expanded Trump-era Title 42 expulsions and added stricter asylum rules. Migration surges reflect global displacement (e.g., Venezuela’s collapse), not U.S. policy.
Claim 6:
“500,000 illegal entrants have criminal records … greater than Oakland’s population.”
Refutation:
DHS data shows 1.2% of FY2024 border crossers had criminal histories, translating to ~34,800 individuals — not 500,000. The claim inflates numbers by conflating all unauthorized immigrants (including long-term residents) with recent crossers. Studies show immigrants are 60% less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.
Claim 7:
“300,000 Chinese nationals in American universities … admitted without serious background checks.”
Refutation:
Chinese students comprised 277,000 in 2023/24, down 30% since 2020. All F-1 visa applicants undergo Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) screenings, including checks for ties to military/academic institutions. The agro-terrorism case cited involved a researcher — not a student — and represents an isolated incident, not systemic failure.
Claim 8:
“Pro-Hamas visa students … assaulting Jews with no consequences.”
Refutation:
Student visa holders face revocation for unlawful activity, as seen in 1,200+ visa cancellations for protest-related offenses in 2024. The claim conflates free speech with violence: no data supports widespread “assaults” by Middle Eastern students.
Claim 9:
“Biden’s impeachment of Mayorkas proves border nihilism.”
Refutation:
Mayorkas’ impeachment (Feb. 2024) was a partisan vote without constitutional “high crimes” evidence. Border encounters fell 60% post-June 2024 due to Biden’s asylum restrictions, contradicting
Claim 3:
“Millions crossed … exempt from any vaccination requirement or medical examination.”
Refutation:
COVID-19 vaccination requirements for travelers ended on May 12, 2023, before most of Biden’s term. Migrants processed under Title 8 are required to undergo medical screenings, including tuberculosis tests. The claim conflates pandemic-era policies (which applied to legal travelers, not unauthorized crossers) with public health protocols still in place.
Claim 4:
“Illegal entrants were flown across the country … without any valid ID.”
Refutation:
DHS requires biometric identity confirmation (fingerprints, iris scans) for all migrants processed through ports of entry. While some asylum seekers released pending court dates receive temporary documentation, the “Real ID” comparison is irrelevant: airlines accept DHS-issued paperwork as valid identification, per TSA rules.
Claim 5:
“Trump’s administration deports 800/day … Biden allowed 8,000/day entries.”
Refutation:
In April 2025, Trump’s ICE deported 17,200 migrants (~573/day), while Biden’s DHS recorded 2.5 million releases and 2.8 million removals from FY2021–2024. The “8,000/day” figure falsely assumes all encounters result in permanent entry. Under Biden, 67% of border crossers faced expedited removal or deportation, comparable to Trump’s 2019 removal rate of 85%.
Claim 6:
“500,000 illegal entrants have criminal records … greater than Oakland’s population.”
Refutation:
DHS data shows 1.2% of FY2024 border crossers had cr
“The spiteful open-borders legacy,” explains it all in the second word. The left doesn’t like losing, being proven wrong, or being exposed for not being as moral or as smart as they believe themselves to be.
If they can inflict what they percieve as Mid-America’s worst nightmare upon them for having elected a Trump in the first place, and perhaps return a gain thanks to the misery — they will.
Biden is the lazy high school coach, tapped to teach a history class in a pinch, who out of spite gives the A+ students each a B, “just to knock the swellheads down a peg…”
Biden let in millions of illegals because he could, because it would wreck lives, and because it might offer future electoral advantage.
Claim 1:
“Somewhere between 10–12 million foreign nationals entered the U.S. illegally under Biden’s watch, adding to the existing 12–20 million illegal aliens.”
Refutation:
This conflates multiple data points. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated 11.0 million unauthorized immigrants resided in the U.S. as of January 2022, a figure consistent with pre-Biden trends. While border encounters under Biden reached 10.8 million from FY2021–2024, these include repeat crossers, expulsions, and legal asylum seekers — not net new entries. Yale researchers previously estimated 22.1 million unauthorized immigrants in 2018, but DHS methodology disputes this. The “12–20 million” baseline cited lacks credible sourcing and contradicts federal data.
Claim 2:
“Almost all were unaudited … without background checks of the sort that American citizens must undergo to purchase a firearm.”
Refutation:
All noncitizens encountered at ports of entry undergo biographic checks against terrorist watchlists (CLASS), biometric screenings, and interagency vetting. While a June 2024 DHS OIG report found gaps in land-port vehicle screenings, the comparison to firearm background checks is misleading: immigration vetting includes fingerprinting, facial recognition, and multi-agency databases absent from gun purchases.
Claim 3:
“Millions crossed … exempt from any vaccination requirement or medical examination.”
Refutation:
COVID-19 vaccination requirements for travelers ended on May 12, 2023, before
Without getting into the stupidity of commenters like THEBARON@ENTER.NET, this article relies on conflated statistics, false equivalencies, and isolated anecdotes to construct a narrative unsupported by DHS data or independent analyses. While Biden faced record migration challenges, his policies reduced crossings by 60% in late 2024, and deportation rates remained comparable to prior administrations. The “open borders” claim collapses under scrutiny of actual enforcement metrics.
We may never find out the point person in the Biden administration but the power behind the throne has been public for decades. The shame is that Democrat politicians are never directly confronted to justify their subservient obedience to a force so existentially threatening to the country. They (politicians and media) are sell-outs to the public good. George Soros and his ilk in the Open Society movement are the genesis. They want third world conditions in western countries, so the population relinquishes control to globalist autocrats in order to have some sense of peace and security.
Or I’ll add that we do know why he did it-for money. He strove his entire public life to reach the Oval Office. It afforded him the greatest opportunity for graft. Politics didn’t matter, except insofar as following any given political part would get him into office. Then he could sell his influence, extort the money from petitioners.
A rotten, rotten human being.
Biden may have “done” it, that is, as chief executive, he may have approved the policies, but it wasn’t his idea. He was a puppet. And I don’t say that to excuse him. He is a horrible man, mean, mendacious, stupid, racist, incompetent, and corrupt, before senility and during it. No, someone else drove this.
We may never know who developed the policy and placed the necessary documents in front of him for approval.