Joe Biden has now deliberately announced his new migration policy: The Republicans are busy with their trench warfare in Congress.
Their outcry that the President is opening a way for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to enter the country is therefore more muted than usual.
But civil rights activists and the first democrats are up in arms – because the new admission regulation is just the friendly packaging of a strict package that further undermines the right to asylum.
If you fail to first apply for protection via an app with the US government or in a transit country like Mexico, the United States no longer wants to process your asylum application at all.
Mexico has pledged to take in 30,000 third-country nationals a month who the US deports.
The rush to the border is tremendous
Donald Trump may still owe the Americans the 3,000-kilometer wall, but he did act as a deterrent to migrants.
The pandemic then gave him the pretext to reject asylum seekers at the borders without being checked.
But today the rush is huge.
Even if Biden denies it, he is following in Trump's footsteps because hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in America are abusing the right to asylum and he has no better advice.
All of this remains piecemeal.
The US needs comprehensive immigration reform.
But for that they needed a congress that was willing and able to act.