The southern border’s chaos under former President Joe Biden’s watch was no accident. Joe Edlow, sworn in as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director in July after his nomination by President Donald Trump, returned to a system buckling under neglect. His findings paint a grim picture of mismanagement, as the Daily Caller reports.
Edlow, a seasoned official from Trump’s first term, revealed a staggering 8.5 million migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border during Biden’s four years. The asylum backlog ballooned from 450,000 cases at the end of Trump’s first term to over 1.5 million by July. This wasn’t oversight -- it was policy.
By 2018, affirmative asylum claims, filed by those already in the U.S. and not facing deportation, stood at 311,000. That number nearly doubled to 625,000 by 2022 and hit a historic one million by 2024. The Biden team’s inaction let the system choke.
Fiscal years 2023 and 2024 marked the worst and second-worst years for inadmissible border encounters, per Customs and Border Protection. Over eight million encounters defined Biden’s tenure -- a deluge by any measure. Open-borders enthusiasm, not enforcement, drove the numbers.
“What I didn’t know was what some of our backlogs turned into,” Edlow told the Daily Caller News Foundation. His shock is understandable -- progressive policies turned USCIS into a conveyor belt for unchecked claims. The agency was repurposed to enable, not regulate, migration.
The CHNV program, a Biden creation, let over 500,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals enter the U.S. The revamped CBP One app allowed mass asylum applications with little scrutiny. These weren’t reforms—they were invitations.
Biden’s administration extended deportation protections for citizens of several countries, letting them stay in the U.S. without consequence. This move shielded thousands from accountability while the border crisis spiraled. It’s hard to see this as anything but deliberate.
Trump-appointed immigration judges, like Matt O’Brien, faced Biden’s axe. O’Brien, with an 88.5% asylum denial rate compared to the 57.7% average, was fired for rejecting fraudulent claims. “I was punished by the Biden Administration for calling out fraudulent asylum claims,” O’Brien said.
“Open borders radicals love immigration fraud,” O’Brien told the Daily Caller News Foundation. His words sting because they’re true -- Biden’s team treated fraud as a feature, not a flaw. The system rewarded deception over integrity.
“That’s why we currently have hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who have never experienced persecution getting asylum,” O’Brien added. His point exposes a broken process where genuine refugees lose out to opportunists. The numbers don’t lie -- Biden’s policies enabled this.
Edlow noted the asylum backlog’s growth from 450,000 cases to over 1.5 million. “When I got back, there were over 1.5 million cases,” he said. That’s not a backlog -- it’s a surrender to chaos.
“Does anything surprise me what they were doing? Yeah, what surprised me is they weren’t doing much,” Edlow quipped. His sarcasm hits home -- Biden’s USCIS was less an agency than a bystander to the crisis. Neglect became the strategy.
Edlow’s team uncovered fraud in the Special Immigrant Juvenile program, spotting adult gang members, sexual predators, and alleged murderers exploiting it. This wasn’t a glitch -- it was a symptom of Biden’s hands-off approach. The system begged for reform.
“We’ve got to return the integrity of the immigration system,” Edlow urged. His call to action is a rebuke to years of progressive permissiveness. USCIS, under his leadership, is now tackling voter fraud by foreign nationals -- a step long overdue.
Congressional Republicans are probing Biden’s firing of judges like O’Brien, signaling accountability may finally arrive. Edlow’s findings show a system warped by ideology, not incompetence. Restoring order won’t be easy, but it’s essential.
