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History and a handful of issues threaten the Democrats' narrow congressional majorities in next year's midterm elections.

Even though President Joe Biden's job approval ratings remain solid if unspectacular, standing at 52.6% in the RealClearPolitics polling average and 51.3% in FiveThirtyEight's, the first midterm election has tended to go against the president's party since the 1930s. But Democrats are facing major headwinds beyond past precedent as they seek to hold on to their 50-50 split in the Senate only Vice President Kamala Harris's tiebreaking vote gives them control and nine-vote margin over Republicans in the House.

Democrats lost seats in the House last year as Biden rolled up 51.4% of the national popular vote and took the Senate only by sweeping both Georgia runoff elections in January. Since taking unified control of the elected branches of the federal government, several problems have emerged that could make 2022 even more difficult including some familiar ones that set back Democrats for a generation after the 1970s.

Rising crime

The drop in violent crime that began in the 1990s appears to be coming to an end. In fact, it may have been over in 2014. Homicides are spiking in major cities, and gun deaths reached their highest total in two decades last year.

A recent poll found that 54% consider violent crime a major crisis, while another 37% view it as a major problem short of a crisis, both greater than the percentages who say the same about the pandemic. Only 9% said crime was a minor problem or not one at all, the smallest percentage of any of the 14 issues tested in the poll.

KAMALA IN CRISIS

This has historically been a difficult issue for Democrats, although the above poll does show the public trusts the party on crime right now. But top Democratic operatives believe causes like "defund the police" hurt them against Republicans last year, despite Biden's attempts to disavow the movement. The GOP is poised to seize on continued violence, which has traditionally been a winning formula.

"We now have 24/7 news, so that even people who are not affected by rising crime may feel affected," said a policing researcher at a conservative think tank.

Inflation

Consumer prices have seen their biggest year-over-year increase since 2008 as even some Democratic economists, such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, worry about massive new spending overheating the economy. A New York Federal Reserve Bank survey found inflation expectations hitting a new high.

An Economist/YouGov poll also found that 42% of adults consider prices of goods and services to be the most important economic indicator, compared to 25% who picked unemployment and jobs reports. This is a stunning reversal from the same numbers in January.

Former President Jimmy Carter can tell Democrats what kind of impact inflation can have on their electoral fortunes. "Aside from the structural issues like redistricting, which is a massive hurdle for them in the House, inflation looms over their prospects in a massive way," said GOP strategist Matt Gorman, a former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "It's essentially a tax on the middle class. Combine that with actual taxes they want to raise, and you have a recipe for an uphill climb in 2022."

Border crisis

Shortly after Biden took office, a migration surge overwhelmed federal authorities at the border. Apprehensions were higher in February than in January, higher in March than in February, higher in April than in March, and higher in May than in April. By March, the number of people attempting to enter the country illegally hit a 20-year high.

While conceding their policies offered "hope" to migrants that had been missing for the past four years, the Biden White House noted that the surge had been building in the final months of the previous administration. But the numbers are now worse, and there has even been a new uptick in migrant children five months into the Biden administration.

Consequently, some of Biden's lowest job approval ratings concern his handling of immigration and the border. A late June Fox News poll in which 53% approved of Biden's performance overall concluded that just 41% approved of how he was doing on immigration, compared to 54% who disapproved.

A Harvard/Harris poll found that 43% consider illegal immigration a serious problem, and another 37% labeled it a somewhat serious problem. Immigration ranked as the third most important issue behind jobs and the economy, followed by the pandemic in this survey.

Wokeness

From the backlash against the teaching of critical race theory in public schools to polling on politically vocal companies, Republicans are hopeful that today's censorious liberals can be a winning campaign issue for them.

Some Democratic strategists agree, with longtime Bill Clinton adviser James Carville calling wokeness a "problem" and the party's "kryptonite." "It's hard to talk to anybody today and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party who doesn't say this," he told Vox. "But they don't want to say it out loud because they'll get clobbered or canceled." Democratic data guru David Shor determined in his 2020 autopsy report that this was among a cluster of issues that drove conservative-leaning nonwhite voters, especially Hispanics, away from the party last November.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE IN THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Small majorities

These issues aside, the Democrats simply don't have many seats to spare. Republicans added 52 House seats in the first Clinton midterm in 1994 and 63 during President Barack Obama's initial midterm in 2010. Republicans experienced a net gain of nine Senate seats in Obama's second midterm in 2014.

This time, the GOP doesn't need a wave election. A net gain of one Senate seat and seven House seats would be sufficient for the majorities. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report estimates Republicans could pick up three to four House seats from redistricting alone.

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Democrats face these major headwinds in 2022 elections - Denver Gazette

The British government introduced legislation on Tuesday that would usher in a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration with new penalties for those who enter the country illegally and permission for the government to keep migrants in offshore detention centers.

"If you illegally enter the U.K. via a safe country in which you could have claimed asylum, you are not seeking refuge from imminent peril as is the intended purpose of the system but are choosing the U.K. as a preferred destination over others," Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote in The Daily Mail.

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The Nationality and Borders Bill, which has a high chance of passage given the governing Conservative Partys dominant majority in the House of Commons, saw its first reading in the chamber on Tuesday. The bill will create a new criminal offense for "knowingly" entering the country illegally as part of a number of measures to prevent illegal immigration.

Illegal entry will also hurt a migrants asylum application, and such migrants will receive only a temporary protected status rather than a right to settle, and will be subjected to regular review of their status.

Patel also pledged to limit deportation appeals. "It is sickening that so many people who have no right to be here are able to play the system and stop us removing them," she said.

The bill also gives the countrys Border Patrol more powers of arrest and provides longer prison sentences for smugglers and gangs who help migrants enter the U.K. illegally.

"We will prevent these dangerous journeys to the U.K. by breaking the business model of the criminal gangs," Patel wrote. "Profiteering from illegal migration to Britain will no longer be worth the risk, with new maximum life sentences for people smugglers."

FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021 file photo Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel speaks during a media briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic in Downing Street, London. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, Pool, File)

The Home Office says it will also speed up removals of failed asylum seekers and better integrate refugees who are resettled.

The bill also includes provisions to build offshore migrant processing centers, similar to plans currently in place in countries like Denmark and Australia. The Times of London reported that U.K. officials have been in touch with their Danish counterparts, including about the "potential" to share facilities. The Danes are believed to be sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, the Times reported.

The bill represents one of the most aggressive moves by the Tory government to deliver on its promise to voters to crack down on illegal immigration and asylum fraud part of a package of promises that helped deliver the 2019 general election and other victories by appealing to traditionally Labour-held working-class areas on issues like Brexit, crime and immigration.

The government had engaged in a number of rounds of talks with France on the question of asylum cooperation. Migrants have regularly arrived in either small boats or hidden away in trucks and vehicles traveling over from the port of Calais into the U.K. via the tunnel or the ferry system.

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However, despite talks, migrants have kept coming. The Times reported that more than 300 migrants arrived in the U.K. in the last weekend of June, and approximately 6,000 have arrived this year overall.

The plan has seen strong criticism by those on both sides of the issue amid questions about whether it can survive legal scrutiny. Former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, who led the fight for Brexit and has called for lower immigration levels, called Patels plans for tougher penalties "almost meaningless."

"Not only does Britain not have enough prison spaces for thousands of new offenders every month, but this countrys continued acceptance of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees there would be endless legal challenges," Farage wrote in The Daily Telegraph. "Even if Patels plan did work, many hard-pressed taxpayers will wonder why they should pay for foreigners to occupy Britains notoriously expensive prison cells."

Meanwhile, the Labour Party slammed the plan as evidence of a lack of compassion and competence.

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"These plans are unconscionable and an attempt to create a smokescreen to distract from the fact ministers have failed to reopen safe and legal routes, failed to reach an effective agreement with France to deal with criminal gangs, and failed to introduce effective border measures to stop the Delta Variant getting a foothold in this country," Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said in a statement.

Britain's crackdown on illegal migration and the moves to turn away or keep migrants in centers out of the country is a stark contrast to what is currently going on in the U.S.

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President Biden has unraveled a number of border protections established during the Trump administration, most notably the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which kept migrants in Mexico while they awaited their hearings.

His administration also ended asylum cooperative agreements with Northern Triangle countries that made migrants claim asylum in countries they arrived in before traveling to the U.S.

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UK government pushes bill to crack down on illegal immigration, hold migrants offshore - Fox News

The Biden administration has systematically abandoned the border security policies and immigration reforms that enabled the Trump administration to turn back the tide of illegal immigration. With the floodgates to illegal immigration wide open once again, drug cartels and human traffickers are cashing in and both American and immigrant lives are at greater risk.

It doesnt have to be this way.

In 2019, when faced with an acute, albeit less severe, border crisis than the one we face today, the Trump administration implored Congress to close loopholes in the immigration system. Then, as now, Congress refused to act.

Rather than let the situation at the border continue to deteriorate, Trump took executive action. He continued to build the border wall, as the Border Patrol requested. He started a never-before-used (but authorized by Congress in 1996) Remain in Mexico program requiring asylum seekers from Central America to stay in Mexico during their immigration proceedings. And he reached cooperative agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras requiring those countries to take back any migrants who had sought asylum with the U.S. without first seeking protection in a safe third country they had passed through on their way to the U.S.

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These changes quickly halted the caravans coming to the U.S. because migrants knew they would no longer be able to enter and disappear into the U.S. simply by claiming fear. By late 2019, our southern border was under control.

A new public health threat emerged in 2020. Moving early in the COVID pandemic to help contain that danger, the Trump administration authorized border officials to turn back migrants for public health safety (Title 42).

The Biden administration, however, has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It immediately stopped border wall construction, halted the Remain in Mexico program, tore up the asylum cooperative agreements, ended most deportations, requested congressional amnesty for the untold millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., decreased use of Title 42 health protections, and repeatedly messaged that no unaccompanied alien child would be turned away.

Predictably, historic numbers of immigrantsfrom all over the world, not just south of the borderflocked to enter the U.S. illegally. Human smugglers are pocketing $14 million a day, profiting royally from their services that often leave women raped in route and children abandoned at journeys end.

Border agents have intercepted known terrorists, gang members and sexual predators, but no doubt others have slipped through. Illegal aliens have been transported throughout the U.S. even after testing positive for COVID.

Knowing that the Border Patrol is being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of illegal entries, drug traffickers have picked up the pace, too. The amount of deadly fentanyl seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the first four months of this year exceeds what was seized in all of 2020. How many Americans have to die from these drugs before this administration will implement policies to secure the border?

Charged with addressing the border, Vice President Kamala Harris finally went there last week, stopping by an El Paso Border Patrol facility, miles from the actual border, on her way home to California. She has spent a bit more time in Guatemala and Mexico, where she unconvincingly told their citizens not to come to the U.S. and promised their governments $4 billion over four years to fix the problem. If history is a guide, that money will be absorbed by corrupt systems in those countries, leaving any root causes untouched.

Washington needs to return to an immigration and border security policy that prioritizes American interests. Our leaders should act now to promote legal immigration, prevent illegal immigration, and secure the border from drugs, human trafficking, and the cartels on both sides of the border.

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We know how to do it: continue building the border wall; reinstate the Remain in Mexico program and the safe third country requirements and agreements; consistently use Title 42 authority until COVID is no longer a global pandemic threat; stop welcoming and admitting unaccompanied alien children into the U.S.; end catch-and-release; enforce existing immigration laws, including deportations; and expand employment verification to ensure employers hire only work-authorized employees.

The president and vice president have sworn an oath to protect their fellow Americans. Yet their administrations immigration policies are undermining homeland security.

The prior administration showed how to turn this rapidly deteriorating situation around. This administration can and must do the same.

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Biden's Immigration Policies Have Turned a Win Into a Loss - Heritage.org

Austin, TX, 2 hours ago A number of Texas sheriffs, counties, and the nonprofit Federal Police Foundation, ICE Officers Division, have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over a February 18 directive that resulted in a reduction in the number of deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The lawsuit alleges that the federal government is causing irreparable injury to the sheriffs and counties who initiated the suit.

Sheriffs deputies are not able to attend to their normal patrol and other public safety duties because the crime associated with the surge in illegal immigration has consumed their attention and time, the plaintiffs allege.

The plaintiffs include Sheriffs Brad Coe of Kinney County, J.W. Guthrie of Edwards County, Emmett Shelton of McMullen County, and Arvin West of Hudspeth County. The counties of Kinney, Edwards, McMullen, and Hudspeth are also plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed in the Galveston Division of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The defendants in the suit include President Biden and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, as well as a number of other officials and agencies responsible for enforcing immigration laws.

The lawsuit blasts a memorandum distributed to all ICE employees on February 18, 2021, by ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson that directs them to decline to place illegal aliens on a path to expulsion unless they fall into very narrow categories. According to the lawsuit, those cases consist principally of illegal aliens who pose a national security or terrorist threat to the United States, individuals who have arrived since November 1, 2020, or those who have committed other specified crimes.

This standdown in ICE enforcement has fueled a crisis at the border and in other Texas counties, encouraging a massive surge in illegal immigration, the lawsuits states.

In addition to the public safety risk of illegal immigration, the lawsuit also points to the fiscal impact that is befalling local governments.

Detaining illegal alien criminals imposes significant costs upon the Plaintiff sheriffs and counties. These costs include the financial cost of detention and the consumption of scarce county law enforcement resources, the lawsuit reads.

Those detention costs have already increased substantially since the implementation of the February 18 Memorandum and will continue to remain elevated as a result of Defendants failure to detain and/or remove illegal aliens, particularly those involved in criminal activity, because it increases the number of criminal illegal aliens that Plaintiff sheriffs and counties must detain.

The court documents say arrests and removals have dropped to one-third of what they were before Biden took office due to Johnsons memorandum. The plaintiffs cite a report from The Washington Post that indicated ICE performed fewer than 3,000 arrests, the lowest number on record in April, which means each of ICEs 6,000 officers is averaging one arrest every two months. This is contrasted with an average of 8,634 arrests monthly by ICE in Fiscal Year 2020.

The lawsuit claims the February 18 memo violates immigration statutes, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the U.S. Constitutions direction to the executive branch in Art. II, Sec. 3 faithfully to execute the law.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the White Houses policy lead on immigration, has said that the administration is focused on the root causes of migration, such as conditions in Central America. She recently took a trip to El Paso, where she expressed optimism about the administrations extreme progress.

Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, has also claimed that the Trump administration dismantled the asylum system and left DHS with a system that was plagued by chaos and cruelty.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted from June 27-30 showed that 33 percent of American adults approved of Bidens handling of immigration, 51 percent disapproved, and 16 percent had no opinion. The polls margin of error was give or take 3.5 percent.

A copy of the lawsuit can be found below.

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Biden Causing 'Irreparable Injury' With Reduced Deportations, Texas Sheriffs Allege in Lawsuit - The Texan

By not enforcing federal immigration laws, the Biden administration is encouraging illegal immigration along our southern border. Mexican cartels dangerously are smuggling children, adults, lethal fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S, overwhelming the U.S. border patrol. U.S. taxpayers are paying to house and process.

Neither the president nor the vice president shows much interest. The vice president lied to NBC anchor Lester Holt on June 8, claiming we have been to the border when she clearly had not been to the border before her June 25 visit. Holts challenge to her lie made the Biden tactics even more shameful. This is a full-blown humanitarian and illegal drug crisis, yet the Trib gives it little coverage.

The Tribune-Review is right to focus its reporting on local news and to use news syndicates such as the Associated Press to report national and international stories. Because the Tribune-Review is reporting little news about this worsening crisis, can we assume that the syndicated news services also are giving little coverage to this major news story?

Voters strongly support legal immigration and strongly oppose illegal immigration. Those applying for citizenship the legal way deserve better. So does our country. What the print and broadcast media elect not to report is often more indicative of political bias than the news that it does report.

Scott Brown

Greensburg

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Letter to the editor: Why so little coverage of border crisis? - TribLIVE