The White House has finally announced the long-awaited measure to respond to the border crisis (which President Biden himself caused). Despite the president’s repeated insistence that he lacked the power to do anything about the border, today’s proclamation is based on precisely the statutory authority that Republicans have insisted he’s had all along.

So, as Charlie said on today’s podcast, Biden was lying when he said the Senate had to pass the ridiculous Schumer-Lankford bill before he could act.

The proclamation contains the same “trigger” concept from the failed Senate bill, but with a lower number. While the Senate proposal would have triggered expulsion of anyone crossing illegally, without opportunity to apply for asylum, if the number of border incursions reached 4,000 per day, today’s announcement lowers the number to 2,500 a day. The expulsions would stop — and border-jumpers again processed and released into the country — once illegal crossings fall to 1,500 a day.

Trump tried to do the same thing, but without triggers; it was temporarily stopped by the Ninth Circuit, and then the incoming Biden administration dropped the matter.

These various trigger numbers are totally made up. Recall that Obama’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, said that even 1,000 border infiltrations a day overwhelmed the system. It wouldn’t surprise me if the White House arrived at the 2,500 number by conducting focus groups to determine what was the highest number of illegal border crossings they could allow without losing key swing states.

Whatever the number, this approach says there’s a threshold level of “acceptable” illegal immigration. I haven’t seen anyone make the point that this is the same approach to border enforcement that the Soros DAs have taken to prosecuting shoplifters.

In Fairfax County, Va., for instance, the Soros-funded prosecutor, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, announced that he would not prosecute shoplifting if the value of goods stolen is less than $1,000. So any theft there is still nominally illegal, but if the theft totals less than $1,000, it’s not illegal-illegal.

By the same token, federal law requires impeached DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to “maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.” It goes on to define “operational control” as “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.” In other words, the nominal goal is zero illegal immigration, but Biden says that if fewer than 2,500 are caught in any given day (excluding “unaccompanied” “minors,” among others), it’s not illegal enough to warrant a meaningful response.

Human sinfulness and limited resources mean there will always be shoplifting and illegal border infiltration, and law enforcement will never be able to respond to all of it. But announcing that a certain level of criminality will be officially tolerated simply invites more law-breaking.

If anything, until today’s announcement, Biden’s border policies were worse than the Soros DAs’ approach to shoplifting because there was no level of illegal crossings that would trigger expulsions.

But it’s all moot anyway, since the administration’s surrogates outside government have already said they’ll sue to stop the new policy, allowing Biden to say during his debate with Trump later this month that he’s taken bold action, but the courts have stopped him. Which was the point all along.