TRUMP IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS STILL STRUGGLING WITH BIDEN’S LEGACY. Trump administration immigration authorities not only have to contend with violent attacks, rioters, angry activists, and others trying to obstruct enforcement of federal immigration law. They also have to deal with the obstacles former President Joe Biden left in their path.

You’ve seen videos of resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents doing their jobs. Just yesterday, the Democratic mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, declared the city an “ICE-free Zone.” Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL), Johnson’s ally in the fight against enforcing federal immigration law, referred to federal immigration agents as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s “thugs.”

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So the Trump administration has an uphill climb just trying to enforce the laws of the United States. But it also has to deal with the aftermath of Biden’s strategy not only to allow illegal border crossers to stay in the U.S. but to indiscriminately award them some measure of protection from deportation.

One way Biden did that was by abusing what is called “parole.” Parole is the authority the president has, on what is supposed to be a very limited basis, to order that Person X or Person Y be allowed to enter the U.S., regardless of their legal qualifications for entry.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services defines parole this way: “The discretionary decision that allows inadmissible aliens to leave an inspection facility freely so that, although they are not admitted to the United States, they are permitted to be physically present in the United States. Parole is granted on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Parole is not ‘admission’ or ‘entry.’ The paroled alien is treated as an applicant for admission.”

Emphasis on “urgent humanitarian reasons” and “significant public benefit.” Is there some lifesaving care that the person needs that is available in the U.S. but not anywhere else in the world? Does the person have some skill that is urgently needed by the U.S. government? That sort of thing.

But Biden did not see parole that way. Instead, he granted it en masse to millions of illegal border crossers who just showed up at the U.S.-Mexico border. A study by Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors greater immigration restrictions, concluded that Biden gave parole to 2,863,052 people during his time in office. The figure did not include those paroled in December 2024 and the first days of January, so it’s likely just a little higher.

Biden’s strategy made it harder for the next administration to remove illegal immigrants who were indiscriminately granted parole. Yes, it can be done — remember, “the paroled alien is treated as an applicant for admission,” which means that admission can be denied. But Biden made it more difficult bureaucratically to remove the illegal border crosser.

And it wasn’t just parole. Biden administration officials also offered other forms of protection from removal — easy application for asylum, even for those who clearly did not qualify for it, Temporary Protected Status for those escaping “extraordinary” situations, special status for people who said they were victims of crime, and more. The end result was that Biden ensured that it would be very hard for the next president, Trump, to undo Biden’s work.

Biden’s policies, of course, led to record numbers of people inside the U.S. illegally. Another scholar at the Center for Immigration Studies, Steven Camarota, estimates that the number was about 10.2 million when Biden entered office in 2021 and shot upward to 15.8 million by the time Biden left in January. The 15.8 million figure, an increase of more than 50% in the total number of illegal immigrants in just four years, was far higher than anything that came before.

Now, Trump is trying to get the country’s immigration flow back on an even keel. And indeed, the number of those in the U.S. illegally began to go down as soon as the new president took office. Camarota estimates that the 15.8 million declined to 14.2 million by July — a decline of 1.6 million in just six months.

What happened? First, the number who have actually been deported is fairly small. What is going on is that most of the 1.6 million left on their own — they self-deported. They knew they were in the U.S. illegally, they knew they did not have a legal right to stay, and every day they saw reports of increased enforcement against illegal immigrants. Especially for those who have been in the country a short period of time, the ones who crossed in the Biden years, leaving was a better option than staying without the legal authority to do so.

That is likely continuing at this very moment. Perhaps the 14.2 million figure will be lower a few months from now. Yes, Biden made the job very difficult for Trump. But Trump is getting it done, one way or the other.