On March 1st, 2021, the Biden White House was just bginning its long, ambitious project to open the border,

By Byron York

What do you call it when somewhere between 6 and 8 million people enter the United States illegally in the course of three years? Many people would call it a crisis – albeit a man-made one, since the reason so many have been able to cross illegally into the United States is the refusal, by President Joe Biden, to enforce immigration laws that authorize him to stop the incursion at any time.
 

For years, the Biden White House denied the seriousness of the situation and steadfastly refused to call the crisis a crisis. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in particular, has gone to great lengths to avoid the word. On many occasions Mayorkas has conceded that the situation is a "challenge," but definitely, absolutely, totally not a crisis.
 
And on it went.

As the number of illegal crossings grew and grew, Mayorkas would declare, with a straight face, that the border was "closed." He told potential illegal border crossers not to come while at the same time worked to increase the administration's ability to process, care for, and relocate the illegal crossers. Talk about a mixed message. Nobody listened to the administration's declaration that the border was "closed." Instead, they just came right in, and, as promised, Biden allowed most of them to stay.

Through it all, the president would never agree that the situation on the border constituted a crisis.

So now, fast forward to today's standoff in the Senate over a bill that would include, all in one big package, aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel, aid to Taiwan and a far-reaching reworking of the immigration system. Biden has insisted that they must all be passed together, all or nothing. If Congress were to pass a bill with one or two of those provisions, but not the others, Biden has said he would veto it.

The problem with Biden's ultimatum is that it is almost impossible to pass a far-reaching reworking of the immigration system. Lawmakers have tried and failed for decades. It is the most difficult and intractable issue in American politics. So Biden has linked desperately needed aid to Ukraine, for example, to passing an immigration bill, which reduces the chances of success to nearly zero.

With Congress deadlocked, Biden has begun to make wild promises.

Campaigning in South Carolina recently, he said:
 
But give Biden this: In his desperate campaigning for an immigration bill, the president has done something else neither he nor anyone in his administration has ever done: He has admitted that the situation on the border is a crisis.

In a statement last Friday, Biden said he had directed administration officials "to begin negotiations with a bipartisan group of senators to seriously, and finally, address the border crisis." He finished the statement with a challenge to Congress: "If you're serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill and I will sign it."

A crisis! Finally, Biden has conceded what has been obvious from nearly the moment he took office.

That won't make the Capitol Hill negotiations go any better – they are probably doomed to fail – but, it is a major step in the president admitting reality.

Byron York is Chief Political Correspondent for The Washington Examiner. For a deeper dive into many of the topics Byron covers, listen to his podcast, The Byron York Show, available on the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts are found. This article originally appeared on the Washington Examiner.