President Joe Biden “exploded in anger” when he learned that as a part of his campaign promises, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may stop targeting fentanyl dealers and sex offenders, according to a new book on the White House.
When campaigning for president, Biden promised to reverse former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, according to Franklin Foer’s book, “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future.” In private, Biden “hated” seeing his campaign promises “translated into policy,” the book claims. (RELATED: KJP Claims Biden Has Done ‘More’ For the Border Than Anyone Else)
“Just as he promised, Homeland Security imposed a hundred-day moratorium on deportations executed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – an organization that the Left vilified as an overzealous paramilitary force,” Foer writes. “But Biden hadn’t realized that reforms would go so far. When he learned that ICE might stop targeting fentanyl dealers, sex offenders and other felons, he exploded in anger. Plans were quickly changed.”
After the president’s outburst, the White House decided to keep Trump’s refugee cap until the conclusion of the fiscal year, the book says. The decision sparked instant backlash, a subject Biden kept bringing up, often in meetings on the border crisis, Foer writes.
An immigrant passes Texas National Guard soldiers at the U.S.Mexico border on January 09, 2023 in El Paso, Texas. President Joe Biden visited El Paso the day prior, his first visit to the border since he became president two years before. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
The Biden administration used Amy Pope, a Biden immigration official, to convince Biden to sign off on funding for the resettlement of several thousand migrants, the book claims.
“Can you promise me that we’re doing right by these people?” Biden asked Pope, Foer writes.
“‘I promise,’ Pope told him and handed him the paperwork,” the book says.
During Biden’s presidency, he let Title 42 expire which left some cities, such as New York City, expecting an influx of more than 10,000 migrants. New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hocul met with Biden officials, though not the president himself, in August to discuss the migrant crisis within the state.