There’s not a snowball’s chance in Hades this will work, but presidential addresses to joint sessions of Congress usually offer nothing much more than melted snowballs anyway. The Washington Post’s Marianna Sotomayor reports that Joe Biden will ask Congress to address the individual components of his immigration plan if they can’t move it in its entirety. Biden will specifically call for normalizing DACA, which has some Republican support — but only in a comprehensive agreement:

President Biden will recommit himself to overhauling the immigration system Wednesday during his first address to Congress, while signaling openness to Congress passing smaller parts of his agenda that have bipartisan support, including guaranteeing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

Biden will call on Congress to pass his immigration proposal, which includes a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants and funding for security upgrades at the border and ports of entry, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the address ahead of its public release. The move marks an attempt by Biden to show his seriousness on immigration policy at a time when he is under attack from Republicans over the migrant surge at the border and from Democrats over his handling of how many refugees should be allowed into the country.

The one approach that is guaranteed to fail is a component approach. Neither side trusts the other to reciprocate, plus the components are wildly different, and the incentives they set matter — as the Biden team has belatedly learned. Making DACA legal in statute would incentivize another rush to the border by minors, so passing it without a robust border-security package would be insane at this point.

By the way, contra Sotomayor’s characterization, Biden’s proposal didn’t include any provisions for bolstering border security. The Los Angeles Times pointed that out in January, and that signal was among several that incentivized the rush to the border that erupted almost simultaneously. It also flew in the face of another message that Biden will likely send tonight, that he’s prepared to engage with Republicans on immigration and other issues. Even if that’s true now, it’s only because he spent his first three months in office locking them out of any input on the development of policy, instead arguing that his claims of bipartisanship meant he didn’t need Republicans at all.

Biden might be waving a white flag now, and if so, it’s because the issue has become a disaster for him with voters. Despite White House attempts to slough off the implications of the border situation, almost eight in ten Americans call it a “crisis,” according to a new CNN poll:

Americans say 78-19 that the situation on the border is a "crisis."

They disapprove 65-29 of the way the U.S. gov't is treating those crossing the border.https://t.co/ptXg8ifI27 pic.twitter.com/sTwpft3cNC

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) April 28, 2021

In the crosstabs, we find that view held by 90% of Republicans — but also 71% of Democrats and 77% of independents. Biden’s overall rating on immigration is 41/53, and even 24% of Democrats disapprove of his performance. Other than gun policy (40/51), it’s the lowest issue rating for Biden in this poll, and others. Clearly, the “who you gonna believe, us or your own lying eyes” strategy isn’t working. The longer this crisis continues, the worse it will be for Biden.

That’s why Biden wants to use the component approach now. He desperately needs some wins on immigration, but still won’t honestly engage with Republicans to craft a truly comprehensive and bipartisan plan. Republicans in Congress need to hold Biden’s feet to the fire and demand that he and Democrats stop shoving their agenda down their throats and work with them to pass some common-sense reforms — including border security and enforcement.