Politico published a story about this topic last week, suggesting that once Title 42 expires on December 21, the number of migrants apprehended at the border was likely to go up. What that story did not include was any specific numbers about what that might look like. Today, NBC News has a story which does offer some educated guesses.

A federal judge in Washington ruled recently that the Biden administration must lift Title 42 by midnight Dec. 21, although some Republican-run states have asked courts to block the ruling. Policymakers in Washington, as well as officials at the southern border, have long predicted a surge in migrants when the policy is lifted. They have warned about backlogs and overcrowding in border processing centers, as well as funding shortfalls…

CBP agents and officers are now apprehending migrants 7,500 to 8,000 times a day, the sources familiar with the data said, which is at or close to the record levels before Venezuelans became subject to Title 42. The sources said estimates of the extra number of migrants who might cross daily when Title 42 ends approach 2,500, meaning daily apprehension totals might hit 10,000.

In short, the number of migrants apprehended by the border patrol is about to jump by a third. So what is the Biden plan to deal with it? Since October, the Biden administration has been using Title 42 to turn away Venezuelan migrants. But the result of doing that has been a mixed bag at best:

As of Oct. 24, just days after the policy was enacted, there was an 80% drop in Venezuelans crossing the border. According to new numbers that have not yet been made public, however, the policy did not depress the overall daily total of migrants crossing. New nationalities, including Mexicans and Central Americans, took the place of the Venezuelans…

A DHS spokesperson said the Biden administration’s Venezuela policy has been effective at curbing Venezuelans, even if other nationalities have kept overall border numbers high.

If I can translate the Biden administration argle-bargle into English, they are pleased that they’ve been able to use Title 42 to reduce the number of Venezuelan migrants coming into the country even though that policy they are using is ending in a few weeks with their support. They are literally praising the effectiveness of a policy they oppose. If that makes zero sense to you, well, welcome to the party pal.

In fact it gets worse than that. According to a story published yesterday by the NY Times, even as the Biden administration is welcoming they end of Title 42, it is also actively considering some Trump-like replacements for it:

The Biden administration is considering substantial new limits on the number of migrants who could apply for asylum in the United States, according to people familiar with the proposal, which would expand restrictions similar to those first put in place along the border by former President Donald J. Trump.

The plan is one of several being debated by President Biden’s top aides as the country confronts a high number of illegal crossings at the border. It would prohibit migrants who are fleeing persecution from seeking refuge in the United States unless they were first denied safe harbor by another country, like Mexico.

People familiar with the discussions said the new policy, if adopted, could go into effect as soon as this month, just as the government stops using a public health rule that was put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic by the Trump administration and became a key policy to manage the spike in crossings during Mr. Biden’s tenure…

…the idea of broadly prohibiting migrants from seeking asylum strikes directly at the heart of decades of American and international law that has shaped the United States’ role as a place of safety for displaced and fearful people across the globe.

“For the Biden administration to resurrect that horrific policy would be playing into Stephen Miller’s hands,” said Eleanor Acer, the director for refugee protection at Human Rights First, which issued a report in 2020 about the repercussions of the transit ban. “It’s almost like Stephen Miller is still in the White House trying to block from asylum people seeking protection from persecution.”

The only way to make sense of this mess is to view it through the lens of partisan politics first. The Biden administration has been under immense pressure from the open-borders left to end Title 42. They are eager to comply with those partisan demands. At the same time, the administration knows the border is already in chaos and ending Title 42 will definitely make things worse. So what are they to do? Ideally, what they need is another approach to accomplish the same thing. The most salient point of this new policy is that it not be called Title 42. So long as it’s something else, they’ll be able to spin it as a bold new approach instead of a dumb effort at rebranding to appease the left. This is the same approach that gave us an Inflation Reduction Act that didn’t reduce inflation.

By the way, there’s a denial in today’s story from NBC that any such replacement is under consideration:

Two sources familiar with internal discussions at the Department of Homeland Security and the White House said that while many ideas have been considered to combat what could be an even bigger surge in border traffic, there is no “serious planning” around any idea to limit asylum-seekers from coming into the U.S.

So they have talked about it but they aren’t going to actually do it. Or maybe they decided not to move forward after that NY Times piece was published yesterday. It looks, for now at least, as if the most likely outcome is the end of Title 42 and a big jump in border apprehensions to levels never seen before. If this keeps up, Joe Biden may actually have to go to the border before his term ends.